Our Freelancer Action Unit, an elite team of angry reporters, investigates publications that don't pay their freelancers. Got a gripe? Not getting paid? Drop a line!

Well, it's sad but it's true. At least one freelancer we know hasn't been paid by Time Out New York for pieces appearing since June; others haven't been paid since August at the weekly listings mag.

But!

Editor-in-chief Brian Farnham, who is extremely good-looking and very kind and also just wow, really good-looking, sent around a memo to the unpaid freelancers just a couple weeks ago!

From: Brian Farnham
Date: Sep 21, 2007
Subject: late payments

Greetings cherished freelancer!

If you're getting this you're one of a handful of writers waiting on a check — please let me apologize for the delay and assure you it IS coming. It's been a summer of accounting snafus here at TONY but
they're fixed now and the machine is just catching up with the backlog.

Having once freelanced myself I know how aggravating it is to do hard work and then not get paid promptly for it, so believe me when i say I appreciate your patience. Hopefully you enjoy writing for TONY as much as I love your writing, and I would hate for this to come between us.

Hang in there, and apologies again.

Best,

B

While it's not cash, this is the first time we've seen an editor-in-chief send around a note apologizing. So points for class on that. Or maybe we're just thinking of how hot he is still.... Wait a minute! No! Hotness is no excuse for late freelance payments! Bad Time Out, bad! Get it together before we come over there ourselves!