Faces of Freelance: an interview with Ricci Shryock

Scroll to the bottom for the audio version and this time, if you're a reader, make sure you listen for a fuller experience of my discussion with journalist and photographer Ricci Shryock.

Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.

Proverbs 13:20

The last blogpost was a very special one because I brought a guest on to talk about rest and relationships. If you haven’t checked it out yet, don’t forget to do so here. 

Today’s post is another very special one featuring Ricci Shryock. 

Ricci is a photographer and journalist who is lucky enough to call Dakar, Senegal home. She hopes her work, published in outlets such as The New York Times, Foreign Policy, NPR and more, can provide a contextualised picture of challenges, triumphs and beauty of daily life in West Africa. Ricci taught photojournalism at the University of Dakar, and whenever possible she works in collaboration with local journalists who publish coinciding stories in the national newspapers and radio where she is reporting.

I met Ricci back in October of this year. One of my older blogposts, “Helping & being helped” is about her, and her openness to supporting other freelance writers and journalists, particularly young women who are just starting out. So, I thought I’d invite her on to tell us a little bit about her own journey as a freelancer and hopefully you’ll pick up as many gems from it as I have.

This is the first of what I hope to be a series of interviews called “Faces of Freelance” (as in the different faces of people in freelance, but also the different facets of freelance. Do you get it?? Yeah, I’m quite proud of myself for that one, I must say) where I’ll be talking to people in the world of arts and media and in the gig economy about their journeys and hopefully that will help you and I to walk with the wise and become wiser.

In conversation with Ricci

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Ricci Shryock, I'm a freelance journalist. I live in Dakar Senegal since 2008. I'm originally from the State, Illinois. I went to journalism school Missouri and then I did some reporting in Florida at a newspaper before I came to Senegal in 2008 where I started doing radio and video and writing and photography. 

What do you write about? What kinds of themes do you cover? 

In the beginning I didn't really have a focus I kind of did lots of different things and now I like to focus on women's issues, migration sometimes  - I just had a piece about migration come out – and the environment, but kind of the environment from the human angle if that makes sense. 

When did you know that you wanted to be a journalist? Is that something that was always a thing? I feel like a lot of people have this story of like ‘I grew up writing, so it made sense’ so… 

I grew up writing. English class was always my favorite. I had really good English teachers when I was younger, and I think that made a difference. And I wasn't extremely very good at it, I was really good at math and so it actually would have made more sense to do that, and my family are mathematicians. So I had really good English teachers and I thought I wanted to be a writer but I went and University in in the US called The University Missouri and they had a very good journalism school and so I decided to just go to journalism school until I could go to grad school and be an English professor. But once I got into doing journalism, I really realized how much I enjoyed reporting, almost probably more than writing and so yeah so I stuck with it. 

What about radio and photography? 

I think I took a photography class and in college but I kind of thought that was too dreamy. I didn't think I could make a living from photography so that's one reason I didn't pursue it at first then when I got to Dakar in 2008, I met the Voice of America bureau chief. Radio was a really good way to make a living to be honest. I really enjoyed it as well, but you know the more you diversify the easier it is. I saw it as very pragmatic to just learn how to do everything, like kind of survival instinct. 

So, do you produce for radio or do you present?

Mostly report and produce. One of the shows I do is like Q&A. 

How do you sustainably remain freelance when you’re a full-time freelancer? 

I think for me – everyone is different, so what everyone can put up with or what everyone enjoys is completely determined by what works for them, but I found diversifying. I learned how to do video when I was young. And also, I started when I was younger and didn't have as many financial responsibilities; now I'm a mother and I support my family off of it but starting out I couldn't have done that. So, I learned video and radio and writing and photography and not everything I do is editorial journalism. Sometimes I work for a UN agency or a human rights organisation and produce content for them as well. I think that's diversifying; not all of your eggs in one basket. 

Is most of it self-taught?

The videography and the photography; but self-taught in the way that I was lucky enough to meet people who gave me some tips. I remember one of the men who helped me said “it's not a big deal, just help somebody pass it forward”, so yeah having someone you could go to with a question if you had a hurdle or something. 

What difference do you think it would have made if you hadn't had people facilitating and teaching some things? 

