How COVID-19 was bad for freelancing. Really, really bad - The Neal Ungerleider Newsletter

...And Chuck E. Cheese as hedge fund metaphor

Greetings from the Great Lakes, where Chicago in June has some serious cloud action.

Let’s talk about freelancing for a living, and specifically being a freelance journalist.

Making a full-time living through freelance journalism has always been hard, but we’re just starting to see anecdotal evidence on just how badly COVID-19 devestated freelance journalism.

It’s bad. Through my personal network, I’d estimate 75% of the freelance journalists I know have lost their main clients.

And when Molly McCluskey over at Poynter went looking for actual numbers on just how many freelancers were either out of work altogether or unable to eke together a living after shelter-in-place orders started… well, she couldn’t find them.

The closest thing to authoritative numbers are two surveys conducted by the Freelancers Union of their members; 80% of respondents who identified as journalists had lost work by the end of April and 51% of journalists who responded to the survey reported having lost more than $…