2022 Travers Fellowship open for applications
Applications are now open for the 2022 Travers Fellowship, an international reporting bursary that helps finance foreign reporting projects by Canadian journalists working in any medium.
Freelancers, students enrolled in a graduate level journalism or equivalent program, and full-time journalists are welcome to apply for the fellowship, which provides a $25,000 award to cover travel, reporting and research expenses, and a stipend. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, applicants are advised to keep in mind that travel may be difficult, and should frame their applications accordingly.
The fellowship is named after Jim Travers, a reporter, foreign correspondent, and former editor of The Ottawa Citizen who spent six years reporting from Africa and the Middle East. When Travers died in 2011, his friends and colleagues created the fellowship to commemorate his contribution to Canadian journalism. The award is administered by Carleton University.
The application deadline is Monday March 7, 2022 at 12 p.m. (noon) ET. More information and application instructions are available on the Travers Fellowship website.
Webinar: Managing Your Social Media Expectations
You’ve probably been told or felt some pressure as a freelancer to create and maintain a social media presence to help you find work and promote the work you have. Are you getting the most out of your time spent on these platforms?
In this hour-long session, we’ll look at the different social networks and which ones may be important for you to participate in, we’ll talk about some best practices for those platforms, and then have an extensive Q&A to help answer all your social media questions!
Our Presenter:
Rebecca Coleman teaches Social Media Marketing at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), and is a Social MediaStrategist. She is also a blogger and the published author of two cookbooks, and regularly contributes to the GoDaddy Marketing Blog.
Online: Thursday, January 6th
6pm to 7pm Eastern Time
$5 for members
$15 for non-members
This session is structured with lots of room for questions, and your chances of getting them answered are increased if you send them to CFG Organizer Don Genova in advance.
You can register for this webinar right here.
And you can find more information about the cost and benefits of membership in the CFG on this webpage.
The link to the Zoom webinar will be sent to you via email about half an hour before the start time.
Please check your spam or junk folders if you can’t find the email, and contact organizer@canadianfreelanceguild.ca if you haven’t received the link 10 minutes before the scheduled start time
Freelance tax time webinar now available for streaming
Not too many freelancers are thinking about taxes in December, but it’s actually the perfect time to start putting your financial matters in order for 2022 and your 2021 tax return.
CFG Organizer Don Genova and Shannon Lee Simmons from the New School of Finance covered a lot of ground in a recent webinar about freelance taxes, everything from what kind of year-end expenditures you should plan on making, how to check estimates on taxes owing to ensure you’re on track, and how RRSP season can fit into your plans.
And we threw in some questions about foreign income and how to deal with collecting and paying H/GST when necessary.
CFG members should log into the Webinars page on the CFG Website to get the code to reduce the fee to $5.
Non-members are welcome to access the recording for $10 and can go directly to the CFG pay-per-view website.
CFG Holiday Mixer happens this week!
CFG members, you’re invited to join the Board of Directors for our First Annual Holiday Mixer. We’ll look back on another strange year and look ahead to a ‘new normal’, if there will ever be such a thing.
To help stimulate the conversation CFG member and communications strategist Robyn Roste will lead us through some suggestions on how to survey your freelance business over 2021 and shape your decisions to come for 2022.
Friday, December 17th
4pm Eastern Time (chat room opens at around 3:30)
On ‘The Zoom’
To register, check your email inbox for the invitation that went out on December 2. Or you can click this link to find the registration page.
These casual sessions are always your chance to tell us what you’d like to see on the menu in the coming weeks and months.
NOTE: Your link to the session will be e-mailed to you around half an hour before the start time on Friday. Check your junk or spam mail folders if it’s not in your inbox! And please don’t register at the last minute. You will have missed the outgoing link email.
Rory Peck Trust launches free trauma and resilience workshops for freelance journalists
The Rory Peck Trust, a U.K.-based organization that provides support to freelance journalists, has launched a new program that offers free workshops on dealing with trauma and building resilience.
The workshops are aimed at freelancers who work in hostile environments or regularly cover difficult and potentially traumatic events. The organization is offering the workshops in a variety of languages over the next year. Registration is now open for workshops on January 11th and 13th, 2022 that will be held in English. They will be two hours long, and will be led by specialized journalist trainers.
Freelance journalists from all over the world whose sole source of income is in media, and who have been working as freelancers for at least the last 12 months, are eligible to apply. The deadline for applications is December 12.
The Rory Peck Trust is also launching a trauma therapy fund for freelance journalists that need support to cover the cost of therapy. The fund opens for applications on January 17, 2022.
You can find out more about both programs on the Rory Peck Trust website.
45th annual National Magazine Awards open for submissions
If you freelance for magazines as a writer, photographer or illustrator you’re eligible to submit your work for the 2022 National Magazine Awards, which opened for entries this week.
This year there are 17 writing and visual award categories, which include feature writing, investigative reporting, fiction, photography and more. The gold medal winner in each category receives a $1000 cash prize.
Entries are also now open for the National Media Awards Foundation’s Digital Publishing Awards, which include several online writing categories as well as video and podcasting awards.
