Here’s a curated list of the best freelance journalism jobs from around the web, for the week of May 29. All jobs pay a minimum of $1 a word, or offer a fantastic byline opportunity for those looking to get a chance at a top-tier outlet with name recognition. These are all listed as remote and can be done (in theory) from anywhere. Be sure to check the listings for details.
I update these daily, and the newest jobs will be included at the top of the list under each heading.
Inclusion does not equal endorsement.
Apply to these gigs through the provided links.
The new list for the week will come out every Wednesday.
ABOUT ABIGAIL BASSETT & WHY SHE CHOSE THESE JOBS
Abigail Bassett is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist with more than 15 years of varied experience under her belt. She spent ten years as a senior producer at CNN in New York, and has been running CNTRL Media, LLC, since 2014, when she began her freelance journalism career. Abigail is also a skilled moderator, on-air and podcasting host with credits and appearances at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival, SXSW, the JBL Fest, Reuters Automotive Events, Electrify Expo and other top-tier, household name events and publications.
The content below has been curated by Abigail and she digs up these gigs on everything from Twitter and LinkedIn to FlexJobs and Indeed because she believes in two tenets:
1. Experienced freelance journalists should be paid a fair wage for their work.
2. Freelancers need to stick together and help each other out.
The first portion of the job description has been copied and pasted into the post and the direct application link is included. Readers will need to forgive the shifts in pronouns/tenses, throughout, as these are the original job postings.
More of Abigail’s journalism work including her bylines with Elle Magazine, Travel & Leisure, TechCrunch, Fortune, Forbes, Maxim, Car & Driver and more, at her portfolio site at abigailbassett.com. She has weathered the ups and downs in the economy and her freelance business continues to grow and thrive. Follow her on LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky, or Instagram to find out more about her current assignments. And yes, she does apply for a lot of these jobs (in case you’re wondering). But mostly, she just wants to make the world a little bit better for journalists trying to make a living in the age of AI. (More on that soon…) She is available for commissions, so reach out!
Freelance Journalism Jobs
The Verge is Looking for an AI Writer (temp to full time)
DETAILS: You’ll help drive our coverage around artificial intelligence. As Hollywood grinds to a halt, the US stock market stalls, and seemingly every company, tech or otherwise, races to adopt language models and image generators, AI has become one of the most important beats of 2023. You’ll break down the biggest AI concepts for our readers, deploy a healthy dose of skepticism to puncture excessive hype, and explore the ethics of this technology as well as the extraordinary outcomes it engenders. You’ll work closely with our tech and policy editors to cover AI and the way it’s transforming our world.
Digital Trends is Seeking a Freelance Travel Writer
DETAILS: The Manual editorial team is currently seeking freelance writers for the Travel category
You should be team-oriented with exceptional organizational skills and a self-starter mentality. You must be able to work within our tech-centric platforms, possess a willingness to continually learn, adapt to a changing environment as editorial needs change, and step in where help is needed. Prior experience with WordPress is a must-have trait.
Great candidates can manage multiple assignments/tasks in a structured environment without missing deadlines.
Each month, you will be assigned evergreen content which is optimized to rank for SEO. Writers are also encouraged to pitch content!
(*Editor note: No rates have been posted, but Digital Trends is a well-known publication that could be a valuable byline if you’re looking to jump verticals or try something new)
Science is looking for freelance pitches
DETAILS: Are you a freelance journalist with a hot scoop or juicy scandal, a compelling profile of a scientist, or an original take on a science policy issue? If so, bring it to the award-winning News department of Science, the flagship research journal from the world’s largest general science society. We’re eager to break news and tell stories that no other science journalist has found. Here are some things you should know before pitching a story to us. The editors and writers of the News department are professional journalists and produce much of our news content. But we have plenty of appetite for freelance contributions—everything from 140-word news briefs to 2500-word features to investigative projects. About half of our online-only stories and a quarter of the stories in the weekly print issue are either assigned to freelancers we like working with or are pitched by freelancers.
