… And Other Sites Like It.
This question came up today due to a simple Tweet we sent out asking if anyone would like to write for Silent Radio, which we do from time to time. The way we see it is the more writers we have, the more music will get written about. Simple you might think, but apparently not.
After our Tweet went out one of our contributors (once the gigs editor at SR) also Tweeted that we would like some more writers and this seemed to rile someone.
Here’s a bit of background about SR: In 2006-ish I sent a text into a BBC radio station after the presenter apologised on air for not being up to date on all the new music he’d been sent. I offered (quite flippantly) to help out. My text was read out on air and I thought that was that. Later that evening I received a text back from the presenter asking if I’d like to give it a go. In the first few emails I explained I had never done anything within the music world apart from a bit of DJing and band promotion, but that was in the late 80s. Since then I would only ever say I’ve been an avid consumer of music.
A couple weeks later I’m in London to meet said presenter, we go for something to eat, have a chat and then I get to sit in on his radio show. Afterwards I come back to Salford with a sack full of CDs to listen to and pick out my favourite tracks. A job I had never done before, but did my best, and you know what I bloody loved every minute/hour of the task. Loads of new bands hoping to get their music played on the radio. Two weeks later I met up with the presenter again and hand over my 10 favourites. Later that morning I got a message from him saying I’d picked some great music, and that night he plays 3 of them on his show. All of them were new bands and I’d sifted through hundreds of CDs and found them. To say I was chuffed is an understatement, and then when I thought about how these bands must have reacted to get their music on a really prominent radio show, it made it even better. From then on I would help out regularly with finding new music.
As all these bands were pretty new I noticed that a lot of them were gigging in Manchester, but not getting any reviews. This irked me, especially as a lot of them deserved to be heard. I approached the Manchester Evening News to tell them I knew of all these new bands that were playing in Manchester but weren’t getting reviewed and suggested I give it a go. I got some tips from a work colleague who wrote for the same publication, sent in my test review and it was good enough for me to then go on and review more gigs for them. Again I was more than chuffed that I was getting to see these new acts play live in the small venues and give them some much deserved/needed publicity.
A little later down the line the Manchester Evening News was being sold off so for some businessy reason they sacked off all the writers like myself who weren’t proper employees. By this time I enjoyed writing. Still in touch with the guy from the BBC he persuaded me I should continue reviewing and start my own blog. His persuasion worked and a handful of the other writers wanted to write/edit for the blog too. It didn’t take us long to realise that there was too much new music being released and gigs happening for the few of us to cover alone. Other people came along and joined in too. More and more came along and I decided to beg borrow and steal to fund the blog to become the website you see today.
Through all of these stages there was never an intention to treat SR as a business as the way we saw it was that everyone involved was already benefiting. The SR team and writers got to find loads of new music and got free gig tickets in return for a few hundred words, the smaller venues were written about, the acts playing in those venues were getting reviewed and readers of the website were possibly finding their new favourite bands. So that’s where we still are today, and not for any financial gain, we have no ads and don’t sell anything. Writers aren’t sent to gigs or told which new album they have to review. It’s all done in everyone’s spare time outside of what they do to pay the bills. It’s a hobby, but a hobby we give a lot of time to and really enjoy. Not only that, some lifetime friendships have been made. We encourage non-writers to give it a go, we have journalism students writing for us, journalism lecturers that write for us, published authors write for us, anyone who loves music and wants to share that love.
Anyway back to the Tweet. A reply came back to the Tweet asking if we pay our writers and the answer was no and it went on, and on from there.
Our aim is to help anyone and everyone who loves music. The internet is a big place and we’re just trying to make it a bit easier for music to get heard and for people to get into writing at whatever level they like. According to our new Twitter friend “Using unpaid amateurs is unethical” and we’re asking people to write for our unviable business for free. And probably the best of them all, if you write for free you are a mug.
You can see the conversations here, here and here.
We have a radio show every week that a team of SR people work very hard on. The show is great, has great guests, but do we expect to make money from it? No. Should we be taken off air because we’re not ‘professional’ radio producers/presenters? No, because we play some amazing music.
