English: Freelance artist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Pitch Me Aims to Streamline Freelance Journalism
A great place for freelance journalist to give previews of their ideas to editors to read over is Pitchme.org.
There is a new listings site for freelancers that was started by journalist Kabir Chibber who feels some of the industry is "stuck in the 19th century." This site goes from pitch to payment.
Chibber hopes to create a space where journalists can pitch their best ideas. Editors can log in and read them and commission these journalists to write for them.
There are several types of journalists who are the target market for Pitchme.org. Some are simply freelancers looking to pick up a little more work, others are young writers just getting a start who need that valuable experience, and finally, there are those people who have a great job but who are interested in doing other things as well. You might do sports writing but take a vacation and write about it on this site. It gives you the chance to expand your portfolio.
Chibber feels the whole process by which freelance journalists are presently hired is entirely outdated. Basically, it is so drawn out as to be ridiculous.
Chibbers hopes with Pitchme.org to streamline this process. Writers can upload their ideas and editors can go on there and browse their work. Both will work on the articles together with Pitch Me acting a go-between for the two parties.
Pitch Me will work to shorten the time that it takes for writers to get paid so that they also have a predictable timeline before they see their money.
At this time, Pitch Me is strictly an invitation-only site emphasizing quality instead of quantity. The planned time of start up is within the next four months.
They hope to cater to New York and London and build up those communities. Those writers will have an opportunity to connect to the rest of the world. Chibber says that the world has changed so freelancers are in much more demand so why not make this an easy process for both writer and editor.