I think maybe I wouldn't have had the confidence to take on certain jobs, or maybe I would have hit a wall and not kept going. So, yeah just being able to know that someone was able had some guidance for me on the technical side. Mostly it was the technical side, especially with video because it can be very daunting at first. 

I do a lot of Googling to help me figure out a lot of things and to find out where I can pitch to, so I put together a spreadsheet from places that other people can use and pitch to, and which platforms pay versus don't pay, and I was wondering, when you were starting out did you have these kinds of resources to turn to? How did you figure out how to pay taxes on freelance income, or like how much to charge for something? Did you have these resources available or was it learn as you go?

It was much more learn as you go; today there are so many great resources that I think people can benefit from, whereas freelancers are talking about more who pays how much to ask for things like that. I do think there's much many more databases and things like that you can go to. As far as what to ask for payment, I just turned to friends around me who were also actually quite young and not super experienced at the time, but we would talk about it and figure that out. I think also at a certain point you determine what you need and what you deserve to ask for, which is very hard in the process. I feel like especially when you are a young woman starting out, you don't really feel like you deserve anything or maybe you should pay them for the experience. So, I think there are really a lot of resources, especially Twitter. I don't think there was Twitter when I started out, but there's so many great freelance writers on Twitter right now who are very vocal about these things, who are really great to follow and there's many networks. I'm talking about the anglophone, mostly American, network. 

How did you kind of transition from doing free work to paid work. To build up your portfolio at the beginning because you need your name out there to actually deciding “OK I actually need to start getting paid”. 

Well that was quite quickly actually, I think when I first started freelancing, I was a staff writer at a newspaper as well so maybe I didn't see it as my daily sustenance, but then when I became full-time freelance it really wasn't a choice. But I would say that, if I were to do it over, I wouldn't do anything for free but it's just such a tough decision because I always feel like it's the older people who did do things for free saying to the younger people – or you know less experience people – don’t do it for free it's bad for everyone, but it's so easy to say when you've already built up your experience. 

I think choose who you do things for free for is a really good, like if it's a cause you really believe in or and an organisation that really does need it and doesn't have that in their budget and maybe other people are volunteering for, I think that would be the way to go.

Do you remember your first gig in journalism? Did it start off with an internship?

The university I went to had a daily newspaper not like the school paper but they actually ran a daily paper and we had editors and we had to go to City Council meetings and do all of those things. But then I had an internship and at my hometown daily newspaper, where actually – I think this is my biggest regret – Barack Obama came to speak when he was much younger and not famous yet while I was an intern. I didn't do a story on it which is the most ridiculous thing ever! I could have interviewed Barack Obama! That was the first story I really should have done that I never did…

I wonder how you avoid being taken advantage of particularly when you're just starting off, because people ask for free work a lot. How do you manage unresponsive editors – I have my own anecdote that I'm going to come in with in a second, but yeah how do you navigate that?

My experience has been finding the people in my network or friendship circle or family who, before you respond, can kind of give some feedback from other people who've had similar experiences, or who can ask you the questions you need to be asked in order to find out where you actually want to go with it. Instead of reacting from a place of fear that ‘oh, you won't get anything else to do.’ I needed other voices at that point to tell me ‘no, you will get other work’, or ‘you have the right to ask for this’, things like that. 

I’m quite an introverted person, so it takes a lot of energy for me to actually go out and network and so I'm trying to do better at it. As I write for different places I try to keep in touch with particular editors and things like that. I don't know if you're an introvert or extrovert…

Extreme extrovert!

I suppose that would have been easier then… 

When I say network, I guess I'm referring to very good friends. I think, more people you trust, not a business network. I've been lucky to meet a lot of women who are in the same business and because we maybe have the same issue sometimes, we can we talk back and forth. At 37, I have women who are almost 40 in this business and we still message about these issues so it's not like they go away. 

Also, I think if you're an introvert maybe there's really good resources like groups online where you don't then have to physically exert that kind of energy, but you can post a question and it's a trusted space where everybody responds to that question. So, I think maybe that's good; those things weren't around or at least I didn't know about them before. 

