The Life of a Contractor Spelled Out 140 Characters at a Time

MediaBistro is a good resource for tracking the publishing industry. The site — really a collection of blogs — covers the general happenings of the print and online world. Both designers and writers may find it of interest. Today, the staff wrote about one freelance writers tweets about losing his job.

@DanielsBaum's contract at the New Yorker was terminated in 2007. Now, almost two years later, he's Tweeting about the experience.

@DanielsBaum, or Dan Baum, was a staff writer for the New Yorker from 2003 until 2007 (the final year he wrote a daily column about New Orleans, not for the print edition).

Here's his Twitter feed thus far (too many to take a screengrab, so just read backwards):

# Loved it. More later.
# It gets away with it, because writing for the New Yorker is the ne plus ultra of journalism gigs. Like everybody, I
# Just the way the New Yorker chooses to behave. It shows no loyalty to its writers, yet expects full fealty in return.
# Year. Every September, I was up for review. Turns out, all New Yorker writers work this way, even the bigfeet. It's
# My gig was a straight dollars-for-words arrangement: 30,000 words a year for $90,000. And the contract was year-to-
# But rather a contractor. So there's no health insurance, no 401K, and most of all, no guarantee of a job beyond one year.
# First, a little about the job of New Yorker staff writer. "Staff writer" is a bit of a misnomer, as you're not an employee,
# Character chunks.
# Nobody leaves a New Yorker job voluntarily. I was fired. And over the next few days, I'll tell that story here, in 140
# People often ask why I left the New Yorker. After all, I had a staff writer job. Isn't that the best job in journalism? Yes.

This isnt' a 100% new story: Gawker talked to Baum back in 2007 when he first learned his contract wouldn't be renewed.
"[David] Remnick [, editor of the New Yorker] was not happy with my work," he told Gawker. "But I would like to go back there."

"It's the best gig in journalism," he said. "I miss it. I really liked it."