So here’s the question, is what we are doing at Silent Radio (and other similar sites) unethical?
I don’t think it is, our writers don’t think it is and I’m guessing all these new bands we cover don’t think we are either, but we’ll let you decide. Please feel free to leave your comments below.
PS I am going to Chester University again this week to talk with the music journalism students and share all the things I have discovered over the years since starting the site. I’m not getting paid in money for this, the only payment I’ll get is to know I may have helped some young writers in their quest in the music business and that for me is priceless. It won’t pay the bills, but that’s what my day job is for.
‘Accidental Editor’ of Silent Radio from its inception in 2009 through to 2020. None of this was planned; I’ve never been in a band, never been part of the ‘music scene’ and never expected to be the gaffer of a music website with loads of dedicated music loving writers. I bought my first record when I was 8 and haven’t stopped buying since. I love crate digging for bizarre and weird stuff, but equally happy ploughing through press releases looking/listening for something I’ve never heard before.
Silent Radio has made me truly happy since I arrived in Manchester and I don’t consider myself nor an amateur writer nor naive. It’s all about the music, not the money! Please don’t speak on behalf of the contributors, don’t pretend you are defending our ‘rights’. It is far more unethical to be poorly paid and/or underestimated in shitty jobs. As I see, there’s more need for Silent Radio than EVER. Thanks! 😉
It no doubt passed most of the world by completely, but for a couple of hours this morning I found myself watching this Twitter spat unfold between some of my fellow Silent Radio contributors and Miss Bevan.
As it went on I became increasingly frustrated by it, but I didn’t think I could explain why with a 140 character limit, so I neglected to join in. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wanted to share my opinion though, and luckily I know a website that can help me with that.
It all started with this tweet, from one of Silent Radio’s founding members:
It’s true, Silent Radio is always looking for new people who want to share their perspective on music with the world. Tweets like this are not uncommon, I responded to a very similar tweet a little over two years ago. That’s the reason I’m now here as part of the Silent Radio family.
However, Miss Bevan took exception to this:
I understand the point of view, I really do. If your financial wellbeing relies on writing articles, then you need to get paid for writing articles, you can’t afford to spend time writing without getting paid.
My problem with the argument, is that my financial wellbeing does not rely on writing articles. That is something I do because I want to do it.
This brings me on to the next exchange of tweets, as more Silent Radio contributors start to share their thoughts:
Some background information for you now. I work full time Monday to Friday. Most days I enjoy doing my job, other times I don’t, but whether I enjoy it or not I get paid for the work I do. Much like the hypothetical accountant mentioned in Miss Bevan’s tweet, I wouldn’t be willing to do my day job without getting paid for it. The key factor here is that I am not devising my own workload, I am paid to do work that other people need done.
With my evenings and weekends I occasionally write reviews for Silent Radio, most weeks I am producer/presenter on Silent Radio’s weekly radio show and I also make my own music in a band. I don’t get paid for any of these things, but nobody is telling me I need to do any of them, I do them because I enjoy doing them.
I would love to get paid for the things I spend my spare time doing, but I don’t know anyone who wants to give me money to do them. If someone offered me money in exchange for doing the things that I want to do, I would snatch their hand off. But if there’s nobody willing to pay me for it, it’s not going to stop me wanting to do it.
If my choice is do these things without getting paid, or not do them at all, I’ll do them without getting paid every time.
That brings me on to a later exchange of tweets:
I think this is the point that convinced me I couldn’t let it just pass by. I find this incredibly offensive.
There will always be people who don’t rely on writing about music to make a living, those people have as much right to share their opinions as anybody who is paid for it. Contributing to Silent Radio allows me to share my opinion with more people than talking to my mates in the pub does, and more people than posting my thoughts on a blog somewhere that only those same mates know about. I don’t feel like I should be accused of being responsible for there being less money spent on music journalism elsewhere because I choose to share those opinions.
I’m sure everyone would love to get paid for the things they choose to do for themselves – but very few people do.
