US blogger and freelance writer Tina Dupuy has seen some success, after posting a video complaining that the Tampa Tribune in Florida had failed to pay her $75. She claimed she submitted a piece to the newspaper, which was then published without replying to her first to negotiate a payment. She said she sent them an invoice and didn’t hear back.
But following the video, the newspaper has now put her cheque in the post, she said in a new video this week.
Jim Beamguard, editorial writer at the Tampa Tribune, said Dupuy’s pay was her private business (although she was free to discuss it), and told Journalism.co.uk in an email:
“We receive hundreds of emailed items a day from people hoping to get published. Many are letters to the editor, but many more are from bloggers, professors, politicians, PR firms, special interests, and ordinary folks just wanting to be heard. Most of it goes out to every email address these writers can find. A lot of this material can be read free somewhere on the internet. Tina’s column arrived in the mix without mention of a fee. We didn’t just lift it from her blog. We only found out after it was published that she had been trying to sell it.”
And there is more good news for Dupuy: the strategy seems to have helped secure some other payments. She wrote to the LA Daily News chasing a cheque. She got this reply:
I am holding onto your check in the hopes we’d get you to do a YouTube video about not getting paid by us. We could use the plug.
Just kidding!!!
Mariel Garza
Editor, LA Daily News
