Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer April 14-20

Once a week, we gather stories about the media business, journalism, writing, publishing, and freelancing—with a Canadian focus—and share them in Off the Wire. Who needs a water cooler?

From Canada:

• Latest round of cuts at CBC represents massive upheaval in newsgathering capacity [CMG]
• CBC says conclusions from Ghomeshi report “troubling and disappointing” [J-Source]
• What CBC employees are saying about the latest layoffs [J-Source]
• Jian Ghomeshi scandal report leads to CBC ‘severing ties’ with ex-head of radio, HR director [Toronto Star]
• Report on Ghomeshi scandal by workplace laywer Janice Rubin [CBC]
• Whoa, Tyee readers pledge more than $75,000 for election journalism [Tyee]
• Map: Toronto resources for emerging media workers [CMG Freelance]
• Recording interviews using a digital voice recorder [Luigi Benetton]
• Global News Kills Koch Brothers Story, Fires Journalist [Canadaland]
• More contract work and internships mean new journalists must learn their rights [J-Source]

From The U.S. and beyond:

• Gawker is making unionizing look easy [Washington Post]
• Why We’ve Decided to Organize [Gawker]
• How to Handle 5 Sticky Situations With Sources [The Freelancer]
• How a Freelance Journalist Used Content Marketing to Double Her Income [The Write Life]
• 6 Months Into Freelancing, 6 Lessons Learned (the hard way) [The Life of M]
• 5 Books About Writing Every Freelancer Should Read [The Freelancer]
• 5 things you need to work from home (without going bananas) [Freelancers Union]
• Freelancers are *still* trying to get paid by HudsonMOD publisher [Romenesko]

Last week on Story Board:

• Media Works launch party April 29th: A media/labour project that has been in the works for several months is now ready to go, and there’s going to be a party to celebrate…
• Unpaid internships — A moral dilemma for journalism students and the media community: Journalism students across Ontario are struggling with the moral dilemma of participating in unpaid internships while trying to build experience for their portfolios…

Spot a story you think we should include in next week’s Off the Wire? Email the link to editor@thestoryboard.ca or tweet us at @storyboard_ca.