Freelancing in Flemish News Media and Entrepreneurial Skills as Pivotal Elements in Job Satisfaction

This article is concerned with a segment of journalists often neglected or marginalized in journalism research: freelance journalists. The most recent large-scale survey among professional journalists in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, shows that one in five journalists is a freelancer. Only half of this group is satisfied with their job against 93 per cent of contractually employed journalists. Seen from this perspective, Flanders does not appear to be a very fertile ground for entrepreneurial journalism. Drawing on the database of the Flemish Union for Journalists (VVJ), we conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with a group of freelancers built around three main research questions: (1) What are considered the advantages and disadvantages of working as a freelancer in Flanders? (2) How satisfied are freelancers in Flanders with their work and lives, and what are the reasons for their satisfaction/dissatisfaction? (3) What are the preconditions to make entrepreneurial journalism a success in Flanders? Our results show that there is no “fixed” list of advantages and disadvantages as most features of freelance work (e.g. flexibility in working hours and assignments) can be considered as either or both.