To reel it back to my own anecdote, I pitched to this platform and they accepted it and commissioned me and they were like you ‘we’re going to pay you this much, could you have it to us by this date.’ It was less than a week turned over, and I was like ‘oh actually could it be extended a little bit’ but I didn't hear back and so I wrote for that date and sent it in. 

A week later I don't hear back and so I follow up and they're like ‘OK I'll check it now’ and then another week goes by… a second week, a third, a fourth, and I haven't heard back from this person about whether they intend on publishing it, about how the invoicing process goes. I sent two, three, four follow ups and then I just got fed up and I was like ‘you know, you don't have to publish it, but it did take work and you said you were going to pay me for this commission, so what is the process’ and I still haven't heard back. 

So, I'm just kind of wondering how do you navigate these kinds of things? Because this is my livelihood and there's only so much I can do, I can't physically go see her. 

There's two things I would say, first of all, because it's also emotionally very upsetting to be treated that way, I think there is that factor that comes into play when someone's just not treating you and your time with the respect it deserves. 

But then there's the other more logistical, practical issue of ‘OK but now I need to get paid’. I think first of all there's a few things which, and I've done this before too, when you do go into an agreement, ask for a contract before you do anything. Which can be difficult especially when they want it in a week and you feel like you can do it, and you want to trust what they're saying but ask for a contract, see if there's a kill-fee so that you'll get paid if you do the work, at least part of it. Always ask for what the terms are, and you can do it very nonchalantly. I think if we go into it acting like it's something that's normal and we should ask for it, then it's much easier from that point. You're not asking them for a favor to have a contract. 

The thing is too, you have an email, so you already have a written agreement. What I have known some friends to do is say ‘OK, it's been this long, I'm going to contact my lawyer and will get back to you with a letter.’ Often that is enough for somebody to go ‘OK, OK’, even if you don’t have a lawyer. I think that's often what happens, I mean that's where you would say ‘OK, I'm going to contact my lawyer and will be serving you with this letter’. There are a lot of the resources I can share with you where there are people who are better at this kind of advice because I haven't been that great at that to be honest. There were a couple of times when I didn't get paid as well. But yeah, always make sure you have a contract first, and then follow up and afterwards communicate that you're going to be contacting a lawyer.  

I don't know if it's because like we're raised women, but I'm really worried about burning bridges and being too abrasive even though they owe me money! And I'm just like ‘oh, but what if I want to work with this editor in the future…’ 

That’s the thing, you don’t want to work with that editor in the future! I've always had that mentality too, and I think there comes a time when you have to say to yourself ‘I'm the one bringing something to this, and they are not respecting that. I don't want to work with that editor in the future, period.’ There will be other work even though it can feel like there won't be.

That by-line was so important to me at the time.  

There will be other by-lines, I promise! I think that's also a good thing to remember: every story is not the only story. It's a constant work in progress, there will be more even if you feel like there won't be. Having that confidence in yourself enables you to ask for what you deserve. I know what you mean though, how you're scared of being abrasive or of rocking the boat too much. But the boat kind of needs to be rocked. 

I think too, don't let it weigh you down.  It’s upsetting; I think that's the problem with freelance too is that it can be so emotionally upsetting because it's all these relationships with editors and sometimes to take it personally the way you get treated is a bit hard. 

And there's not a lot of resources on how to follow up with editors. I feel like no one really has an answer because it sucks all the time, and no one wants to kind of like dwell on it, and they kind of like push on to the next one because at the end of the day you get paid somewhere. It would be good to have a place where people give this kind of advice. 

Definitely, these groups there's lots of questions like that. And then there's like lots of people who write back with wording, I found it very helpful. 

So now to the second part of it, to do with like the region and the language and stuff like that. What drew you to Dakar and West Africa? 

I was in Florida and a friend gave me a CD by Amadou & Mariam and he told me they were Senegalese – they’re not, they’re Malian. Naiveté, I guess… which is a very big privilege that I had that I was able to even come without knowing that much. But I didn't come to be a freelancer here, I came for two months. I had been working for a few years and I was ready to change I was going to move back home, and I was like ‘OK, before I move back home I want to go somewhere where they speak French, but I don't want to France. I'm going to go here, it's a new place, sounds fun!’ That kind of thing. So, I didn't go to be a freelancer in West Africa. I just went for a prolonged vacation, I guess, which turned into 12 years. 