If your publisher isn’t planning to submit your work, you can submit it yourself. The awards foundation offers freelancers a discount on entry fees with the Freelancer Support Fund, which allows freelancers to submit two entries for the price of one.
The call for entries for the National Magazine Awards is open until January 21, 2022. The Digital Publishing Awards close on January 28, 2022.
For more information about the categories, rules, and submissions process, check out the National Magazine Awards Foundation’s website.
The Born Freelancer Tackles an Age-old Prejudice
This series of posts by the Born Freelancer shares personal experiences and thoughts on issues relevant to freelancers. Have something to add to the conversation? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Ageism.
It’s probably the last great prejudice allowed to promulgate without challenge.
Indeed, if attempts are ever made to reproach its proponents, the response is usually full of derision and scorn. “Can’t you take a joke”?
Worse than that, it is frequently hidden or downplayed. How can you fight a prejudice that isn’t even openly acknowledged?
I was always taught to believe that traditional media typically reflects attitudes already prevalent amongst the general population. Therefore it is perhaps not surprising that too much contemporary media is an unashamed participant in, and promoter of, ageist values.
After all, it’s what we learn from the beginning.
It starts when you’re a newbie trying to break into media. You’re too young, the gatekeepers say, meaning too inexperienced. This is perhaps the most benign form of ageism you will ever encounter in your career.
You quickly grow out of it.
It’s not so benign at the other end of the age spectrum
Webinar: Tax Time in November
***UPDATED NOV. 22/2021***
Today’s webinar has been postponed due to presenter illness and has been rescheduled for next Tuesday at 12:30pm ET. We apologize for any inconvenience.
If you are unable to make the new date/time please email Don Genova at organizer@canadianfreelanceguild.ca to cancel your registration and/or request a refund. Current registrants will automatically be re-registered for next Tuesday.
A reminder that if you stay registered but can’t make the webinar live, a recording will be distributed to registrants as soon as post-production is complete.
Not too many freelancers are thinking about taxes in November, but it’s actually the perfect time to start putting your financial matters in order for 2022 and your 2021 tax return.
Join our favourite Tax Tips Tutor, Shannon Lee Simmons, founder of the New School of Finance, for a lively Q+A session moderated by CFG Organizer Don Genova.
Online – Tuesday, November 30
12:30pm to 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time
$5 for members
$15 for non-members
Shannon will discuss what kind of year-end expenditures you should plan on making, how to check estimates on taxes owing to ensure you’re on track, and how RRSP season can fit into your plans.
This session is structured with lots of room for questions, and your chances of getting them answered are increased if you send them to CFG Organizer Don Genova in advance.
Please feel free to share this invitation with non-member friends and colleagues.
The link to the Zoom webinar will be sent to you via email about half an hour before the start time. Please check your spam or junk folders if you can’t find the email, and contact organizer@canadianfreelanceguild.ca if you haven’t received the link 10 minutes before the scheduled start time.
‘Taking Care’ survey urgently seeks input from media workers on trauma, mental health
Dave Seglins, a long-time CBC journalist, is now leading training and research into well-being in the news industry.
For CWA Canada
Racing to the frontlines to report the news of the world’s great triumphs, tragedies and scandals is what makes journalism so thrilling — from conflict zones, to the house fire down the street.
But the job can also come at a personal cost to the well-being and mental health of media workers: our videographers, reporters, editors and staff who day in and day out endure a steady diet of other people’s trauma, amidst endless deadlines, filing pressures, shift work … not to mention job instability.
I know. After 25 years I carry vivid memories and scars from the stresses and stories I’ve covered detailing murder, sexual violence, crimes against children, and endless tales of victims’ suffering.
I am very proud to announce the launch today of an industry-wide initiative called “Taking Care: A Survey on Mental Health, Well-being and Trauma in Canadian Journalism.”
Please, take this rare opportunity to be counted. Add your voice. Share your experience. The survey will collect responses through the month of November.
Read the rest of this post »
CWA Canada, human rights group help journalist escape Afghanistan
By Roberta Staley
For CWA Canada
Raihan Tamanna (Supplied photo)
Shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 23, while heading for the Nangarhar Highway in a hired car, Raihan Tamanna glanced back for the last time at the fading lights of Kabul.
The road was empty and the weather good, but numerous Taliban checkpoints lay ahead. Every stop along the 230-kilometre stretch to Torkham International Border Crossing meant potential arrest, as Tamanna’s driver wasn’t a relative, or “Muhrram” — a serious breach of sharia law.
The vehicle was flagged down several times, but Tamanna’s driver spoke Pashto, the language of the Taliban, and they were waved on toward Pakistan.
“Me and my children acted like we were asleep so that the Taliban maybe wouldn’t ask any questions of us,” Tamanna said. “Fortunately, they did not ask about Muhrram.”
Tamanna’s survival depended upon anonymity. A former journalist for Ariana Television Network and Rasad News Agency, Tamanna had recently written analysis and reports about Taliban atrocities for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
“I have always discussed the behaviour of the Taliban in a terrorist context, because they planned to kill tens of thousands of civilians during suicide attacks and bombings,” said Tamanna, 32, a widow.
Read the rest of this post »