Because we receive all the big press releases and embargoed information from major journals (Science, Nature, PNAS, etc.), you will have very little luck successfully pitching a study from these. Our biggest piece of advice for selling us on a straight research story is this: Pitch us hidden gems.
Note that we don’t take stories from academic researchers, company representatives, or public information officers wishing to promote their institutions. Freelance writers should also disclose any potential conflicts of interest when they pitch a story, whether it be a personal relationship with the subject or key source of a story or previous work for the institution that would be written about. If you currently pen press releases for a university, we won’t let you write about them, but if you did a feature for a school magazine a year ago and nothing since, we likely will. Just be transparent with us.
Science covers news in all areas of science, from geology to genetics, as well as science policy and issues important to the scientific community, such as science, technology, engineering, and math education and sexual harassment. We make it a priority to include women and people of color as quoted sources in our work to capture a range of perspectives. In print we publish news briefs, longer news analysis and trends stories, and features. Online, where we publish multiple daily stories, we focus on breaking news, though we are also interested in enterprise stories—that is, stories not tied to press releases, such as explainers on trending news and Q&As with interesting researchers.
For most stories pay is per word, with rate depending on experience. Our rates begin at $0.75 per word for online-only stories and $1.25 per word for print-only stories. For certain types of stories, we pay a flat rate negotiated in advance—a typical online Q&A, for example, is $500. We cover travel expenses if agreed upon in advance and pay for reporting by the hour under certain circumstances.
See more Science Guidelines (and who to pitch) here.
Kiplinger is seeking Freelance Financial Journalists
DETAILS: The team at Kiplinger.com is looking for experienced Freelance Financial Writers to join our growing network of contributors. Kiplinger is the leader in personal finance news and business reporting. It’s the go-to destination for personal finance information in the US. This is a fully-remote, freelance, independent contractor position. As a freelance writer for Kiplinger.com, you will work with the Editorial team to create and update engaging, informative news and features on a range of finance topics including saving money, careers, energy costs, real estate, credit and savings, travel and shopping deals plus much more.
Job Responsibilities and Requirements
Available for a minimum of 2 days per week (hours are flexible)
Write, update or repurpose a minimum of 4 short-form/ articles per week or repurpose a minimum of 2 long-form articles.
Apply feedback as provided by the editorial team
Upload work to our in-house CMS according to our style guidelines
Fact-checking, formatting, linking and incorporating basic SEO best practices into your writing
Relevant experience in writing and editing in the finance language
Ability to break down complex topics in a clear, digestible way.
Application Requirements
Resume
3+ articles you’ve written that demonstrate your writing abilities
New Scientist is Looking for Christmas Pitches
DETAILS: It’s beginning to look at lot like Christmas… well, it is in the vicinity of the New Scientist features desk anyway. Around this time every year, we start thinking about our holiday issue, a double-length magazine that is packed with about 15 features and comes out at the end of December. Commissioning stories for this issue is one of the things I most enjoy about my job because we’re looking for something a little bit different from the usual stuff. We are still looking for science and technology, but we want the issue to be a little more light-hearted, quirkier, and generally to be a wonderfully diverting thing to read as people relax over the festive period.
We rely heavily on freelancers to write our features and so I wanted to set out in some detail the kinds of stories we are looking for. If you have an idea, now is the time to pitch it — that is, ideally by the first couple of weeks of June 2023. Here’s some more detail that should help you.
What makes a Christmas feature?
New Scientist is a magazine about science and technology, but for this issue we want to write about these topics in a less serious, more quirky. It’s worth saying, however, that our stories still need some new science (the clue is in our name…); we’re not going to do just a general explainer on the science of chocolate or reindeer or eggnog. We need to be a bit cleverer than that. (Take reindeer for example — last year we did a piece all about our new understanding of why their eyes change colour. That’s the kid of smart twist that a Christmas feature needs.)
