Whether you’re a newsroom veteran, a newcomer or a seasoned freelancer, surviving in journalism now means taking your future into your own hands.

If you’re ready to upgrade your skills and reinvent your career, join us at our inaugural:

Spring Training for Journalists
9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday April 24
SF City College – Ocean Campus
50 Phelan Avenue
San Francisco.

Steve Fainaru

Davia Nelson

A top-notch lineup of speakers and presenters will tackle topics ranging from driving Web traffic to your work to getting started in multimedia, revamping your resume, and overcoming language and culture barriers. The day will open with remarks by Steve Fainaru, the managing editor of The Bay Citizen; our keynote speaker is Davia Nelson, best known for her work as half of NPR’s award-winning documentary duo, the Kitchen Sisters.

You can download a PDF of the full schedule here, and read presenter biographies here.

Best of all: admission is free to all Guild members, including members of Guild Freelancers. San Francisco City College journalism students also get in free; others pay $20 with advance registration, or $25 at the door.

Spring training is sponsored by California Media Workers Guild, the SF City College Journalism Department, and the Bay Area Media Training Consortium.

Send us a note to register. Watch this site for details, or become our fan on Facebook. Here’s a flyer you can download.

By Rebecca Rosen Lum
Freelance Unit Chair

Fred Merkle was a 19-year-old rookie when the (then-New York) Giants played the Cubs on Sept. 23, 1908. Victory appeared certain when a decisive run crossed home plate. But instead of stepping on second base, Merkle made a run for the clubhouse – just as 10,000 fans streamed onto the field.

Where the game ball landed is anyone’s guess. At the Cubs’ behest, the ump declared Merkle out. The game was replayed, and the Cubs triumphed and went on to win the World Series. The National League president who ordered the replay was so excoriated by fans that he committed suicide within the year. Merkle endured heckling for decades afterward, and “Merkle’s Boner” became an indelible part of Giants history.

Dan Fost and his son on research duty.

“One of the fascinating things about baseball is that it is a sport of failure,” said Guild freelancer and die-hard Giants fan Dan Fost, whose “Giants: Past and Present” hit bookstores this month. “If you fail seven times out of 10, you are one of the greats.”

Fost had long nurtured an idea to write a book chronicling the 125-year history of the Giants – heartbreaks, gaffes and glories. When San Francisco magazine published his story commemorating the ball club’s 50th anniversary in the City, it caught the attention of MVP Books, a publishing company with a series of ball club profiles to its credit. They needed it turned around in two months.

No problem: “I had half the work done already,” Fost said. “I had notebooks full of stuff. My whole dining room became a baseball library.”

(more…)

By Rebecca Rosen Lum
Freelance Unit Chair
California Media Workers Guild

It withstood a fusillade of hyperbole by Republicans, a blitz of oppositional advertisements by the insurance industry, and the relentless internal chipping away of Democratic concessions.

But at last, a comprehensive health care reform bill has been signed into law, and many independent journalists are greeting the watershed moment with exuberance, relief and hope.

Passage of the ground-breaking bill caps off a 100-year struggle by labor, health care advocates and consumers.

Not a moment too soon for freelancers, many of whom lost coverage when they lost their newsroom jobs. As COBRA coverage runs out, many have discovered what veteran freelancers knew all along: Individual policies are prohibitively expensive.

“You can’t play nice with these people,” said East Bay freelancer Tim Kingston, reflecting on conservative opposition. “When Obama got that, we got somewhere.”

This bill “reassures workers that their families won’t lose health care if they change jobs or are laid off,” said CWA president Larry Cohen in his response. “It stops the worst abuses of insurance companies, like denying care based on pre-existing conditions, setting lifetime limits for coverage and dropping coverage when people need it most.”

(more…)

author photo by Katy Raddatz

Entwined with the Mexico of maquiladoras, drug wars and immigration coyotes is a Mexico in which artists paint, green energy firms run wind farms, and a national forest thrives.

In her new book, “The Wind Doesn’t Need a Passport: Stories from the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Tyche Hendricks introduces readers to the full spectrum. She writes about a land and culture that is complex, organic, many faceted.

Mexico is as poorly understood as the border that divides it from the United States, said Hendricks, a member of GuildFreelancers.

“We think of the border as this line,” she said. “The reality of the border is that it’s a region. The border forms an axis to the region. A lot of the people (on both sides) have bi-national lives. They shop, go to the dentist, work on one or the other side.”

As a result, “They are more skilled at how we work in the common interest, in mutual interest.”

Each chapter of “The Wind Doesn’t Need a Passport” focuses on a different issue:  The maquiladoras, health care, water and energy (the southwestern grid includes areas on both sides of the border).

The book grew out of the expansive newspaper take-outs Hendricks generated as immigration and demographics reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. If drug wars account for 99 percent of the media coverage of Mexico, her new work suggests, the lives of 99 percent of residents are dominated by other issues.

(more…)

If you’re an independent journalist, writer or media worker in Northern California, we want to hear from you.

GuildFreelancers is surveying area freelancers to learn more about their lives, work and the local marketplace.

The resulting data will help us raise awareness about current issues facing freelancers, and will also help us tailor services to your needs. The 20-question survey is posted online and takes only about 15 minutes to complete.

Ready to take part? Click here.