There are thousands of people who work full time in paid employment and then go and play football for local football teams without getting paid, in fact they usually need to pay to play. I’m sure all of those people would love to get paid to play football, but nobody is suggesting that all these amateurs playing for free are ruining football, or that people should never play football without payment. And those local football clubs are often looking for new people who want to play, in much the same way as Silent Radio is looking for new people who want to write.
I’ve had some great experiences and met some great people I would otherwise have missed out on since volunteering to be a part of Silent Radio. Nobody ever misled me in to thinking I would get paid for anything I did.
If someone asked me to go to a gig and write a review I would expect to get paid for that, but Silent Radio has never asked me to do anything, it’s me asking them to help me do what I want to do.
If all I ever did was things I get paid for, my life would be very different, and not for the better.
I think my view probably all boils down to two sentences:
Things I do for other people I expect to get paid for.
Things I do for myself I don’t expect to get paid for.
Writing about music, presenting a radio show, playing in a band and even playing football are all things I do for myself, because I enjoy doing them. I’d love to be paid for them, but not being paid is not going to stop me, and being part of a community of people who also want to do these things for fun only makes it more enjoyable.
For me, Silent Radio made me realise a passion within me that I didn’t know I had; writing about music. I consider myself an ex musician and I moved to Manchester five years ago, still with dreams of being in a brilliant live band. Whilst things didn’t work out for me in that respect, I did come to know of SR and the opportunities it gave budding or experienced writers, people who loved music. Opportunities to emerse oneself in culture. To see new artists, new bands and tell others about them. Spreading the word of people who perhaps aren’t heard of, who want to be heard.
SR has lead me to start a blog, write for outfits such as Time Out, WOW and Fresh On The Net. Without SR I would still have been going to gigs but I wouldn’t have been doing something I love more than live music.
I write for SR because I LOVE MUSIC.
I write because I CHOOSE to.
NO-ONE at SR tells me where to go and what to do.
They promise nothing other than a gig ticket and what I make of the rest is up to me.
My god it’s almost 5 years since I started writing for Silent Radio.
I work a high pressured day job running a charity. The last thing I want is to spend any of my spare time doing something that won’t bring me extra joy and satisfaction. Until a few years ago I spent 8 years working for an arts charity promoting young creatives. I know what exploitation of a creative looks like, I’ve heard the usual tales of “I mean, I can’t pay you, but think of the experience”.
Silent Radio doesn’t employ those tactics.
We do it for the love of it.
There’s fuck all money in the website. We’d have to donate many more hours to implement the marketing, income generating ideas to churn any sort of cash out of it.
I can fully understand the trepidation of ‘working for nowt’ – but that’s not even considered when you have a passion for what you do.
“When people are in their Element, they connect with something fundamental to their sense of identity, purpose, and well-being.”
― Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
2006 – “As all these bands were pretty new I noticed that a lot of them were gigging in Manchester, but not getting any reviews. This irked me, especially as a lot of them deserved to be heard” – bit of an odd back story given the mega rise of the blog and things like MM and their independent coverage during those years – should have had a look there !
The simple fact is i hadn’t heard of MM back then and I wasn’t a heavy internet user.
Out of interest, did MM pay their writers?
Hi Simon, the answer is nobody ever* made any money from ManchesterMusic. There wasn’t any. Jon even paid the hosting out of his own pocket. As recently as 2010 I was still dealing with people who assumed we were a “business”. If anything we were a co-operative: (*) the one time early in my ten years’ service that we did somehow blag a small amount of funding specifically for our coverage of that year’s In The City event it was divvied up equally between all writers who covered at least five bands, from editor to student newcomer.
I had been a fanzine writer when I was younger, nobody made a living out of that either, although some went on to turn professional for most it was a hobby for exactly the reasons you describe. I wonder if your correspondent is familiar with zine culture? Cos that’s where most of us came from. Back in the day my own zine sold for the standard 50p which covered my printing costs. In 2002 when I was first introduced to Jon who’d been running MM with his mate for about 3 years, it was always described as a webzine. And I always saw myself primarily as a zine writer, and subsequently editor – we just used pixels instead of ink. We were making it up as we went along. As was pretty much everyone on the internet back then.
