My Newsbreak Readers Think I’m a Bitch — But at Least It’s Profitable
The joy of being insulted
I made more money on Newsbreak than on Medium again this month, despite only spending 30 seconds* there and ignoring all my readers.
There’s a lesson there — maybe spending all my time on Medium isn’t the best approach to fill my pocket. But you know… I love you all.
My Newsbreak readers think I’m a bitch. They tell me that, along with all sorts of other lovely insults. Some of the nicer ones are trying to convert me to their religions, some say I’m stating the bleeding obvious, some say it’s old news, and some say I’m pathetic. It’s really charming over there.
I don’t usually read all the comments on Newsbreak, so I’m not aware of every insult or threat, but you know, I earn a few dollars for regurgitating news on wars, health, and expressing my opinions occasionally.
Readers do have a lot to say for themselves, and some complaints may be justified (sometimes it is old news!) but if they want to read all about it on Newsbreak and I get paid, I’m not complaining.
Sometimes readers ask why my photos don’t actually show the subject in the report. That’s because I prefer to use my own pics where possible and I don’t always have something 100% suitable.
Using my own photos reduces the risk of someone suing me for using a creative commons photo, or worse, for using a copyrighted one, without the correct permissions. I’m always keen to avoid legal action.
Newsbreak is serving me well, but the performance of stories is totally unpredictable.
I had a go at writing an opinion piece on the Gaza conflict recently, and Newsbreak’s editors said they wanted everything I’d written referenced with links to news reports, even though it started out as a bit of a brain dump based on what I’d seen on BBC television news. I obligingly complied, adding about 20 sources. Then they wanted me to add a theory published in the New York Times about a stray missile. I complied.
Finally, they published it. I had great hopes for my story after all that work, but they only distributed it to three people — one of whom was me, so obviously, all that effort isn’t going to earn me very much, if anything at all.
This is why I usually attempt to write things that are quick, simple, and won’t take very long to put together. Because Newsbreak may not distribute my work at all!
However when they do distribute my stories, some of them go viral. So, my experience on Newsbreak has been very mixed. For earnings, it’s serving me well, surpassing my Medium earnings, but only if I write more of what works. And that’s not necessarily my favourite topics or specialist subjects.
Newsbreak is not a place for vulnerability. It’s best not to write anything personal on there. Stories uploaded to the platform may be licenced to other news outlets. You lose control. And it’s probably best not to give the lovely people in the comments anything too personal to talk about, or anything that could be weaponised against you!
On the topic of earning more on Newsbreak, there’s still time for my Medium earnings to trump Newsbreak in this month, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen.
*Incidentally, I do spend more than 30 seconds on Newsbreak (that was a joke). But I duly ignore the comments most of the time.
© Susie Kearley 2023. All Rights Reserved.
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