So, that's how I was drawn to Senegal. I kept prolonging my stay. I would be like ‘oh I'm going to stay a little bit longer, and a little bit longer.’ 

So, do you write in French?

No, I don't write in French. I can write like emails and messages in French, but I only write in English. 

One of the questions that someone had submitted was actually ‘how do you overcome the language barrier?’. I think they speak Spanish, so how do you get into like more English language publications. I think from what I've heard anyway from like a few different freelance writers is that the English-speaking world pays a little bit better, and so getting into that how would you do that when English is not your first language. But I suppose it's more of a practice thing than anything. 

Yeah, I have a Dutch friend who's done it, so it's possible. She writes in English sometimes as well. So, I think it is more of a practice thing and have a really good editor going in who knows it’s not your first language is OK with that, because if the story you're telling is important then they're going to be willing to hopefully work around that. 

And I think for coverage as well, it would be so important like if I think about the publications that we have over here, in Guinea-Bissau, it's mostly in the Portuguese speaking world. But then there's not a lot of people in the world compared to the English-speaking world that speak Portuguese. 

I was thinking about recent comments made by the president and things like that and there's only like the Portuguese-speaking world talking about it, but actually it's a really big issue that women around the world would relate to and I think it’s important to be told in other places. And yeah, it would have been good if we had more English-language coverage, but I think that like the visibility of the country plays into that as well. 

Like you said, it's important because it can allow you to reach a bigger audience and it's interesting because I'm working the opposite way these days. While I'm here I'm working with a Guinean journalist so that the story goes out in Portuguese too, because my stories will go out in English. So often the people I'm reporting on don't have access to it. So, I'm trying to work the opposite way. 

Is that more like an ethical question for you? 

I don't know if ethical is the word… I did a story on infanticide in Senegal because the abortion laws are some of the strictest in the world. I did it for The New Yorker which is like ‘oh big, congratulations, you have a piece in The New Yorker!’ but it felt a bit icky because the purpose was that hopefully these women who are in Senegal working to change those laws can change them, and if somebody in Brooklyn is reading about it, that person can’t change that law. So, I was hoping to reach the audiences often where I'm reporting. 

Do publications usually take translations, or would you do it for another publication?

It's been different with certain publications but a lot more publications are getting into this idea that OK, when you go you pay your translator, or your colleague or your co-reporter, I will also pay them to do a piece in the local publications I'm working with or in the local paper as well. 

It’s not competing audiences, it’s different languages, it's very nationalised, very specific. Often when I approach an editor these days, I just say I would like to work like this and most of them have been very open to that.

It's important to show people a place, but I think there came a point for me anyway when it was like less about the international audience and more about what's going on here and the people where I live, those people, the Senegalese or the Guineans, that have more power to change here than somebody outside of it, often. 

I knew your work before I met you but like I wasn't aware that it was your work until like afterwards. So, the piece on the LGBTQ population here, I had read that a few years ago and I was like ‘wow, this is such a great article and no one talks about this and this is so important’ and then I met you and then I was like wait… 

And so, with the photography for things like that for populations, because that showed up in The New York Times, I don't know if you translated that and published it locally as well, but then in terms of like the photography itself, because I went to Cantanhez a week or two ago, and I was taking a lot of pictures and then I posted it on my Twitter and Instagram, and then I was kind of thinking that I'm kind of showcasing people to the world and they're not going to have access to these images. 

I was wondering what are the kind of things that are implied when you do something like that? I tried to get consent at the beginning, I say ‘I’m going to take this picture of you and we’re going to be using it’, but I don’t know… what are the kinds of questions around that, and how do you do that without selling someone's image?

Like exploiting? Yeah, I mean I think it's an ongoing important conversation that people smarter than me have written about and had conversations about, but I think first of all, for me anyway, asking how that person would like to be portrayed. 

