It’s been a while since I posted anything in this platform - but given how much digital ink I spent on my journalism career, it didn’t feel right not to mark it here.

Back in mid-April 2022, I was hired as a part-time reporter at Growing Community media, which I freelanced for in my Chicago Journal days back in 2012 and then after the whole ( Read more... )

Growing up in the waning days of the Soviet Union and the dawn of the new, chaotic Russian Federation, one saying that I heard bandied about a lot was “кто не работает  тот не ест” - roughly “one who doesn’t work is the one who doesn’t eat.” And last week, it dawned on me just how close to literal that is when you’re a freelancer.
( It is interesting how a cold can put things in perspective )

I did promise to update everyone, didn't I?

For those of you who haven't seen my posts on Facebook and/or Twitter, on Friday, March 30, I got a check for the first two weeks of March. Not the month of February, or the two weeks of March I invoiced for a day before I wrote the last post on the matter. Which was... random, but that did bring the ( Read more... )

Remember how back in January-March of 2017, Niles Bugle paid me months late for my work. And how, by the middle of March, things seem to have sorted out.

Well, things didn't exactly stay that way.

( It wasn't too bad at first. But then, things got worse )

When I originally wrote about getting fired from the Niles Bugle, I mused that, while at least I had Austin Weekly News to fall back on, but only to a point. In order to pay my bills and still have money left over for things like food, to say nothing of other necessities and an occasional movie, I had to get at least four assignments at Austin ( Read more... )

In the sense that my position has been terminated. Along with at least one other staff reporter. And the chain-wide sports editor. And an assistant editor who doubled as the primary reporter for the Plainfield Enterprise, the oldest paper in the Enterprise Newspapers chain. And those are just the firings I know about ( Read more... )

For decades, China has been a major outsourcing destination, in large part because of cheap labor. But as labor conditions in China improved and labor became not quite as cheap, many Western companies are looking at other countries that can provide cheaper labor. Suffice to say, this leaves Chinese industrial towns that depend on manufacturing in ( Read more... )

On September 1, I went to one of my favorite places to work from - Barnes & Noble's Evanston location - only to find something I have been expecting to see for months ( Read more... )

When my mom got me a laptop for Christmas last year, I admit I was a bit dubious ( Read more... )

Since September, I basically earned my money in two places. I got a part-time staff position at the Niles Bugle, which came with a proper salary for the first time in my life (and I got to learn the joys of the whole "federal and state taxes automatically get taken out of your salary" thing). I also became a regular contributor for Austin Weekly ( Read more... )