The typical length for a Christmas feature is 1200 words, though they certainly can be longer. Here is my best stab at the categories we often like to hit…
Stories about animals doing amusing things (see “Monkeys sail the high seas”)
Stories about food (see “the secret life of cheese”)
Stories about booze (see “cocktails made via flavour pairing theory”)
A hilarious stunt of some sort, often involving food or booze (see the classic “Can I eat myself drunk?”)
Histories — that is, stories that retell some forgotten tale from the history of science, ideally with some relevance to what’s happening today. (See How crooks stalled the birth of the electric car 100 years ago).
Something for the physics crowd with a fun, festive twist (see “Quantum board games”)
Stories about something that has a connection to Christmas (let your imagination run wild here — it could be anything from Christmas carols to poinsettia or from snowflakes to stars and present-giving. Some of the topics we have covered recently are kindness, arguments round the dinner table and even watching TV.)
A quiz or two. (See “Packham’s poo picture puzzle”).
Other stuff that somehow “feels right” as a Christmas story. For instance, last year we did a piece asking what aliens would think of us from the messages we have sent into space.
This is probably not an exhaustive list. It is also worth checking the list of all the stories in our Christmas issues from the past few years, which you can do here:
2022: https://www.newscientist.com/issue/3417/
2021: https://www.newscientist.com/issue/3365/
2020: https://www.newscientist.com/issue/3313/
2019: https://www.newscientist.com/issue/3261/
How do I suggest an idea?
Unless you already happen to have a working relationship with another feature editor at New Scientist, please send them to me at joshua.howgego@newscientist.com. Ideally, you would send a pitch of about three paragraphs explaining the headline idea and giving us some idea of where the story will go as it develops. But if you have a kernel of an idea and want to just send a few lines, at this point, that’s fine too — if I like it, I can help you develop the pitch. (If you want more advice about what form a pitch should take, try having a look at this guide I wrote a while ago.)
How much will I get paid?
That depends on a number of factors. But as a rough guide, the amount we would pay for a 1200 word feature would start at about £620.
What happens next?
We decide on the features to commission for Christmas sometime in mid-June (exact date tbc). If you pitch us an idea, I will let you know whether we’d like to commission it once those decisions have been taken. If you’re successful, we’ll have a detailed conversation about the story at that point.
Post Script Media is Looking to Build its Roster of Freelancers
DETAILS: It’s day one of my new role as an editor at Post Script Media!
I’ll be continuing to cover climate and deep tech, initially in the form of a newsletter and ultimately via a news site set to launch later this year. Sign-ups for the former will be open soon, stay tuned 🙂
Our first area of focus? The intersection of climate and artificial intelligence. This is something I dabbled in at Protocol (see below), and I’m excited to immerse myself more deeply.
This also means I’m looking to build up our freelance roster — feel free to email lisa@postscriptmedia.com if you’re a reporter interested in writing on these topics.
Edible Brooklyn & Manhattan are looking for local freelancers
Hey, Brooklyn-based freelancers! Edible Brooklyn/Edible Manhattan is looking to beef up its roster of writers. Specifically, we’re looking for stories about: people in the food/bev/ag space who are working toward a better future, up-and-coming bars and the people behind them, cool pop-ups to watch for, and emerging voices on the restaurant or cooking scene. Got a pitch? Sling it on over to me at sexton@ediblemanhattangroup.com — thanks!
Hit up Julia Sexton via the email above.
Reader’s Digest is seeking Freelance Tech Reporters
DETAILS: I’m looking for a freelance writer for Reader’s Digest who is a tech expert—either many years writing about personal tech or you have qualifications in the tech field! Email me with your current rates and relevant samples! stephanie.hope@tmbi.com
RideApart is looking for Motorcycle Journalists
Freelance Editor Jobs
Axios is looking for a Part-Time Copy Editor
DETAILS: Quick take: Axios is a growth-stage startup dedicated to providing trustworthy, award-winning news content in an audience-first format. We’re hiring a part-time copy editor!
