This morning’s Boston Herald’s Inside Track had the sad story about an unpaid writing gig.
“The treatment I received from the Boston Globe and its Web site boston.com was outrageous,” Godes said. “(They) expected me to write a daily relationships blog/online advice column for one full year without any expectation on my part of any compensation whatsoever.”
Well, that seems rather cheesy, doesn’t it????
Here’s the story: When he was 12 years old, Godes pitched an idea to the then-Herald American to write an advice column for young people. The paper went for it, and “Dear Bobby Simpson” was born. (Godes chose the nom de plume for his favorite member of “The Brady Bunch” and former football hero O.J. Simpson.)
Godes/Simpson achieved a respectable level of fame during the early ’80s, doing the talk-show circuit and publishing a book of his columns. He kept at it until 1990 when he quit the job to go to college full time.
After eight weeks of hard work – and no money – Godes was feeling put-upon. So he sent a detailed memo to Agrella outlining his efforts on boston.com’s behalf and asked for a rather paltry $50 to $75 a week in return.
“It is truly way too much on the part of Boston.com to expect me to continue to put in all of the hard work that I’ve been doing thus far, week in and week out . . . without any compensation whatsover in return,” he wrote. “Such an arrangement, by any reasonable person’s definition, is simply unfair.”
Boston.com dropped the column, citing ‘it wasn’t particularly well received.”
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