What to Do When Your Pitch Gets Stolen
By: Emily Popek
Tags: Unions, Writing, Freelance, Journalism, Pitching

In the 1985 young adult novel “I’ll Take Manhattan,” 15-year-old Amanda gets burned when she shares an idea with a powerful person who profits off it without her permission. Amanda quickly learns that she was naive to share her ideas with someone in her industry.

But if you’re a freelancer pitching a story to a publication, it’s not naive to share your idea — it’s simply how the industry works. And sadly, just as Amanda learned, getting taken advantage of can seem like just part of the business.

“You pitch a pub, they turn down your story, and then something really, really similar runs at the same publication in short order,” freelance writer Britni de la Cretaz explained.

“If you pitch an idea to a publication and they like the idea, but they don’t want you to write it, they might assign that idea to another writer,” National Writers’ Union vice president David Hill said. “It’s something that we hear about a lot, and it’s something that I personally deal with a lot as a freelancer myself. And we all scream bloody murder when it happens, but there’s very little we can do about it.”

“I’m so angry right now,” writer Nylah Burton wrote on Twitter in August. “I pitched five ideas (detailed pitches I worked on for a while) to an online publication and they turned them down. No biggie. That’s the business. This publication has now published 3/5 of my pitches. All written by other authors.”

As Hill suggests, Burton’s experience is by no means unique. Freelance writer Britni de la Cretaz described an almost identical scenario when she was applying for a job with a publication.

An organizer for the IWW’s Freelance Journalists Union, who spoke anonymously about this phenomenon, called it “something quite a few people have brought to our attention,” adding, “It’s difficult to address … because the evidence to suggest that something is outright ‘stolen’ is difficult to put together.”

This uncertainty, Burton said, is part of the frustration.

“I still don’t really know what happened,” Burton wrote in September via Twitter. “It could have been a coincidence, or part of the editorial process that I just don’t understand because I’m a new writer.”

Theft — or coincidence?

These coincidences, freelance journalist and editor S.I. Rosenbaum explained, do happen — and they can look very different outside the newsroom than within it.

“I had an experience where a friend pitched me a story …, and I told her ‘no,’” recalled Rosenbaum, whose career as a reporter and editor included stints at the Providence Journal, the St. Petersburg Times, the Boston Phoenix and Boston Magazine. “Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, another staff writer was pitching a similar story to another editor, and we ran it.

“There was no way I could prove to her that we didn’t take her pitch away from her,” Rosenbaum said, adding, “What probably would have been better practice would have been to say, ‘Let me see if anyone else wants it.’”

Keeping those lines of communication open is just what Jesse Hirsch, managing editor at The New Food Economy, said he tries to do.

Hirsch described a recent scenario in which a freelancer pitched a story very similar to one a staff writer was already working on.

“That felt awkward, because I had to say, ‘Look, I swear we aren’t stealing this from you, we already have someone working on this,’ and trust he would believe me,” Hirsch said.

But Hirsch acknowledged that “the line can be fuzzy.”

“We recently got a pitch on cell-based seafood that was fairly general, kind of a summary of where the technology stands now and how soon we can expect it on shelves,” Hirsch said. “We chose not to take it, but that is a pretty expansive topic, and I wouldn’t say that pitch prevents us from writing about it in the future.”

“Our ideas are maybe not as unique as we think they are,” writer Britni de la Cretaz agreed. As much as we may believe an idea has been stolen from us, she said, “I think it’s really hard to prove. You pitch a pub, they turn down your story, and then something really, really similar runs at the same publication in short order.”

Protecting an idea

So what can freelance writers do when they feel their ideas have been stolen? The IWW FJU has discussed the idea of “banking” pitches — creating a database for freelancers to store and register their pitches before sending them out.

This model, NWU Vice President David Hill points out, is similar to the Writers Guild of America’s Script Registration service, which allows script writers to “register” a script or treatment with the Guild before sending it out.

But, Hill said, “That works in their world because they have some industry density” — something both the NWU and the IWW FJU are trying to establish.

Some freelancers, like Nylah Burton, are fighting back individually — either by speaking out generally about the practice, or by naming and shaming publications or editors who have engaged in this practice.

“Freelancers need to know where they’re safe and where they aren’t,” S.I. Rosenbaum said. “And there should be repercussions from somebody stealing an idea or exploiting a freelancer.”

‘It can destroy careers’

But Britni de la Cretaz warns that speaking out in this fashion can be risky — especially without solid proof.

“I’m all for speaking truth to power, and standing up for the little guy, but when it comes to this particular thing, it’s a damaging allegation for both parties,” de la Cretaz said, adding, “It can destroy careers.”

Her advice? “Before you take to Twitter and accuse a publication of theft, reach out privately and try to see if you can figure out what happened.”

Doing so in one instance netted de la Cretaz a finder’s fee of $200 — far short of the thousands of dollars she could have earned by penning the $2-per-word story she had pitched, but still, in some ways, better than nothing.

If the publication doesn’t respond, or if their response is unsatisfactory, both the NWU and the FJU stand ready to intervene on behalf of freelancers.

“We have a whole division that handles grievances,” Hill explained. “We’ll reach out to publications and try to mediate.”

Know when to hold ’em

Barring that, Hill suggested that writers can take steps to make their pitches less ripe for poaching.

“The best thing for us to do is, when we think of a good idea, don’t run off and pitch it half-cocked,” Hill argued. “Do a little bit of work so that the pitch is something unique. Have a source, have a piece of information, something that the publication doesn’t have.

But de la Cretaz warned that this can be a fine line to tread.

“If you’re too specific in your initial pitch, and you give away all the info that somebody would need to write their own story, I think that’s a risk,” de la Cretaz said.

“Use your wiles. That’s all we’ve got.” — S.I. Rosenbaum

For S.I. Rosenbaum, this delicate balance is one of the frustrations of freelancing.

“As a staffer, you can say, ‘I want to do something about this broad topic,’ and have the editor say, ‘OK, go do it,’” Rosenbaum said. “As a freelancer, you’re essentially an unemployed person showing up to ask questions, right up until you get the contract.”

In the teen novel “I’ll Take Manhattan,” Amanda’s mix-up is easily smoothed over. But for those of us who are still in the trenches, finding our way in the media landscape can require us to be strong, determined and cunning.

“Use your wiles,” advises Rosenbaum, adding, “That’s all we’ve got.”