Who needs writers anyway? We all do

Writer Barbara Ehrenreich speaks up for freelance writers in her column that was published on the Globe and Mail op-ed page today*.

Ehrenreich points out that word rates for even top writers have been frozen for years and that the current screenwriter's strike may call attention to the plight of writers in general.

Since I started in the freelancing business about 30 years ago, the per-word payment for print articles has remained exactly the same in actual, non-inflation-adjusted, dollars. Three dollars a word was pretty much top of the line, and it hasn’t gone up by a penny. More commonly in the old days, I made a dollar a word, requiring me to write three or four 1000-word pieces a month to supply the children with their bagels and pizza.

She says some people may be thinking, who needs writers anyway?

The truth is, no one needs any particular writer, just as no one needs any particular auto worker, stage-hand, or janitor. But take us all away and TV’s funny men will be struck mute, soap opera actors will be reduced to sighing and grunting, CNN anchors will have to fill the whole hour with chit chat about the weather, all greeting cards will be blank. Newspapers will consist of advertisements and movie listings; the Web will collapse into YouTube. A sad, bewildered, silence will come over the land.

[*Memo to Globe: what is the point of putting up a pay wall in front of both your print and online versions of this column when, with a few keystrokes, I can go to Ehrenreich's own blog and get the whole thing for free? There is a reason why pay walls are falling all over the place, like at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Maybe this restriction is only for dimwitted people who don't know how to Google.]