I'm starting to wish I hadn't written anything about Apartment Living because it's become something of a headache. I'm going to clarify the situation for anybody interested.

I worked as a freelance writer for Apartment Living and Education Living for several years. Between October 2008 and April 2009 I wrote eight articles for the magazines. I sent an invoice for seven of these articles (I didn't realise there were actually eight stories) and was eventually paid for six of them in June this year.

A seventh article was published in April 2009 and I had not been paid for it. At the time I was living outside of Thailand and I didn't realise it had been published. I assumed I would be paid once the article was used and that it was not included in the July payment because it was still pending. When I found out the article had been used, I asked for payment. This is the payment I haven't received and was trying to get.

To confuse the issue, I was looking through the list of stories used in the issues between the aforementioned dates and I saw that there was another article in the April issue that I hadn't been paid for and had actually forgotten I had written.

I was paid for the other six articles, but there are two I have not been paid for and it was my experience trying to get payment for the first of the two that I took issue to because I was told I wouldn't be paid for it.

That's as black and white as I can make it.

A little while ago I wrote a post about my dealings with "that" magazine in Bangkok. Interestingly, a couple of other people came forward and shared their experiences with the magazine and there seemed to be a trend. I therefore can’t help but think that there are countless other magazines out there, past and present, that, let's say, don't have the most efficient system for dealing with freelancers.

This really bugs me and it’s why I’ve learnt to pick and chose who I write for. Thailand is full of magazines, with new ones seemingly starting every day. Many of them aren’t run by career media professionals. Some are started up as hobbies while others, it appears, are mere social tools that make for fabulous launch and anniversary shindigs, darling.

If you are planning to work as a freelance writer in Thailand, beware. Only write for publications you are certain will pay you, and don’t mix friendship and business.

I remember being taken in by the chap who ran Hype magazine in Bangkok. I wrote pretty much all the content for several issues and was told my money was “on the way”. It never was, of course, and the magazine ceased publishing soon after. After a while you get sick of the fobbing off and the excuses.

The same thing happened to me with One-Two-Go magazine, the in-flight rag of the airline. The magazine was previously edited by my buddy Alasdair Forbes as part of Image Asia publishing, but after being sold to another company, it all went a little downhill.

It would have been better if the new editor in chief had just been straight with me from the start instead of promising me that I would be paid. Needless to say, I wasn’t paid.

I’m a writer. If I’m hired to write something then I expect to be paid. I couldn’t care less about what financial troubles a magazine is having. The people running that magazine know exactly what kind of situation their publication is in. Right from the beginning, they know full well if there is a chance they won’t be able to pay their freelancers.

This is the trouble, because freelancers are given little consideration by some of the shadier publishers out there. Of course, I never get this trouble writing for any of the wires or the more professional publications I work for, but I wasn’t always in this position.

This is why I like the idea of their being a group of publishers in Thailand who get together and agree to adhere to a set of standards. If a publication is below par then that publisher would not be part of the group, and therefore the many freelancers in Thailand have at least a vague idea of who they can trust.

The Bangkok Post recently told the management at Thai Visa, a massive Thailand-based expat forum, that Post articles cannot be republished on the forum unless as RSS feeds, or something along those lines.

Barry Main, marketing director of ThaiVisa.com, said, “We have a very different vision than the Bangkok Post about the future of community networking.”

Indeed. Thai Visa is heavily moderated, discussion is often capped and there is a long list of things people cannot talk about, such as anything negative about Thai Visa, its sponsors or the excessive moderation policies.

Perhaps the future of community networking was seen in Thai Visa’s dealing with Phuket Wan. The Phuket Gazette is a sponsor of Thai Visa and, to cut a long story short, Phuket Wan is not allowed to be mentioned or linked to anywhere on Thai Visa.

There are a few reasons for this, most of which I don’t want to get into here, but suffice to say, I think it’s cheap for Thai Visa to take a swipe at the Bangkok Post by saying, “Bangkok Post's web traffic is in sharp decline according to Google Trends.”

Google Trends?

“Our goal is to serve our members with a mixed and balanced news feed.”

Yes, that complies with your sponsors. Will Thai Visa go through its archives and remove all links to the Bangkok Post?

So, is this a wise move by the Bangkok Post?

Think of it this way: Thai Visa makes money from Bangkok Post content — a lot of money. Bangkok Post owns that content. It puts its own funds into creating it. It’s irrelevant if Thai Visa sends traffic to the Post website. That’s not the issue at all.

