Getting Ink

Did the journalist die out in 2009?

Most journalists have that experience of telling someone at a party that they're a journalist, only to be met with the hilarious riposte: "ooh, better be careful what we say, eh?" Ho flippin' ho.

Except I'm not sure how many journalists I actually know these days - at least in the sense I understood journalism back when I started out.

One of my former editors has given up B2B journalism in favour of publishing sponsored supplements for CIOs. Another former editor from Emap now commissions me for a website about the use of technology in the NHS - the website is sponsored by a vendor. Another former commissioning ed from a national now commissions me for articles in the national press - but they're supplements paid for by major IT vendors.

I write for a couple of magazines published by professional associations, one magazine published by a University, another published by a government department - but at the moment, I only have one regular client that involves actual, independent journalism (insofar as any business journalism is ever independent of course). 

The remainder of my work is split pretty evenly between writing white papers, websites, blogs and other commercial content and taking on PR clients - at the moment I do PR for a women's development social enterprise, for a pre-school activity provider and an acupuncture clinic. Through my PR work, I started a parenting blog and that's translated into a couple of writing gigs and some fiming work  - on websites owned by a travel company and a major consumer brand. I've also expanded my training to include blogs and social media as well as mainstream media.

Honestly, these days when someone asks me at a party what I do for a living I'm more inclined to say that I'm a "writer" than a journalist - it somehow feels more honest. Is it just me? Are there any bona fide freelance journalists still out there?

Confessions of a former Mac person: hating the iPhone

So, I might as well just put it out there: I think the iPhone is over-rated. I know. And me, a Mac person. How did this happen?

I’ve been given the opportunity to test (responsible blogger disclosure: freebies) two mobile handsets this month.

One of the handsets was an iPhone. And I hated it. I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t cope with the on-screen keyboard, I spent too much time deleting messages because of typos, and I found the menu really counter-intuitive – sure I could read the manual, but let’s be honest, I’m just not a manual sort of person.

The other handset was a Samsung Windows Mobile smart phone that Vodafone sent me after I complained my old phone couldn’t really access email on the move. As a Mac person, I had some profound reservations about using anything with a Windows element – in fact, the PR promised me I could switch for a BlackBerry after a month if I really hated the Samsung.

It turns out, I’m keeping the Samsung. It’s nice and robust, the keyboard is infinitely more usable than the iPhone, and the email is a cinch. The phone was new but for some reason the manual was missing - but I've worked out how to use everything I need to. Result! And I’ve been to London twice this month and didn’t need to take a laptop, because the phone gave me fast access to email all day, with a decent screen, and the high-speed connection also meant I could check in on Twitter, too. 

Of course, being me, mobile technology has turned out to be extra useful. So, on Sunday, I was looking after my daughter and nephew when I locked us out of the house. Through the miracle of mobile technology, I could Google for a locksmith, phone him and then decamp to the park and ask the locksmith to text me when he arrived.

Honestly, don’t know how I lived without it. So I can't do the cool iPhone app where you download a picture of a pint of beer and tip it from side to side, but I think I'll live.

Spiked!

By all accounts today was A Good Day.

I managed to post the latest index of the top 100 British Parent Blogs and nothing broke. I tracked down an elusive interviewee, my acupuncture client aproved his new website with only TWO changes, and I confirmed trips to Athens and Legoland. After lunch, a new client confirmed they want to film me for their new website. Then I had a great conversation with a new potential PR client - a really lovely pre-school activity group. I got offered a really interesting opportunity with a TV production company, and sorted out a Halloween costume review special for the Great Toy Guide. 

Despite this, I feel rubbish. Right at the end of the day I got an email from an editor telling me she'd spiked the story I filed because I'd completely missed out several crucial details about the product. I'd ignored them, thinking they weren't interesting, the editor didn't agree. And the editor is always right.

I'll be honest - it really pisses me off when I don't deliver good copy for a client. And it bruises my ego to think what I produced wasn't even usable - ouch. So I've brooded for a couple of hours, kicked myself repeatedly, gone over my notes to try and work out how I missed the angle, and then emailed the editor to apologise and offer to make amendments if I can.

I've been a journalist for 10 years and I often tell newbies that tough feedback and criticism is all part of the job. But it doesn't make it any easier when it's my copy on the spike. It's still a real kick up the backside to do better tomorrow. Which I suppose is no bad thing.

So You Want to be a Journalist? Read This First.

Apparently, more people than ever are applying for university in the recession – and media studies and journalism are among the most popular courses. Apparently, people think being a journalist is pretty cool.