Why it matters: We are recruiting experienced copy editors to help shape, structure, and edit Axios newsletters and news stories as needed. You will maintain Axios style and voice, ensuring Smart Brevity in all content. You will work with reporters to offer comments and suggestions to improve their news and strengthen their abilities. Many of these newsletters are in the early morning hours.
Details: Ideal candidates will embody an entrepreneurial spirit, have a passion for Axios’ mission, and display the following skills… (see more at the link above)
MindBodyGreen is Seeking a Freelance Relationships Editor
DETAILS: We are currently in search of a Freelance Love & Relationships Editor to join our editorial team. You will work closely with our editorial operations manager and executive editor to support the growth of the relationships sections. This is an independent contractor role, which can be done asyncronously or you can be a part of the team and attend meetings. This position is a two month role to start. We will re-evaluate in mid-June. This is an editor role, but there is some writing expected. Please reference our current love and relationships sections before applying.
Artnet is looking for a Freelance Part-Time Contract News Editor
The Contract News Editor will be tasked with expanding our coverage of the places where art meets other parts of the cultural sphere—archaeology, pop culture, science and tech, celebrity, entertainment, and more. A successful candidate will have both a broad grasp of the tectonic shifts taking place in culture and a firm grip on the rhythms and whims of trending topics online. The person will assign and edit stories according to our fast-paced publishing schedule while making sure every story meets Artnet News’s standards of accuracy, legibility, and insight.
This is a remote working position and you will be reporting to the Global News Editor of Artnet News, headquartered in our London office, working with the editorial team in New York, Berlin, and our wider global network.
Freelance Content & Commerce Jobs
Full-Time Journalism Jobs
The Drive is Seeking a News Editor
USA Today is looking for a Staff Writer at For The Win
DETAILS: For The Win, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, is seeking a qualified candidate to serve as a leading voice for USA TODAY’s social sports website, For The Win.
The candidate should feel comfortable at the intersection of sports and internet and ready to react to the day’s news with a mixture of blog posts, columns, listicles, photo galleries and other story formats. A digital native, the candidate would constantly be exploring new ways to share content with our audience, both on platform and off.
We want someone who can be creative, write in a conversational style and deliver sharp headlines. SEO experience and a strong social media presence are a plus.
While expertise in one sport is great, we want someone who is interested in a little bit of everything and doesn’t fear writing on a variety of topics. The position demands initiative, accuracy, urgency and insight, as well as the ability to identify stories that fit our audience. Quick writing and reporting skills are crucial.
This person can juggle a high volume of stories on a daily basis with aplomb while optimizing each post for a digital audience.
This role can work remote from any US state, except for Alaska and Hawaii.
Wirecutter is looking for a Software Reviewer
DETAILS: Wirecutter is seeking a senior staff writer to write how-to pieces, explainers, and guides on software platforms, settings, and apps that help readers get more utility out of the devices they own. The ideal candidate will have experience covering tech software and apps for a general audience, as well as privacy and security topics. The senior staff writer will also take on testing and reporting for Wirecutter’s review coverage of VPNs, password managers, and two-factor authentication apps, among other assignments. You will report to the senior editor heading up an editorial team that focuses on computing more broadly, including laptops, smartphones, and computing accessories, and will often work on content that crosses categories.Experience covering consumer technology at a major media outlet is required. You will be closely attuned to the consumer tech news cycle as it pertains to software updates and new app features.This role can be based in our Long Island City, New York office with the option to be fully remote.
Insider is seeking Displaced Journalists for a Fellowship
DETAILS: Insider is seeking a journalist who has recently been displaced due to humanitarian reasons for a one-year, mid-career reporting fellowship.
Our mission is to inform and inspire the digital generation and become the most influential and loved journalism company. At Insider, we aim to cover the people, companies, and ideas changing our world. Our team members embody and uphold Insider’s three core values: we are all one team, we are effective, and we strive to get better every day.
The Role & Team:
We recognize that many journalists are forced to flee their home country for reasons of personal safety. We seek someone who has settled in the United States within the past two years and seeks to continue in their pursuit of accuracy and truth here at Insider. We believe this position will strengthen our newsroom with a diverse voice and perspective.
