Students need freelance journalism lectures

Six lectures = 12 hours to teach 3th and 4th year Journalism students about becoming, being and staying a freelance journalist.

How do you set up, create and sustain a professional network? How do you pitch a story, find new clients and keep in touch?

Other topics involve the Chamber of Commerce, paying tax and insurances. The students also make a number of assignments, they have to write a freelancer profile, make a business plan and visit a media cafe to network with fellow journalist.

Its necessary to teach students about being a freelancer in these financially messy times and to be able to survive on their own.

Guest speakers

We also have a number of guest speakers and so far we welcomed: Tom van der Leij, Bas Maliepaard, Sander Zurhake, Herman Spinhof and Ilvy Njiokiktjien who all shared their experiences in the freelance world.

Take a look at the slideshows of the first 2 lectures here and here. Please note that there are in Dutch.

Awesome book

Also, without the ‘Handboek Freelancen 2008-2009‘ from Tijs van den Boomen and Wilma van Hoeflaken it would have been impossible to explain tax and administrative issues. The book is now required for each Freelance student in my class.