I’m not saying I agree with Bangkok Post doing this, but I’m saying it’s within their rights. I’m sure a lot of people only read Bangkok Post articles on the Thai Visa website without ever going to the Post’s website or even buying a copy of the newspaper.

The issue is actually unclear. Evidently the Post doesn’t want entire articles being republished, as Phuket Wan didn’t. But what about links? Excepts? What exactly has the Post said? Thai Visa’s statement doesn’t clarify this. It’s more concerned with burying the Bangkok Post. After all, The Nation, the Bangkok Post’s biggest rival, is a sponsor of Thai Visa.

Surely a compromise could have been reached before it got this petty. After all, the “future of community networking” is at stake.

Addendum: There's Thai Visa slating the Bangkok Post for being part of what we now know as the Online News Producers Club, a group of media outlets aiming to protect their online news content, and yet The Nation, one of Thai Visa's primary sponsors, is also a member.

So why did Thai Visa not think to mention The Nation was also part of this group? What a sly, underhanded move by Thai Visa. This comes from The Nation, a sponsor of Thai Visa:

With news groups still struggling to find a workable online business model, the situation has been hampered by the proliferation of pirated content on commercial websites, a big stumbling block to any plan to charge readers for online news.

Clearly this is something Thai Visa doesn't understand, and even if it does, the virtues Barry Main is flaunting are nothing more than empty words. There are sponsors to keep happy. It comes down to money. Bangkok Post loses money by people reproducing its content.

Thai Visa cannot claim to be anything different. It's a business.Thai Visa is simply acting to bash the Bangkok Post. Poor show.

from Matt Crook
to xxxxx@
date 17 August 2009 15:28
mailed-by gmail.com hide details 17 Aug (4 days ago)
Reply
Follow up message

Hi,

I won't be bothering you again. This will be the final time I email about this. As you are aware, you used an article of mine without paying for it. I've requested payment multiple times and still received nothing. I appreciate that you paid me for the six other articles I was owed for (albeit more than six months late in some cases), but I invoiced you for seven articles. If you had not published the seventh article then there would not be so much of an issue, but after using my work and not paying for it, I need to take action.

As you are also aware, my name appears in your magazine and I have the emails to prove I was asked by your company to do the work, so your argument that nobody could prove I worked for your publication is flawed. I understand if your company is having financial difficulties, but as you already told me, x,xxx baht is nothing to you, so I trust you will be good for the payment.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Matt Crook

At what point are you supposed to stop being reasonable and make a stand against publishers who fail to pay journalists for commissioned work? This happens too often in Thailand. Every time I speak with journalists working for Thailand-based publications I hear stories about people not being paid, especially in Phuket.

Some publishers are just inexcusably slow at paying their freelancers, but you know that eventually the money will come. Others, on the other hand, will lie through their teeth to avoid paying commissions.

Part of the problem is that the English-language media in Thailand is struggling. It’s been like this for a while. Magazines come and go on an almost weekly basis it seems. Part of the problem I’ve had is with magazines ceasing publication.

It happened to me with Hype magazine. I wrote content for them and then the magazine closed down. I’d been promised payment multiple times and then one day I found out the money had apparently been spent on petty cash.

That was a little while ago. Right now, I’m chasing 7,500 baht from the former editor of a magazine that ceased publication less than a year ago. I have emails promising me the money was coming and that requests had been made to the accountant and so on.

The editor sent me an email saying that there was no doubt in his mind that I should be paid for the work I had done. Now the editor won’t return my emails. To rub salt into the wounds, there were reports in January about this man’s exciting new business venture, which is related to property.

What am I supposed to do in this situation? Should I name and shame the individual or would that show a lack of professionalism on my part? I’d be happier to just take it on the chin if I hadn’t been lied to. If someone can afford to start a new business venture then you’d think he could pay me the 7,500 I’m owed.

But this is only the tip of something. There are a number of other websites and magazines in Thailand that put freelancers in the same position. There has been talk of publishing an article about these individuals. I doubt that I’d publish such an article myself because I really don’t see any benefit in making enemies of people in the same line of work as me.

As a freelance journalist, I live off of commissions and when people don’t pay me it really screws me over. This is the main reason why I’m glad I don’t have to work for Thailand-based media outlets any more. The people I work for now chase me up if I haven’t been paid.

I’m sure other people have had similar experiences. Feel free to share them, but let’s keep names and companies out the discussion for the time being. I can only speak based on my experiences at this stage.