Forum Post: Writers Wanted for OccupyWallSt.org!

OccupyWallSt.org is recruiting talented writers with professional experience and a deep commitment to social justice. We’re a revolutionary publication run by a small group of activists whose mission is to serve the global Occupy Movement by informing, educating, and agitating the general public into waging resistance. Founded on July 15th, 2012 by Justine Tunney, St.org is Occupy’s first and most trusted media outlet. Our website is read by over 200 thousand people per month, with an all-time record of 7 million last October. We also have the greatest social media presence within the movement, running a Facebook page with over 400k likes, a Twitter handle with 170k followers, and a mailing list with over 40k emails.

To grow the ideas and the strength of Occupy Wall Street, the movement needs two articles a day (at the least) to be written on this site. These articles should be authored from the writers and organizers of the movement. If you are not an activist, but think you have something to say about what is happening in the movement, check out Interoccupy and see what actions are upcoming. Write about one of those. If you are not an activist, we think you are not an activist, yet. We want articles to contextualize actions that are happening around the world, but we want to know about things happening in Lawrence, Kansas as much as what is happening at Wall Street, and in Europe.

If you want to write about an action, put it in the context of history. Tell the reader why this is not a new issue. Give it the spin of propaganda, make people angry, reference pop culture, make it sing on the page, and make it short. 500 words, max. If this is your first on the ground action that you are involved with, and you wound up on the outreach committee with a press release, but you think, “this could be something more.” You are the one we have been waiting for, seriously.

Best of all, we are going to pay you. $50 for every article we publish. We have a payroll company set up and pay on the 15th via direct deposit or any other method that you choose. That’s right, no hefty tax bill at the end of the year. No waiting for checks that arrive late, if all. Some would say that it is outside of the values of the movement to pay activists (or taxes) at all, those people are wrong. You need groceries, and we have the moral obligation to compensate the hard work of others on behalf of the movement. All of us need to focus on the job at hand, and the job is revolution against capitalist ideology, nothing else.

The team at the The Occupy Solidarity Network wants to see real world change happen in the next five years. If real world change has not happened, we will close our doors. Yup, that’s right, we are not looking to institutionalize anything, just give our best shot. Our best shot means that we are morally obligated to pay writers, we are morally obligated to support the most basic quality of life that the very hard working activists who work with us need and deserve.

Basic quality of life is what we are fighting to achieve, after all, isn’t it? We believe economic justice begins at home.

The one thing we do not believe in, is attribution on the site. If you want to post it to social media and claim bragging rights, fine, no worries. If you want us to verify your authorship to outside people for portfolio pieces, no problem. But this particular affinity group wishes for the communiques on the site to be seen as a glimpse into the hive mind of occupy instead of the personalized opinions of single persons. So all public attribution will be “OccupyWallSt.”

So that is it, are you in? Send us your best revolutionary thoughts, 500 words max with a gorgeous image. Don’t send us email asking for more specifics, these are the specifics, what you just read. Just send us the article in a google doc with the setting “anyone who has the link can edit” checked. Email writers@occupywallst.org with the link. If you need to familarize yourself with the sharing settings of Google Drive go to: http://bit.ly/TeDCM4