I never saw the likes of us as a competitor to the print press any more than the thousands of kids running off A5 zines in the 80s did. We were a subculture, a supplement, a complement to the music mags. Nobody knew in 2002 that within a decade the print press would be dying. I touched on the dilemma this gave me in my final editorial for MM which is archived here http://www.manchestermusic.co.uk/news/news.asp?item=3190 along with everything else we wrote. And Craig Nelson’s reply below is spot on.
All the best
Someone who’s been there 🙂
I can understand exactly were Katie Bevan is coming from because I am a paid journalist – I also help to set up Silent Radio.
I haven’t written for the site for quite some time now because I couldn’t juggle my day job as a sports writer and sub-editor with fatherhood and SR.
Like Simon, Chris and Ian, I wrote as a freelancer for Citylife. Maybe unlike my SR colleagues, I was doing it to get a foot in the door at the MEN.
At the time I was working as a news sub at The Bolton News after moving back up north following a few years working in London as an entertainment journalist.
I wanted to carry on writing about music, theatre, comedy and film and first Citylife and then SR helped me to do that.
Deep down I hoped to be able to maybe eventually make the site pay and rescue me from a pretty soulless existence on the paper.
But there lies the problem with websites and journalism. The major players in the industry can’t make them pay the same way they can with papers and are basically putting up their product for people to consume for free.
To continue to make a profit, media companies are cutting jobs every year and relying on students, amateur writers and readers to provide free copy and pics to fill the gaps. They call it user generated content.
At the same time the media companies have put a freeze on pay rises.
The outcome is that I am earning the same salary I did in 2006 when I moved back up from London and now regularly work seven days a week.
That is my choice. I am clinging to a career as a journalist when a lot of my former colleagues have left to work as a press officer, in PR or have left the industry entirely.
It’s hard, really hard. One of my biggest regrets is that my job takes up so much of my time I was forced to step back from SR.
I have to write to pay the bills – although my wife might say I don’t even manage that.
What I would love to do is win the lottery and just write for SR – something I love and really believe in.
So I can understand angry journalists claiming SR is robbing them of a living, but I would argue they are wrong. SR is covering a sector of society that mainstream media can no longer afford to cover.
Without SR the band’s and gigs it covers would not be afforded the oxygen of publicity.
The fact people like Simon are willing and able to give up their time for free is righting a wrong caused by the collapse of the media industry.
SR is not part of the problem, it is a sticking plaster. A temporary solution while the industry sorts itself out.
It is like the rise of indie music labels.
The media world will one day catch up and consume essential sites like this when it figures out a way of making them pay.
For now we should rejoice that there is a strong, vibrant independent platform that is able to give musicians in Manchester a voice.
I just wish I could afford the time and energy to lend it more of my support.
Well said Craig. Thank-you
Very interesting debate.
Where this Kate Bevan character is coming from is the Barney Hoskyns (ex-NME/music writer/Rock’s Backpages) position that people should not work for free.
I have a slightly different take on that. I have spent about 20 years getting paid for my music writing, but I was also around when Silent Radio was set up, as one of the ex-Manchester Evening News music writers, so I see both sides:
Firstly, as Simon says, this is not a business model, but more a kind of media co-operative, in which the pursuit of profit is not the main driver. I think we have lost out way as a society (acadamisation of education, asset-stripping the NHS) because we see profit as the only goal. Maybe people just want a corner of the internet where they can read and write about music without that as the agenda? If writers get paid, that means Simon would need to start flogging advertising on the site and that, I know, is something he doesn’t want to do.
Second, we might consider a ‘payment in kind’ arrangement. No there’s no hard cash, but there is MUSIC and that’s a lot more valuable. Handed music, for free, to review, has a quasi-monetary value… getting free tickets to gigs you may have paid to go to anyway has a similar monetary equivalent. Even at the MEN we getting paid something like £37 for a gig review, that had to be filed by 10am the next morning. I find that more unethical, to be honest. I don’t usually get out of bed for less than £38.
