Ottawa Citizen (and Canwest) screws its freelancers

Graham Green, Executive Editor of the Ottawa Citizen showed up at a meeting of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) on the weekend to tell the assembled masses that the Citizen and its parent, Canwest, were pleased to screw freelance journalists.

This blog, on Jan 21,2008, broke the story that Canwest and the Citizen were imposing new contracts on freelance writers. The contracts (take 'em or leave 'em) stated that if you write an article for Canwest, then Canwest owns the article and can do whatever they want, in any media form. They can also make any changes they want to your work. You get paid once, regardless of the number of times your work is placed.

To make this even worse, Canwest has announced that they are going into the newswire business, which means that they can sell your work to anyone, in any form, anywhere in the world, without ever paying an additional cent to the journalist.

The final insult, I hate to use the term... but it is accurate, is that if I write an article and want to use it, even in an altered form, in a book I am writing; I need permission from Canwest; and maybe I will need to pay to fee to them also - buy back my own work.

The death of newspapers must be nigh.