Media Jobs ‘09: Craigslist Serfdom

The media job market is tough. But there are always stateside freelancing opportunities on Craigslist! Right? Right! Terrible, degrading freelance opportunities. Follow these onerous submission guidelines and you too could one day earn literally dozens of dollars, by writing!

Talented young writers, here are your choices in the media world of 2009: Be laid off; pay $US13,000 for an internship; or become a Craigslist slave for “valuable” “exposure.”

Terrible Ad #1: A mysterious “Mr. Smith” offers you the opportunity to apply for ‘Bleue Blood: The Lifestyle Manual For the Modern Gentleman.” Hopefully as a copy editor, heh. Modern Gentlemen don’t need salaries, but they do need “national exposure,” on the internet. And “it would be good if you have a professional pen name.” So nobody can associate you with this publication.

Terrible Ad #2: The pay scale here is “sliding.” Presumably “$2 (blog posts)-$10 (features)” would be the top of the sliding scale. Something to aspire to! Judging by the site, the writing work’s not too intense, but do they have to know so much about your tastes to decide whether you’re capable of, say, re-posting a video from another blog? It’s not hard, trust us! “Because of the volume of submissions,” do not expect a response to your essay-length application for this pauper-esque job.

Online music magazine looking for writers (indie rock, hip-hop, electr
Reply to: job-rkptg-1216153528@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-06-11, 6:40AM PDT

Prefixmag.com, one of the leading music-focused sites on the Internet, is seeking insightful, knowledgeable and talented writers to contribute in the following ways:

• Provide daily blog posts about music news, culture and technology.
• Review albums and concerts, songs and videos.
• Interview bands for Q&As, feature stories, and profiles and for PrefixTV.
• Write broader argument and analysis stories.

We are looking for people who are self-motivated, have experience in journalism (or have a serious drive to gain it), and have an unmatched knowledge of many types of music, particularly indie rock and hip-hop. Contributors will cultivate sources, take on new and various projects, and influence the evolution of Prefix.

TO APPLY, follow all of our submission guidelines (applicants who do not will not be considered):
• Send writing samples that are representative of your work. If you’re interested in writing reviews, send clips of reviews you’ve written; if you want to blog, send some blog posts you’ve penned; and so forth. (Feel free to pitch ideas, as well.)
• Tell us what music publications and blogs you read regularly and what you like and dislike about them.
• Tell us your five favourite albums released in the past 365 days.
• Tell us what five albums you couldn’t live without.

This is a freelance position. The pay scale is sliding based on various factors, including type of article. Because of the volume of submissions we receive, we cannot respond to each applicant.

* Compensation: $US2 (blog posts)-$10 (features) per article

We’ll make it to that mountaintop yet.