View from a Pro

The Art and Craft of Freelancing (Part II)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a multi-part series on freelance journalism. The idea for these posts came from an instructor who was adopting the News Reporting and Writing and said she would love to see a section or discussion on freelancing in there somewhere. When my editor mentioned this to me, I promised I’d work on it for the blog.

Today, we get into the pitch itself and how to get it accepted. Part I is here, along with a good introduction to three freelancers who were nice enough to help me understand their business: Charles Choi, Tony Rehagen and Nick White.

Do you have a “I wish your book had included X” element? Contact me and I’ll see what I can do to make it happen.

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Building your pitch

The key to a good story is also the key to a good pitch. Consider the following questions when you look at your pitch:

  • Is it clear, concise and have value?
  • Does it get to the point or does it get lost in the details?
  • Does it make the reader want to read on?

You should grab the reader’s attention, show them enough to make them want more and then offer them the opportunity to get it. Here are a few thoughts about how best to build that pitch:

 

Know your audience: One of the biggest points each of the freelancers made was that knowing the audience of the publication and knowing the audience that was reading the pitch letter (the editor) was crucial to success.

“If you are pitching a new outlet, first you should have an introductory paragraph describing who you are and whom you have written for, and an end paragraph providing links to some stories,” Charles Choi said.

Choi said that once he got to know his editors at various publications better, he knew how to tailor his pitch to each one.

“For the outlets I usually write for, novelty is by far the most important factor in what I pitch — no point writing up something if it isn’t news,” he said. “Just as important is how interesting the audience of an outlet would find a pitch — for instance, the audience of Wired might like stories about microchips that can simulate brain cells, but not be as interested as the audience of IEEE Spectrum (a more technical publication) would be in other advances in microchips… All in all, it is crucial to know what the audience of a given outlet likes, and that is something you can best find out by reading a dozen or two recent stories from that outlet.”

Some editors just needed to know he had an idea while others still needed a full pitch that hit on the key elements we’ll discuss below. Choi said it’s also important to understand how to use the right tone and feel when it comes to telling the editors about the story.

“If you are writing a short article, your pitch should have a lede sentence that will often also serve as your nut sentence,” he said. “This single lede/nut sentence should sum up what is new and interesting in a snazzy, provocative way that will make you want to read the rest of the story. You may want to follow this lede with at least one or two sentences describing the potential broader implications of this lede sentence.

“If you are writing a longer article, you may start off with a lede that brings up an interesting anecdote, or introduces an interesting person. After one or two paragraphs of this, then you have a snazzy nut sentence or paragraph that sums up the story and makes you want to read the rest of the story. You may want to follow this lede with at one or two or more paragraphs describing the potential broader implications of this lede sentence.”

 

Get to the point: Editors are busy people and have a dozen or more things to do that are more important than you might be at a given moment. Therefore, you don’t want to waste their time. Tony Rehagen said the body of a pitch should do three key things:

“It’s like writing a short story,” he said. “You have to 1. Grab the editor’s interest 2. Explain why the story is right for the pub and the time and 3. Show that you’re the writer to do it.”

Nick White’s standard approach mirrors this idea:

“A pitch model shown in grad school at Medill that I follow in my head was brief, with a rapport attempt at top, a quick pitch with embedded knowledge in the middle for one or two short paragraphs, and an invitation to drop a line if interest at the bottom,” he said.

In both cases, the idea is to share knowledge, not hype. Nail down your crucial elements quickly and make your case for story in a few short paragraphs that tell the editor you know what you’re doing and that you can be trusted.

Edit the heck out of it: Once you complete your pitch, you need to make sure this thing is cleaner than a cat’s mouth. Is it clear? Did I get too far afield? Was I redundant? If you’ve got redundancy problems, chances are editors will not want to bother with this story as it’s clear they will need to invest a lot of time in fixing your story when it shows up. The same is true for grammar and style. If the editors can’t trust you to spell stuff right, how can they trust you to get the big things right?

“If I’m pitching a new outlet or an outlet I write for only rarely, I not only give a lot more details regarding the story is about, but I craft the writing of the pitch to let them know that I can write well and to give them an idea of what to expect if I were to write that story for them,” Choi said.

In the minds of most editors, the quality of the writing in the pitch will reflect the quality of the writing in the story. Nobody wants to borrow trouble, so make sure you are clean and clear in your writing and editing.

