After publishing 600 articles and amassing millions of views at the Daily Wire, I learned two things during my year-long journalism fellowship: how to churn out articles quickly, and that being a full-time journalist was not the job for me.
Stepping away from the stress of daily news, I began my master’s degree in public policy. Yet, because I still love writing and need to support myself, freelance journalism is a key part of my income. Unfortunately, the California state government wants to rip this earning opportunity away from me.
A new California law that takes effect on Jan. 1 will restrict the number of articles freelancers can write to 35 per outlet annually. The bill also places restrictions on the entire freelance sector, from estheticians to Uber drivers.
The legislator behind the bill, Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, claims the law is meant “to protect and preserve good jobs” and “create new good jobs and a livable, sustainable wage job.” Considering the bill will only rob current freelancers of their flexible schedules and incomes, it appears Gonzalez is perhaps just ignorant of the nature of freelance writing.
However, upon further review, the culprit is not ignorance, but unions.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Gonzalez was previously a labor organizer and claims that freelancers threaten full-time writers because they can be used to break newsroom unions, such as the newly-created Los Angeles Times newsroom union. So, all Gonzalez is actually doing here is sacrificing the careers of freelance writers in an attempt to protect and grow her precious unions.
It’s worth mentioning that Gonzalez is not only telling freelancers how much they can write, she is using her Twitter platform to determine who is and is not a journalist. After facing criticism from New York Magazine and HuffPost contributor Yashar Ali, Gonzalez responded by claiming, “Yashar isn’t a journalist, he’s not a constituent.” Who is a journalist and who is not isn’t something for government officials to decide.
The new law is ultimately applying a blanket policy in hopes of protecting and creating more full-time writer positions. But it completely ignores the needs of freelancers who have many reasons for why they are working part-time.
What about the stay-at-home mom who wants to make money and keep her writing career relevant? What about the spontaneous writer who doesn’t like to be tied to one job? What about the college student who has a passion for writing but doesn’t have the capacity to be employed full-time?
That was my situation.
While working on my undergraduate degree, I made money through freelancing, publishing 106 articles for the Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform, meaning I would probably have been restricted by the new CA regulations if I’d lived in L.A. at the time (I do now). Freelancing afforded me the flexibility to write during weeks when my course load was light but not during busy periods, and my writing gig partially helped me afford college. Does California really want to disadvantage struggling students?
The law also appears to be regulating the First Amendment’s freedom of the press. In what dystopia is the government able to restrict how much a journalist can write? Not since the totalitarian governments of the mid-20th century has a Western government dared to regulate or limit the written word. It’s maddening, but the law is also laughably misguided.
Perhaps the current drive comes after in 2019 alone, more than 7,200 people working in media were laid off. However, this drop in employment didn’t stem from freelancers, so they shouldn’t bear the punishment. It occurred because these media companies were not turning a profit and are now restructuring. It is foolish to think California’s new law would actually push these companies to hire all, or even most, of current their freelancers.
In reality, this law will force freelancers to find more editors willing to publish them, lose their flexibility, and battle for the very few jobs at outlets, or start a new career. It’s a lose-lose, especially for people like me.
When I left the Daily Wire, I was burnt out and had no desire to write, but being back in school and traveling the world has reinvigorated my love for writing. I have been drafting articles and pitching them in recent weeks in hopes of supplementing my income once again.
Thanks to California, I’ll only have a few options now. I can listen to the government which thinks it knows what’s best for me, drop out of graduate school, and move somewhere where I can write freely, or write about this as much as possible to encourage them to rethink this misguided policy until Jan. 1, when I will no longer be able to afford to waste one of my 35 articles a year.
Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) is the founder of Lone Conservative, an online platform for college conservatives. She’s also a masters student at Pepperdine University and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
