A sense of Libération from making ends meet

Fifteen years ago, I was sent back north by my news editor to write about a certain football team.

The team had made it to the FA Cup final from what the French rightly still call the Second Division, whatever word games the football authorities play to make it sound better.

It was the players' "open day" with the press and I think my masters vaguely expected to see a story about grasping footballers demanding money for their monosyllabic thoughts and posed pictures.

Spare some loose change, guv?
Picture: sierradelta74

Nothing of the sort happened.

As we strolled around the pitch at Roker Park, no one was out of bounds (though the better players did have queues waiting to speak to them) and nearly everyone was friendly and polite.

Since this was my team, I was happy that the club and its players were behaving impeccably - and I hope that having given their time freely, they went on to make a little from follow-up exclusives with the press and broadcasters.

Only one person, so far as I know, asked for money and that was a sports journalist who felt too grand to give a few comments to a TV crew without payment.

His request, which ensured that no interview took place, surprised me.

I have always been willing to give minor bits of help to my confrères and consoeurs on the basis that I would hope for and expect the same in return. If money is offered, as it sometimes is for radio or TV slots, that is a different matter and I am not stupid enough to refuse.

But I also remember the football hack saying something about being a freelance and that they were therefore asking for his professional services and time for nothing.

That is how it is for me in my new, changed life.

A friend asked the other day if I'd be interest in writing a weekly blog posting on the French elections for the Libération website site. "Of course," I replied, "every little helps."

I have a soft spot for Libé and was delighted when it came through its recent crisis with hopes of survival higher than for some time.

But when they got round to ringing to explain the details, they added that while they wanted the contributions, they would not be paying for them.

If I had still been working as a salaried correspondent, I might well have said yes, provided I felt I had the time to do the blog justice.

Had they offered a pittance or, say, a year's subscription, I suspect the answer would still have been yes. As a freelance, chasing whatever earnings I can, I had no hestitation in turning down the idea of adding to my workload but not my income.

Perhaps the person calling me does her job for nothing. I doubt it. Perhaps the exceedingly rich people who hold the purse strings at Libé also conduct their business lives without the least desire for remuneration. I doubt that, too.

Given the paper's links to Sartre and the Paris Spring of 1968, it is not surprising that for a long time it operated a policy of paying everyone from the cleaners to the editor the same.

Later, it dropped this lofty egalitarianism and entered the harsher world of the market economy. In 2007, I would probably have settled for the cleaner's pay.

A charming lady journalist who plans to write about me in a magazine about British expats in France told me of her dismay on being told by another UK journalist that s/he would not be interviewed for free.

Her shock was clearly genuine, and I was perfectly happy when I found I had time during a visit to Paris to meet her and answer her questions. But I was just as shocked by the suggestion that a Left-of-centre, up-the-workers kind of paper should want someone to turn in a few shifts for nowt.