This is a mid-career fellowship for journalists with experience doing in-depth research and reporting. The journalist will work in our digital newsroom. Candidates should have at least 3-5 years of experience in journalism and be eager to develop our style and expand our areas of coverage. Applicants should be able to demonstrate the ability to pitch diverse stories, gain unusual access, find original characters, write solid copy, and craft visual videos (if applying for video). By the end of their fellowship, fellows will become experts in digital storytelling; produce work that is distributed to our audience of millions; receive training to sharpen their digital journalism skills.
Forbes is Looking For Lifestyle Assistant Editors and Contributors
DETAILS: Forbes believes in the power of entrepreneurial capitalism and uses it on various platforms to ignite the conversations that drive systemic change in business, culture and society. We celebrate success and are committed to using our megaphone to drive diversity, equity and inclusion.
The Assistant Editor, Contributors – Lifestyle, will help train some of our 2,500 outside writers to ensure that they consistently produce high-quality digital journalism on the beats most important to Forbes and its readers. This editor will report to the Senior Editor, Contributors, and will work across newsroom departments and in collaboration with Product, Video, Social, Audience Development and Newsletter teams to help attract new readers.
In addition to working with our Lifestyle, Art, Luxury, and Travel contributors, this editor will also work with colleagues to support and train contributors to ensure that all are following best practices for ethical journalism, audience development, multimedia formats, and other areas for growth.
Self Magazine is Looking For Commerce Writers
DETAILS: Condé Nast is seeking a Commerce Writer to craft unique and compelling shopping-focused content for SELF.
The ideal candidate will be passionate about executing affiliate content across SELF’s verticals—from sourcing the best deals on a tried-and-true wellness product to tracking new fitness and health launches that our readers will be excited about. They will have strong background in product journalism and should be skilled at positioning a story to both attract an audience and drive purchase.
The Commerce Writer will also be comfortable optimizing all our shopping content for both affiliate and SEO, and analyzing traffic and conversion results from past content to make recommendations for future stories, as well as brainstorming new ways to engage our audience around commerce-driven stories on all our digital platforms.
Big Think is looking for a Business Writer
DETAILS: Big Think is a new media publisher exploring the world’s biggest questions with the world’s biggest thinkers. We release short-form interview videos with academics, researchers, scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, and activists who are grappling with the world’s biggest and most interesting questions.
Big Think and our e-Learning platform, Big Think+, are part of Freethink Media, a platform for people and ideas that are changing the world. Across our two flagship sites, Freethink and Big Think, we publish over 50 new articles and short documentaries every week to a community of more than 13 million followers and subscribers.
Watch this video to see what we’re all about: http://www.freethink.com/about/careers
What You’ll Do
Write – Users visit Big Think to watch captivating videos and read smart articles. Your primary job will be to write those smart articles.
Learn – While your job will mostly entail writing about business, we want you to learn and become comfortable with writing about adjacent fields. (We define “business” broadly to include not just economics and finance but business strategy, workplace psychology, leadership, management, career self-improvement, etc.)
Collaborate – The editorial team doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Success is truly a company-wide effort. So part of the job involves collaborating with our talented colleagues — video producers, publishers, and sales.
Assist – Your job also will include performing other related duties assigned by the Business Editor and other senior editors.
The Knot Worldwide (yes that Knot) is seeking an Editorial Director
DETAILS: Here at The Knot Worldwide, we believe in doing work that matters. In more than 16 countries around the world, The Knot Worldwide’s leading family of brands—including The Knot, WeddingWire, Bodas, The Bash, The Bump, and more—help people take celebration planning from inspiration to action. When you join our global team, you’ll be a part of a diverse group of individuals passionate about serving and enabling our communities to celebrate the moments that make us.