Thirdly, this character pays no heed to the fact that writers, at the start of their careers HAVE to get some writing under the belt, for the experience and for the portfolio. When i started writing in Manchester in 1995 there was no internet, but there were free ‘what’s on’ magazines that hired me to write about the club scene. I never got paid then either, but I got enough clippings to take to London to get hired in a music writing career that then took me to Moscow and Marrakech, Brazil and Beijing. and two summers in Ibiza, writing for magazines like DJ, Mixmag and Ministry and reporting on the global music scene. So… ever were it so.
And finally – I imagine this Kate or Beth or whoever … I can’t honestly be bothered to troll… I mean scroll… back up the screen… doesn’t know Simon like I know Simon, and doesn’t appreciate the love he has for music and the energies he puts into this site. So yer honour, yes there is a need for Silent Radio, just like there is a need for new music writers. I shared the initial post and I will shall this blog with Simon and my music journalism students at Chester. For yes, ’tis I that run the degree there and I invited Simon over tomorrow, along with Brit. So no, I also can’t pay him, but I can at least get them lunch. Sometimes things don’t come down to pounds and pence. They come down to beats and melodies… xx
As a writer, as well as Gigs Editor for the last three years at Silent Radio, I have to say that it has been an absolute pleasure to dedicate my time to this website. By no means has anyone ever said it would be easy; time consuming, yes, but easy, no.
Silent Radio has opened a lot of doors for me, especially with the many bands and PRs, record labels and management I get the pleasure of communicating with every day. In turn, this has given me the confidence to start my own business and record label, with which I thank Silent Radio to the moon and stars for the experiences I have been given.
United as we are and appear to be in this thread, we do welcome any feedback for the site, whether it be positive or negative. But these comments by Kate Bevan struck a chord with me. Not everyone wants to get paid for a review, as many of our writers and contributors above have pleaded their case towards, they feel privileged to spread the word about bands they love, and in turn get a spot on the guest list.
Absolutely, I agree that workers need to be acknowledged and paid for their time, however, everyone knows that practice makes perfect and in order for our talents to shine, we need someone to believe in us, someone to read our reviews, give us feedback and most of all, the opportunity at all to share our voice and our thoughts on the music industry.
We appreciate all of your support on this heated topic. Most of all, it’s important that these writers, some of the most talented and hardworking people I have had the pleasure to meet, are getting the exposure they deserve, the practice they need and the chance to speak their minds. Surely something you can’t put a price tag on.
It’s a blog!! A blog open to a variety of opinions (not just a group of like minded friends). For me it’s about supporting live music which, in my experience, is an “industry” that struggles to make enough money just to support itself (obviously talking about a certain type of live music here – not your big pop performances for example). But live music has such a massive value to me that I want to do what I can to help! When I was writing for Silent Radio I even felt bad/guilty about getting a free gig out of it and often preferred to pay for my ticket! I think the critic has the wrong ideas about what Silent Radio means…
Its not unethical at all. Silent Radio have said since the start we don’t get paid for the material we produce, getting free tickets for shows in exchange seems like a good deal to me. Why should we get paid, its not like we’re fucking brain surgeons is it? We’re writing about music because we love it, not because we’re fuelled by financial gain. That bird should go wobble her head.
If I can just add my tuppence. I’m a blog writer, which in the particular genres I write (psychedelic, space rock, krautrock etc), is becoming fairly established. I don’t do it for money or plaudits, I don’t even keep a regular check on the number of ‘hits’ – I do it because I love music and I genuinely want to spread the good word to people far and wide. Yes, the ‘free’ music is a perk, I’ll admit that, but at the end of the day, the blog is something I do for fun, to unwind at the end of the day. I had an email recently from a ‘major online retailer’ asking if I would like to host paid adverts for their service…..jog on was my reply. I didn’t start it as a money making scheme.
I say long live Silent Radio and all those other music lovers who CHOOSE to write about music….it’s not exploitation or ‘working for nothing’ …it’s about the music…it’s always about the music!
