JULIE WALMSLEY

Los Angeles City Hall was a finalist for this year's Black Hole Award, on my nomination . The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands took top prize. The runners up were the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee (second time in the Black Hole) and the Marshall County, Tennessee's Sheriff’s Office. You can read about all of the "winners" here .

My latest Freelance Toolbox column, and last from my seat as Secretary-Blogger for the Freelance Executive Committee, is now out. I will still contribute to the SPJ freelance community. The entire November-December issue of Quill is available for free here , and will be for about the next four weeks. After that it's reserved for SPJ members only, along with all archives. Andrew Seaman's ethics column is always good reading. Here, the second installment of my teachable moments doing digs as a freelancer -

The September-October issue of Quill, the magazine of the  Society of Professional Journalists , is out. For this installment of the Freelance Toolbox column, I wrote about ethical and legal fuzzy areas freelancers face when doing a dig. Short version: learn from my costly mistakes and do not submit a single word, or even discuss stories at length, without a cast-iron contract.

The July/August issue of Quill , the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists , is now out. My Freelance Toolbox column in this installment covered the advantages and disadvantages of coworking.