Oh Mumsnet you bunch of racketeers, you have upset Nick Cohen in the Spectator

I've been interviewed in relation to books I wrote - should I have demanded payment for speaking?

I maintain that a webchat is 'speaking'.

As a journalist I am angry about the increasing pressure on us to work for nothing or beans - and that movement is being entirely driven by online outlets.

I tell all journalists I know that if their talent is being sought then they must ask for a fee and if none is forthcoming then they should decline.

It doesn't matter that he wasn't being asked to write. He was being asked to contribute and that merits a contributor's fee.

Journalists who review the newspapers on BBC, Sky etc aren't writing articles. They still get paid though.

I totally agree with him on the Huffington Post issue as well.

There's nothing on your Guardian link about payment to interviewees, ACrow

It isn't normal to pay for interviews. It's so abnormal that presenters often highlight an interviewee's demand for payment.

You might get your train fare paid.

Yep - the going rate at the Guardian is about seventy quid (as per the link above) and as a comparator BBC R4 Today programme pays about £90 to an interviewee. As I've already said in pretty much any other professional outfit this wouldn't even be an issue.

You can dress it up however you wish but at the end of day you're asking someone (and yes - in this instance they are a professional writer though the concept applies regardless) to use the written word to express an opinion with the intention of using that opinion to drive traffic to the website.

Instead we have the frankly embarrassing site of watching Justine Roberts, head of one of the largest websites in the country attempting to weasel out of this on twitter on the basis of semantics. And for what? £100?

He didn't approach you, he isn't trying to flog a book or a film, this isn't some fluff PR piece. If there's no value in this - why ask him in the first place over some random off the street?

I'll ask the question again as you seem so unwilling to answer it; do you expect to be paid for the work you do?

And finally:

doing a webchat isn't "creating content"

You honestly believe this?

He's absolutely right to complain about writers being expected to write for free! And absolutely wrong to say that's what Mumsnet asked of him.

I agree with garlicbaubles

Typical empty rubbish from Cohen. So, he's fine to write for Standpoint, The Guardian etc and affiliate himself with organisations such as Just Journalism - all of which ran or currently run unpaid internship schemes. Now, when something actually effects him, he decides to boycott a site. So he'll be boycotting the aforementioned sites 'until they treat staff fairly' too will he?

It also speaks volumes about how committed Cohen is to these causes he writes about. He'll talk about the problems of gender segregation, but only if there is a fee involved. Otherwise, he can't be bothered. What a hero.

ACrowRoad, Justine and Carrie are frequently asked by the BBC and other outlets to offer commentary, via interview, on topical issues. They have very clearly stated that they are not paid for those contributions and nor do they expect to be.

It boils down to this: You approached a professional writer to offer commentary on a topical issue and expected him to do so for free.

Regardless if you call it a "web chat" or an "interview", you asked him to create content for you in order to generate traffic for your website.

I'll ask again - do you expect to be paid for the work you do?

ACrow, I think you're guilty of the same conflation.

The conversation, summarised:
MN: Hello, Nick Cohen, would you like to talk to our members about An Issue?
NC: Not really, but I can write you a column if you like.
MN: Cheers, but that's not really our thing.
NC: OK. Bye.

If a pundit really wanted to talk to us for some reason, they could start a thread in Chat. Most seem to prefer being protected by MNHQ through the webchat format, and appreciate the puffery thus provided. This chap just misunderstood (wilfully or not) what was being suggested.

It was a good reply, Justine.

He's absolutely right to complain about writers being expected to write for free! And absolutely wrong to say that's what Mumsnet asked of him. The poor sausage seems not to have understood that a webchat is an interview conducted via the keyboard. Typing the words doesn't make it a writing job, unless we're all professionals here!

Bless him

He is absolutely spot on. He's a professional writer - he makes his living by offering commentary on topical issues.

Mumsnet skirting around the issue by trying to redefine this as a "web chat" is disingenuous in the extreme.

Let's be clear here - he's not plugging a book or some other event. He was asked to offer commentary on a topic in the news. Mumsnet stands to benefit here by using the profile of Nick Cohen to drive traffic to the website.

If this was the Guardian (who do pay interviewees and commentators by the way - www.theguardian.com/info/guardian-news-media-freelance-charter) or the BBC or just about any other professional outfit he would be paid. Mumsnet is at best being cheap and at worst contributing to the decline of journalism as an industry.

Here's a question to Justine, Rowan, etc. Do you expect to be paid for the work you do?

Yes to the last point Golddigger.

x post. Havent got time to read that either right now. So dont know if my point is still relevant.
Will read it all properly later.

Havent got time to read all the article in depth.

But he has got a point about journalism turning or potentially turning into only the preserve of the rich.

But they approached him so I think he has a point. If he had approached mumsnet with something to sell it would have been different, I think.

It's just like HQ charge for people to survey their population. MN spends quite a bit of money on servers, hosting, etc etc etc. Why should someone get to use their membership for free?

MNHQ have always been upfront (on here at least) about charging for webcast. Generally everyone who comes on has something to promote and MNHQ take the view, quite accurately I think, that the guest has more to gain from the web chat than MNHQ does.

It's possible, I suppose, that twenty thousand new visitors who'd never visited MN before would have signed up to read what Nick Cohen had to say. But it's not precisely likely.

His general point ("don't ask me to work for nothing") which is fair enough has been lost in a relatively irrelevant rant about MN in particular.

It's very obvious to those of us who have ever taken part in one what excellent exposure a webchat can be.