The National Interest ComplaintDavid Axe 06 May 2020"As a journalist with nearly 20 years on the military news beat, I've worked for scores of publications and news outlets, big and small. I even created my own news website and ran it for years. I rarely complain in public about my employers. That's about to change. A thread.
In early 2019 I was coming off a bad few years running War Is Boring for a chain of shitty owners. I needed work and The National Interest offered it. A blogging job. The offer was ... fine. But @TheNatlInterest soon proved to be one of the worst outlets I've worked for.
Early on, they wronged others more than they wronged me. @TheNatlInterest routinely stole copyrighted photographs and ran them, without paying, atop blog posts. The folks at @thewarzonewire were major victims of this. I frequently complained and often got shrugs in reply.
@TheNationalInterest also urged its writers to churn out more and more stories without offering more money, effectively turning many of us into laborers in a content sweatshop. Every tried writing four news stories in a single day? It's hard.
And then there were the headlines. @TheNationalInterest editors insisted on writing heds. That's normal. What's not normal is to introduce factual errors into stories by way of sloppy heds. Worse, many of the heds directly contradicted the stories below them.
The headline problem caused me levels of stress I hadn't experienced in a long time. And to be clear: I've been to war. A lot. Daily, I was terrified my name would hang on a story with an untrue hed. I spent hours explaining to readers that heds aren't the fault of the writer.
@TheNatlInterest refused to give me paid time off, even a single day, when my dad died, even though I warned them weeks in advance he was dying and they said they'd have my back. This broke my heart. I filed stories a few hours after my dad's funeral. I'm crying as I type this.
@TheNatlInterest in February 2020 asked me to refer them to writers who could handle the pop-culture beat. I said I could do it. I offered to do an extra two stories per week. After some back and forth, we agreed they'd be at the same pay rate as the military stories.
I had told @TheNatlInterest early on that the most important thing to me was getting paid on time. That builds trust. Trust girds a newsroom. In 2019 @TheNatlInterest was late paying me one time. They apologized and made right.
In mid-April reminded @TheNatlInterest that the end of the month was coming. That's when I would expect pay for work I did in March. April 30 came and went ... no pay.
I quit on the spot, citing the headline problem, the photo theft and the trust issue. A week later, I still haven't been paid. Maybe a check is in the mail and I get it in five minutes. Maybe it's not. That's why trust is important.
@TheNatlInterest told me they would not pay for the pop culture stories I wrote, claiming despite our conversation on the topic that I volunteered, in February, to write those for free. I did not. I have the emails to prove it.
Today I gave up negotiating with my former supervisors and called @TheNatlInterest, asking to speak to someone higher in the organization. I was told I'd receive a call shortly. The call never came.
I have informed @TheNatlInterest I will be filing a small claims in D.C. and registering my complaint with the district consumer department. No response from @TheNatlInterest. I am prepared to spend more money that I recoup if that's what it takes to get them to honor their word.
If they doubt my resolve, then they don't know who I am. The Taliban tried several times to kill me and failed. I got kidnapped by child soldiers in Chad. Fighting @TheNatlInterest is the right thing to do and I'll do it happily.
Here's the kicker. @TheNatlInterest could settle this whole mess by simply mailing my paychecks. And tacking on the roughly $1,800 they owe me for the pop-culture stories.
In other words, I now know the price of @TheNatlInterest's integrity and my own rage. It's about $1,800.
I have accepted a new job at Forbes.
I urge everyone not to read @TheNatlInterest.
Since this thread is such a success, I'll add a few more details. 1. It is policy at @TheNatlInterest to write about the "threat" from Iran even if Iran isn't doing anything threatening. 2. @TheNatlInterest thinks adding "deadly" to the headline guarantees a story will succeed.
End of conversation"
Source: https://twitter.com/daxe/status/1258159838225465346 
30 Apr 2020, 00:19
