Freelancer Agreement

Last Updated on Feb. 20, 2021 by

Style guide standards

At Orato World Media Inc. (“Orato”), our editors abide by the AP Style Guide, same journalistic standards adhered to by the U.S. national, state, and regional news publications. The specifics of this style can be found in the AP Style Guide available online. In its simplest terms, this means that all work must include American spellings (color, labor, harbor, etc.) and capitalizations. In the event that a writer is unfamiliar with this style, our editors will work alongside them to ensure that articles abide by the same style.

Languages

Orato accepts well-written, non-fiction, first-person accounts of events and experiences from around the world, written in any language, provided we can also publish the story in English. Where possible, we will endeavor to have articles professionally translated, but cannot guarantee that these translations to or from English or another language will be entirely accurate. We intend to expand our translation offering when time, expertise and revenue allows.

Writer’s responsibilities

Writers who submit work for publication on Orato’s platform must perform veracity checks on their own work, and the interview subjects account of that event, take detailed notes, some of which to be included in the published material to provide context, background, and history, and recognize that editors at Orato verify the same if their work is selected for publication. If writers have any potential conflicts of interest, this must be disclosed to the editor when submitting work; not after. All writers must sign a freelance agreement stating that their work is factual. In addition, human sources must be named and contextualized. If an interview subject does not agree to be named in print, their name must be provided to the editor, and the article must provide a compelling explanation for requesting the source’s anonymity. Rather than including footnotes or endnotes, it is preferred that all citations are hyperlinked within the body of the article. Writers are asked to separate long pieces with appropriate subheadlines but should note that all final headlines and pull quotes are chosen by the editorial team at Orato.

You will work closely with your regional language editor or the managing editor to accurately capture the specifics of your story and to ensure it meets our standards and guidelines before a freelance agreement will be sent for signature and the story will be formally assigned.

Photographer’s responsibilities

All submitted photographs containing recognizable individuals must be submitted with a model release for each person. If possible, photographers are requested to verify that they are the original creator of the photograph.

Subject responsibilities

Subjects who are included in stories are expected to confirm their true identity and corroborate the story as needed. In addition to providing identification, subjects may be asked to provide additional sources for veracity checks. 

Grounds for being barred from Orato

In the event that a member participating on Orato’s platform is found to be acting in a way that is deceptive, misleading, disrespectful, inappropriate, or threatening to staff, writers, contributors, or other subscribers, Orato reserves the right to revoke a person’s subscription without notice. Orato also reserves the right to remove articles from its platform and bar writers from submission in the event that a writer or contributor is found to be in violation of our guidelines, has made a dishonest declaration, or has otherwise acted unlawfully with regard to content provided to Orato.

Remuneration guidelines

Orato compensates contributors for accepted stories, videos, audio recordings, or photography based on a number of factors, such as length of the story, quality of multimedia, relevance, as well as the current typical rates established from time to time by the market and our editorial team. Once established, analytics will be used to provide contributors with a generous percentage of the advertising revenues their specific stories have generated for the first 12 months after publication. Compensation for your material, if accepted and published, will be determined in advance with our editors.

Before submitting your work, please consider:

1. Orato and its staff abide by copyright laws. As such we expect that all submissions not be plagiarized.
2. Please ensure that your work is 100 per cent original and can be verified.
3. Please ensure that your work is written in the first-person and is a non-fiction-based narrative. If you are uncertain of how to write in the first person, there are many style guides available on this subject.
4. Understand that Orato cannot provide compensation for all work; only articles/content that is selected/commissioned by our editors for publication will be compensated for, at a rate negotiated in advance of the assignment of that first-person story and publication of that piece.
5. Please ensure that your work is free of discriminatory language, or content that is overtly gruesome, sexually explicit, or contains demeaning or derogatory content or that is disrespectful to others. Once your pitch is approved by an editor, discretion will be used to decide the final story and photo content.
6. If your work is not selected for publication, Orato will not keep your work on file nor share it with any third parties.
7. If your work is published and a third party is interested in republishing it, Orato will not resell it without your prior consent.

Our legal freelancer agreement is embedded below in a Scribd file for reference. If you have an accepted assignment with an editor and are looking for a DocuSign version, contact the editor.