The Knot is looking for a seasoned Creative Director, Editorial to join our Editorial Team to lead creative strategy and execution across our site, social networks and magazine. Reporting directly to our Head of Global Editorial, this hands-on role is suited for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment, embraces innovation and inspires the team to create their best work. A visual storyteller, collaborator, and leader, this candidate will produce a variety of editorial content that elevates our brand identity and drives engagement across platforms. Please provide your portfolio link in the application.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is Looking for a Staff Writer
DETAILS: The Staff Writer composes engaging copy for the Center’s multiple audiences to support the organization’s programmatic and institutional goals. They work in a collaborative environment to produce narrative feature stories, enterprise stories that uncover the forces shaping news events, news stories, press releases, commentary pieces, policy reports, blogs, newsletters, fact sheets and other written communications, both print and electronic.
S&P Global is Seeking a Senior Editor
The Content Management Specialist is responsible for editorial support of S&P Global Market Intelligence content. Your work will ensure articles are clear, concise, complete, and correct. The ability to work quickly and accurately under pressure is essential. This position works in conjunction with other content editors, desktop publishers, and designers as part of a global editorial and publishing team.
Inc. Magazine is Looking For a Business Reporter
DETAILS: Reporters are responsible for generating, pitching, reporting, and writing news and short-form stories for the print and/or digital platforms; they accept daily assignments from editors; they are expected to offer insight, perspective, and sources on their areas of subject matter expertise to fellow editorial team members and supervising editors; and they are encouraged to moderate or host discussions at Inc. editorial conferences. Reporters are encouraged to pitch or accept assignments to write and report major feature stories for Inc.’s digital and print platforms. A keen interest in business and entrepreneurship and the unique experiences of founders and owners is required.
This position is represented by the Inc. and Fast Company union the Writers Guild of America-East.
XPrize is seeking a Director of Content
DETAILS: We are seeking an experienced video and content leader to oversee the XPRIZE content and community team. This role will be responsible for overseeing XPRIZE content output across all owned and operated social content platforms, newsletters, blogs, and emerging content platforms as needed. This individual is accountable for the successful content production of all in-house properties and to help define and deliver a strategy across all of XPRIZE owned and operated content distribution platforms, working with other XPRIZE leadership.
The person in this position also oversees production management to ensure all content resources are maximized in the most efficient way possible, providing the optimal production solution from a cost management perspective.
The Director, Content, must have a depth of experience in content production, across multiple formats including video, podcasting, and written as well as a keen ability to lead & inspire a talented creative team that produces and publishes best-in-class multi-format and multi-platform content.
The Director upholds the XPRIZE brand voice and tone and ensures that all content adheres editorially to our brand. This individual must incubate fresh ideas from across the organization, be willing to test and pivot quickly, all while using inspiration from our current community. This candidate must possess a high lev hiel of creativity and resourcefulness with a strong interest in science, technology, and emerging content platforms.
The individual is nimble and welcomes the continuing evolution of our digital media industry, while motivating those around them to do the same. With an exceptional production background and strong portfolio to prove their visual storytelling successes, the best person for this role is curious and a creative self-starter who works collaboratively with others, is highly organized, and has an eye for developing STEM-focused content that will resonate with our target communities.
This leadership position reports to the VP, Content & Community at XPRIZE
The Pulitzer Center is Looking for Journalists to Join the Ocean Reporting Network
The Pulitzer Center, a global organization that supports independent, innovative journalism, is now accepting applications for its new Ocean Reporting Network (ORN).
Inspired by the model of collaborative environmental journalism created by the Pulitzer Center’s rainforest initiatives, the Ocean Reporting Network will support at least eight full-time Fellows around the world. We are especially committed to empowering diverse communities of journalists in the Global South.
The Ocean Reporting Fellows will work on individual and collaborative reporting projects to systematically probe the drivers of the degradation of our marine environment, as well as the socioeconomic impacts. They will have the support of a team of experienced editors at the Pulitzer Center, including a dedicated ocean editor, a research editor, and a data editor. We also support our Fellows on storytelling and audience engagement to help their stories reach targeted audiences and maximize impact.