I went to journalism school and there's all these ethics they teach you in all of these ideas they teach you about objectivity and it's nice to learn them but then when you are actually in a place, you have to kind of figure out how what rules work, and what rules need to be shifted and changed, I think, given the context. Like if it was a minister or something like that, I wouldn't ask him how he wants to be portrayed because he's a minister, he has power. I think if the power dynamic is so vastly different between myself and that person, I want to be conscious of how they want to portray themselves to the world. That's a conversation that’s hard to have because a lot of people don't think about that. 

But yeah, be conscious of how they want to be portrayed and how they want to be shown. Consent is obviously very important, like you said, and again that's not something that I was taught necessarily. ‘If somebody is in a public space you have right photograph them’ was kind of what I was taught but that's not necessarily true. But then like, if you’re talking about the homeless populations that's different, or something like that. But I think trying to portray them in a respectful way, don't portray them as powerless and things like that. Give them some kind of volition and dignity. 

I always like I take the pictures I'm like I love this picture so much but then this person is never going to see it again, so how do I go about that?

I mean you can also offer to send them the picture and if they're like an older person and don't have a smartphone they they've got like a grandson or granddaughter who probably does. There are people I know who travel with those Polaroid things. Logistically if that's something that's possible, that's a really good idea. I've done that, I brought back prints for people when I get back. 

Someone did ask if your work helps you to travel. Do you get to travel for work?

Before, yes, all the time. I became one of those annoying people who was like ‘I'm tired of traveling, it’s so annoying.’

Yes, it gave me the opportunity to travel and it was wonderful. Mostly West Africa. I guess to be less generic about getting tired of it, I decided I wanted to go deeper in places rather than just be very shallow, like every time I was going to a place I wouldn't get to do everything I wanted to do, so I decided to try it travel to fewer places and go a bit deeper. But that can be hard as a freelancer because publications unfortunately only will take so many stories about Guinea-Bissau.  

How can freelance writers support each other better, because we're all just going through the motions and figuring things out because we have to look for work all the time. So, how do we support each other better?

I think, having an idea that another person's success does not take away from your success is really critical because there is an element obviously of competition and sometimes jealousy and things like that so it can be very difficult when we need to support each other but it seems that we’re competing for the same things, andd we are, but I think having faith that there will be enough. 

And also, just being in competition with yourself is very important rather than other people all the time. So, I think to support each other being open to advice, being open to sharing resources, being open to being open. I think sharing resources, sharing problems, I think even letting people know you work with an editor who wasn't great, being like ‘hey, fait attention. Be careful, this editor didn't pay me and went off the grid for four weeks.’ I don't want to say bad talk people, but you know, if you dated somebody who is a jerk you let your girlfriends know, you know what I mean… 

Do you have any final advice for me for other people just starting out? 

I guess just make sure you're enjoying it. It sounds very cheesy, but I just feel like, just remember why you're doing it. And also, when you're doing your stories always treat the people you're reporting on with the dignity they deserve. But yeah, just make sure you're having fun because like this job is not to get rich… but that being said you should stand up yourself. You should make a decent living, so I don't want to say, ‘don't make any money and do things for free’, but I think the point is to like really make sure you're doing it out of a place of sincerity. 

Some resources

1. Remember that there are always platforms that you can write for and build your portfolio from. And when you do get commissioned, make sure you're taking some of Ricci's advice on contracts and asking for what you deserve!
2. I've created a Twitter list that you can follow, where there are regular tweets about calls for pitches and other media jobs.
3. The Young Journalist Community is a great and safe space for you to ask questions about journalism and get feedback based on people's own experiences.
4. JournoResources has also been super great!

I will If you know of any other resources, drop a comment below with a link to help your fellow freelancer out.

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I hope that this has been insightful. Make sure you check out some of Ricci's work!

I asked people to submit some questions that they had for her before I did the interview, and if you want to submit your own questions for any future editions then drop me a note. Also, Tweet, comment or email me about anyone that you would like me to talk to and I will work on getting them on one of the Faces of Freelance posts so that you and I can Flourish in Freelance.

If you found this insightful and know someone who could benefit from this post, then show them (and me) some love by sharing it with them. Let’s also get a hashtag going for this: Tweet me with the hashtag #FacingFreelance so we can engage on all things growth and development in the world of freelance and media.

As always, thank you for spending this time with me and see you soon x

 

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