I’m not going to disagree – personally, I love my job and can’t imagine changing it – but journalism isn’t a career to go into with your eyes closed. Be aware of the potential issues you’ll face, the key skills that employers might need from you; think about how you’ll survive freelance if a job can’t be found; and how will you pay the bills – because as any journalist will tell you, the actual doing of journalism only accounts for half your time – the rest of it is book-keeping and chasing invoices, usually over and over again.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been bookmarking posts that I think are particularly useful for anyone coming into journalism, and here are 10 that I think are most worth reading:

1. Survival Tactics for Dinosaurs. Dave Lee has made some interesting arguments over the last couple of years about journalists being unable to survive without good, strong multimedia skills. I’d disagree to an extent – I think there’s always a place for a small proportion of the media to remain strong specialists in one discipline, and I also think diversification needn’t just be across different technologies – lots of print journalists will survive by diversifying into PR, copywriting and consulting, for example. But the post is still well worth a read and makes some great points. (Note: Dave’s original article is no longer linked to, but he might be able to dig it out – Dave?)
2. If freelancing is your career for any period of time, you too will experience the very special joy that is trying to get paid. It’s tempting as a freelancer to see that juicy £1,000 commission as money in the bank almost. Many’s the time I’ve thought, “Oh brilliant, that’s covered next month’s mortgage” only to kick myself the next month when I haven’t been paid and the accounts department has gone AWOL. Wordsmith, a marvellously stroppy freelancer who doesn’t stand for any nonsense on this front, has some of the best advice I’ve ever read here.
3. If you’re new to the media, one of the greatest things you can do to further your career is get a work experience placement. Here are Joanne Mallon's 10 Commandments for making the most of it once you’re there. Joanne is an experienced journalist and coach, and has some great advice on her blog for anyone moving into a media career - have a browse while you're there.
4. Charles Arthur, who works on the Guardian’s Technology beat, has some fantastic advice here on how journalism newbies can uncover stories and investigate hidden trends if they learn how to exploit the mountain of data that’s available to them. I wasn’t completely convinced when I first read this post, but these days, I think I’m a total convert – every bit of code I’ve learned has paid dividends.
5. Don’t under-estimate how much journalists work. Sure, State of Play is all about being out and about meeting bad guys, and Carrie in Sex and the City seems to just faff around on her laptop every couple of days, but in the real world? Bit different. Check out this post from experienced journalist Kim Thomas on the reality of being a jobbing journalist
6. Most of the writing we do these days will end up online – even if it’s also appearing elsewhere. With SEO guidelines at the top of many publisher’s wish-lists, writers who understand how to use SEO effectively without turning their copy into gibberish will have a head start. I really like these guidelines from Jakob Nielsen on web headlines – he reckons the BBC gets this completely right.
7. What you think is important doesn’t matter. It’s what the reader thinks is important that matters. So often ignored in journalism where ego can blind people to the readers’ wishes, and the media pool so often ends up only listening to its own point of view. A point beautifully made by A Recovering Journalist in this post.
8. You’re never that good a writer that you can’t improve. Unless, presumably, you’re Giles Coren, but that’s another story. I really enjoy Matthew Stibbe’s blog, which mostly looks at copywriting but much of his advice also applies to journalism. I was particularly inspired by this post on writing tools available online, and have tried the concentration timer to pretty good effect myself. More here.
9. Copyright still exists on the web. Now we’re all working in a multimedia world, NOTHING annoys professional hacks more than people assuming that because it’s online, it must be free. No, it’s not. If you use someone’s words or images without attribution and consent, that’s theft. Luckily, there are LOADS of ways to get great images online, handily listed by Nick Saalfeld here. 
10. Think about what sort of journalism world you’re graduating into. It’s not going to the the journalism world of 10 years ago; maybe not even the journalism world of one year ago. If you want some great insights into what the future might look like, I recommend tracking Tom Foremski, starting with this post on reinventing reporters.

A New Blog Venture: Who's the Mummy?

Regular readers will know that I've been working a lot this year with parenting companies and Mummy bloggers on various projects - and that I've created the tots100 index of UK parenting blogs.

I've now decided it's time to set up a new blog covering my work in that sector, as well as providing me with a place to share some of my own experiences and trials in the parenting arena. So today I've launched Who's the Mummy? It's still a bit bare and new, but I'd be delighted if you'd pop over and say hello, add us to your blogrolls and that sort of thing.

Thanks

Sally

Breaking up is hard to do.

There’s an old gag in freelance journalism circles, about what does a  lifestyle freelancer say if he’s asked to write about nuclear fission. The answer: “Sure, when do you need it by?”

Turning down work is a counter-intuitive thing for most freelancers – so it’s hardly surprising that after 10 years, I’ve never resigned a client or turned down a commission.

But this month, I resigned a client for the first time. It felt like a real watershed moment. I had good reasons for walking away: the client’s expectations sadly didn’t match the available budget, and there were internal conflicts in the company that made my job unnecessarily difficult. It was a great job and a reasonable client, but it just reached the point where the cons outweighed the pros.

However, it’d be fair to say the ending of the client relationship didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped. I used all my best “wish you the very best in future” and “it’s been a pleasure” lines that I used to stick in resignation letters, but to no avail: I have a strong suspicion that the now ex-client is probably sticking pins in a plasticine model of me about now.

So, here’s what I ask of those people with more experience than me in such matters – how do you walk away from a client without creating a nuclear detonation? Have you ever inadvertently got it wrong?