The reason I got into music journalism was because I was stuck in a bit of a rut in my life, and my brother (who also wrote for the M.E.N. back in the day) suggested that I give it a try. So I started doing it to be something more than my day job. More than that, I also did it because I love music, and the free CDs/tickets I received were initially nearly all the payment I required. Yeah, it was pretty good for my ego too.
When CityLife decided to scale back the scope of its coverage largely because of the recession and its impact on journalism, I answered Simon’s email and CityLifers was born. Simultaneously, I was moved onto the list of freelancers writing for the M.E.N. newspaper. I liked that I was getting paid to write, but on the other hand the main driving force for setting up CityLifers was to continue the spirit of trying to cover as much music as possible. We did it because we wanted the music we loved to continue to have a platform.
Speaking personally, I did, however, always hope, perhaps somewhat naively, that it would become profitable. In the early-ish days, I was in favour of putting paid advertising on the website, but Simon in particular resisted. In retrospect I am absolutely certain that he was correct, because I have seen how much it can ruin the aesthetic of said sites, and it would also have been detrimental to the spirit of Silent Radio…not that profitability is in itself bad. But this friendly disagreement between me and Simon is illustrative of the kind of person he is. Simon did everything for the love of it, for music, for writing, for friendship and for community, and everyone who has contributed to Silent Radio knows this, and knows that it is this precise spirit that drives the website, that makes it work. Money and getting paid is irrelevant, because they’re irrelevant to Simon and therefore to the spirit of Silent Radio, so not paying writers is neither here nor there. People don’t get paid because money doesn’t come into it. How can it be financially exploitative if it’s not a financial project?
I can only presume that Kate is arguing about something that she does not fully comprehend. She doesn’t understand Silent Radio, she doesn’t know Simon, and she doesn’t understand that a lot of successful music journalists started by writing fanzines or the like, unpaid and voluntarily. The comment about Kate not paying her accountant is telling. How many of us writers are in the privileged position of having to worry about something like paying our accountants? It’s an absurd parallel, but as Craig points out it does bring forward a serious point. The fact that journalism is becoming more and more of a dead end is a sad thing, and skilled writers, like many of the people who write for Silent Radio, should be able to make a living from it. This should be a stable career path, but it’s not anymore.
Some (as I think Kate does) could accuse Silent Radio and its ilk of debasing paid journalism; we do it for free so why pay? But as the website’s origins demonstrate, the fact that Silent Radio and many websites don’t pay writers is symptomatic of a troubled industry, and not the root cause. Besides, for many of us it is at its core both a hobby and a social club. Again, Silent Radio is not about money, everyone knows this so it is not exploitative. We all have our eyes open. I wonder if Kate thinks this is akin to the Tory scheme of bringing in ‘unpaid’ work for the unemployed….
I’ve recently had to step back from being the New Releases editor for Silent Radio. I’m a head chef, I have a young son, I’m buying a house, learning to drive and buying a car. I’m growing up I suppose; it sucks! I would really have liked for Silent Radio to be the day job, for me to make a living off it, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. One day I also hope to return to Silent Radio editing, and if/when I do, I won’t be doing it for the money. I’ll do it because I love music, writing, and the many friends I’ve made through the website. I won’t pretend that that’s a perfect trade off for me – I would like to get paid for my work (I have many responsibilities and dependents) – but it’s still well worth doing, and I’ll be rewarded in many non-pecuniary ways.
Under present circumstances, the only way I can imagine that Silent Radio could be exploitative is if we are selling it as a career path into journalism, instead of a place for people to practise their writing and express their love of music, because that is something we cannot guarantee. If this is made clear from the start, and I’m fairly certain that it is, then fine, no problem.
To finally get back to the original question, well that seems like a given. If there was no need for it, it wouldn’t exist. The fact that it does exist, and that so many people put so much of their free time and effort into it tells you everything you need to know. More interestingly, I would like to know more about Silent Radio’s reach outside of its immediate circle, the writers, bands and their friends and families. Simon?