“It's Like Having a Second Full-Time Job”

Abstract

As jobs in legacy media organizations become increasingly scarce, crowdfunding has gained some momentum as a way for journalists to raise money to start their own media ventures or bolster freelance budgets. While crowdfunding is often positioned as empowering for both the journalists and donors, what is often overlooked is the amount and type of labour involved in crowdfunding. This article examines labour in crowdfunding from three vantage points: the labour involved in the campaign itself, the labour of the donors and the type of labour crowdfunding enables. This paper argues that the amount of work is akin to having a second full-time job. Moreover, having to embrace entrepreneurial techniques and market their work is something many journalists are uncomfortable with. Further, this paper examines how donors are implicated in the labour of journalism, and how journalists are hoping to “commodify” the audience. Finally, this paper addresses how crowdfunding does afford journalists agency, enabling them to work outside of legacy news structures, which many journalists find liberating.