In 2017 I left the newsroom & started freelancing & the majority of editors I have worked with over the past two years have been absolutely brilliant but I have also battled everything from bullying to no response on commissioned work for months & on other pieces...still no payhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏽" title="Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)">

However this is the first time that I felt the need to publicly comment on a publication and perhaps I feel the need to even more because of the difficult times freelancers and all of us are in right now financially and mentally https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏽" title="Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)">

I was contacted by @NewNaratif asking for pitches. They picked up the story I pitched and we discussed the brief and I submitted an article based on the commissioned brief which included interviewing four people amid a Covid-19 lockdownhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏽" title="Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)">

They emailed back a week after I had submitted & said they decided they didn’t want to publish it and would pay a $50 kill fee. Upon prompting them on why this was and why I hadn’t received any feedback or edits & sharing with them the commissioned brief again, they said https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏽" title="Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)">

“I am sorry you feel hard done by...New Naratif decides to & #39;kill& #39; pieces for many different reasons. Most of those reasons have nothing to do with the quality of a piece. In your case I can state quite clearly that your piece is excellent. But it& #39;s not for us https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏽" title="Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)">

After doing this for over two years, we& #39;ve been developing a clearer idea of what a "New Naratif article" is, This is highly subjective and it means that sometimes we decide to move on from perfectly good pieces. Sometimes we kill a piece that we might have taken a year ago.” https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏽" title="Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index (medium skin tone)">

I am sharing this experience in hope that other journalists do not risk their personal safety & time to report for a publication who commissions on the off chance that they might publish the piece. And when they don’t - offer $50 for four days work reporting during Coronavirus.

I should add that I offered to integrate their feedback in another draft, now that I have received it but they declined and they again declined to pay more then $50.