By Marisa Trevino
Dallas, TX – There are days that my life as a freelance writer can be summed up with five little words made famous by the deadpan comic Rodney Dangerfield: "I don't get no respect."
It's a sentiment that I've swallowed time and again while explaining why being my own boss, pursuing my own projects, setting up my schedule around family activities and having the liberty to choose who I want to work for is an even trade-off over a steady paycheck and a staff position.
The whole concept of being a freelancer revolves around having that kind of "freedom." Unfortunately, that same freedom can be used against freelance writers. A case in point is the current imprisonment of Houston freelancer Vanessa Leggett, the longest-jailed journalist in the history of the United States. Leggett is being jailed for refusing to give a federal grand jury her four-year stockpile of notes about a society slaying.
According to the judge, Leggett doesn't qualify as a freelance writer, and therefore can't evoke the privilege of special protection under the First Amendment, because she had never had anything published.
It would definitely strengthen her case if she could show proof of a prior publishing credit. But the fact that she was not published should not diminish her claims to being a freelance writer, if she adhered to two principles: always identified herself as a freelance writer, and self-imposed journalistic ethics upon her conduct when interviewing, researching and writing.
By all accounts, Leggett has done both. And that's why she finds herself facing down a legal system that wants to take advantage of the material she has uncovered with the use of her journalistic skills. With each passing day behind bars, the courts are unwittingly giving Leggett the credibility she's so long sought and which they've ruled she does not have. Whether the court knows it or not, they are already endorsing the fact that Leggett is a journalist simply by attaching such importance to her findings. Also, the single point that was the court's foundation for their argument is now moot - Leggett has joined the ranks of published authors, in Newsweek, no less. It's because of the court's very denial of her release that Leggett was able to score a byline in the weekly newsmagazine.
And because of the court's stubbornness, journalist associations and newspapers across the country have filed legal briefs on her behalf and have claimed her as a bona fide member of our ranks. There is only one thing left for the court to do to have Leggett fulfill the freelance definition - free her.
Marisa Trevino is a writer from Rowlett.