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (contd)

It's been a while since I blogged, partly because I'm struggling to feel interested in journalism at the moment - everyone just seems so pessimistic and down about everything that I am avoiding talking to other journalists most of the time. Which is good for your mental health, but less good when it comes to finding things to blog about. Hey ho.

Still, over at a journalist forum I read yesterday, Sarah Drew Jones made me laugh out loud with a comment on the Gorkana Daily Alert - if you don't get this, it's a daily email newsletter with details of new journo appointments, job opps, magazine news etc. Lately, it's not made for the most uplifting reading. I hope they won't mind me posting this, an alternative version of the "Gloomy Gorkana" alert:

* blah magazine
will close at the end of the week, with the loss of 50 jobs. Fifty more freelancers will, from Friday, be out there taking your work, because they're better than you and you know it

* so-and-so magazine
will decrease its frequency from weekly to bi-monthly, from next week, before no doubt giving up completely by the end of the summer. for details, email lostcause@whyfreakinbother.com

* Changes at The International Times
John Hardworker will this week take over the business desk, as well as continuing to run the travel, money, property, fashion and beauty desks. John will be assisted by 12 interns

* Freelance update: Beth Bitter
Beth wishes it to be known that she has left her position at Glossy magazine to go freelance, after 35 years' faithful service to those grasping bastards who think the definition of a great magazine is 90% advertising, competitions to win incontinence pads and talc-based diet pills, and a rehashed bag of lies about Victoria Beckham. Beth specialises in real-life stories and health but has long ago given up hope of a decent living wage and will now work for cake.

Don't you know who I am?

Sadly, it's not a rhetorical question.

My dubious PR activities mean that my link on the Text 100 blogroll doesn't appear under the "journalist" category. Instead I've been moved to "Good UK PR People".

I mean, obviously I'm pleased they think I'm a good PR person at least, but seriously, guys? I'm not a PR person. Still doing the old journalism thing.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Apparently, 50 hacks a week are being laid off and are joining the freelance pool, meaning the likes of me are competing against more and more people for words on fewer and fewer pages. Is it surprising Adrian says that hacks are all a bit – well – miserable?

At the risk of sounding heartless: yes, things ARE really tough, but get over it. If you want to survive the recession working as a journalist, pessimism isn't the way to do it.

Freelancing requires optimism. You'll get a lot of no's for every yes, and it's important not to take it personally. Sometimes the publication has no budget; sometimes the editor has commissioned someone else; sometimes it's just a case of your idea not being quite right for that paper on that particular day. If you let the no's get you down, it's hard to keep generating the sort of ideas that will eventually score you a 'yes'.

Freelancing also requires self-belief. I remember telling an editor in my first job that I thought I was a better writer than him. Probably not my smartest moment - but I believed it. I'm probably delusional but my confidence in my abilities means I'm not afraid to pitch big papers or compete against other freelancers for contracts - because I believe I do a good job, and the client would be pleased with my work.

Without those two qualities, I think it would be impossible to succeed as a freelancer in any kind of market - much less in a recession.

Of course, I recognise we're working in a tough market. I'm taking steps to broaden my client base, I’ve adjusted rates where necessary, and I’m absolutely looking to acquire new skills that will help me to be a better supplier as the market evolves. And it’s possible that despite all of this, my clients could simply run out of cash, stop hiring me, and my income could fall off a cliff. If it happens, it happens. But I don't feel miserable about it. And I'm not so busy worrying about the cliff that I neglect to see the opportunities that ARE still there - less frequent, certainly, and often less lucrative - but opportunities nonetheless.

Amidst all the doom and gloom, I think one basic thing has been forgotten: being a journalist is pretty cool. Hundreds of people would jump at the chance to be a journalist - and it's still one of the most popular choices for university students. If people ask me, I still think what I do is pretty good – and definitely better than a proper job. Isn’t anyone glad to be a journalist any more?

Friends, PRs, lend me your movie recommendations...

I remember just before the New Year reading this post on Joanne Mallon's fantastic coaching blog, about her New Year's Resolutions. Rather than set herself one of those silly "I'm going to X three times a week" resolutions, Joanne decided to go to the gym 100 times in 2008. And she did. Which I find seriously impressive.

Now, I'm not going to go to the gym 100 times this year. That would be potentially dangerous given my condition. So instead, I decided that this year, I'm going to watch 100 movies I haven't seen before. It's totally possible - I'm a single parent with a seriously cramped social life so I have time for movies of an evening.

In January, I made a good start. I watched 11 new movies including some unexpected new finds (Lords of Dogtown and Into the Wild were both amazing) the odd guilty pleasure (Twilight) and some that I feel soiled and ashamed just thinking about (Mamma Mia. Dear God, it was awful). Lovefilm just sent me No Country for Old Men and Fargo, so my week's pretty much set up.

But after that, who knows?

So here's my thought. Please, my dear blog readers, tell me the two movies you absolutely think I should watch this year. I'm open to most things. My top 3 movies of all time would probably be Breakfast at Tiffany's, Jules et Jim and Ferris Bueller, but I can't deal with horror movies. At all.

Suggestions?