 

A simple breakdown of a pitch letter:

 

If you’re doing the “old-fashioned pitch letter,” the standard topper information is a good idea to include. Even though most of what you’ll do is via email, we’re including this below so that you can get a sense of the audience for the pitch:

Bill Menow, Editor
Green Bay Sports Monthly
111 Lombardi Ave.
Green Bay, WI 54302
If you have an “in” as Nick White mentioned earlier, you probably want to make that known up top. If not, some standard information about who you are and why you matter will work:

 

Bill, 

I wanted to reach out to you about a story I think your readers would like. Our previous collaborations on “What happened to the Kicking Zendejas brothers?” piece last year and the review of “Five Packer-friendly churches in Green Bay” last month drew a lot of readers to your site.

 

After that, you want to make a quick and simple pitch on the topic:

 

Here’s the pitch: As you know, this is the 50th anniversary of the famed “Ice Bowl” game, in which the weather and frozen field conditions took center stage. It seems that every aspect of this game has been examined except for one: The field.

Every Packer fan knows Vince Lombardi spent $80,000 on an “electric blanket” of wires that ran under Lambeau Field to prevent the field from freezing. What they don’t know is the back story of George J. Halas, the nephew of Chicago’s famed George S. Halas, who sold the project to Lombardi. They also don’t know that this “malfunctioning” system actually served the city for more than 30 years and had been installed in several other stadiums successfully.

 

After that, you want to explain what you are proposing and why you are the person to do it:

I am proposing a 1,200-word piece for your December issue that digs deep on this issue. This piece will examine the “frozen tundra” in a way that gives context to the game, the field and the people involved the area’s most exalted patch of grass.

Although George J. Halas is gone, I have already spoken to his son, Tim, who is willing to share his recollections and his father’s notes with me on this issue. I also have access to three other GE workers who were responsible for selling and installing these systems back in the late 1960s and early 1970s to help me explain how this should have worked and why it didn’t during the Ice Bowl. Furthermore, the Packers have offered to let me spend time with current groundskeepers to see how things now work to provide context. They have also offered me access to their photo archives for images of the installation and the game itself.

 

Finally, offer them the ability to contact you if they are interested:

If this sounds like a good idea to you, please email me at (EMAIL) and let me know what you think.

Best,

Vince Filak

 

After the pitch

Once you make your pitch, the ball is solidly in the court of the publication. This can lead to additional anxiety if your story is based on a timely news peg that could be rapidly deteriorating as you wait to hear back. It can also feel like an eternity if you aren’t hearing back from multiple editors on multiple pitches.

Rehagen said there is a healthy debate among his friends who freelance regarding the idea of trying to expedite the process of acceptance by pitching a story to multiple places at once, something he said he doesn’t do.

“It’s not only excruciating waiting for a response from an editor, but it can also be a matter of losing a timely story,” he said. “But I still err on the side of caution—I just can’t imagine having an editor finally say “yes” and me having to tell them, “Sorry, I sold it elsewhere.” But I often wonder whether I’m being too cautious.”

After the long wait, you will end up with one of two potential outcomes from a pitch: You sell the story to the outlet or you don’t. Let’s consider each of these in turn and what it means:

 

Your pitch worked!

Nothing compares with the feeling of victory, so when someone gets your pitch and says, “This looks great! Let’s do it!” go ahead and enjoy a brief moment of exhilaration. After that passes, you need to consider a few things before you start working for your latest employer:

 

Clarify the expectations: The pitch itself should have established the foundation for what you will be doing for the publication. However, before you start working on the story, you need to make sure you and your editor are on the same page when it comes to the big issues. How long will the story be? What does the deadline structure look like? Where in the process will the editor get involved? Who has final say over specific elements of the story? If you have worked with the editor before, much of this will be old hat. However, if you are working with someone for the first time, getting this all set up and written out will be beneficial for both of you.

 

Show me the money: You are setting up a contract with a company to provide a service at a cost. Keep that in mind when you start looking into how much you are willing to ask for and what it is these organizations are willing to pay you. It might not be as easy to see it this way with freelance writing as it would be for other forms of projects that yield a more concrete product, but the situations are comparable.

“Rate is a big deal,” Rehagen said. “There is a rash of publishers who somehow think we should do our job for nothing or next to it. (No way.)  We have a skill that has value. You need to maximize that value—not just for yourself, but for your fellow freelancers.”

How that rate is established will determine the degree to which you are doing well financially or struggling as a freelancer. Some places will pay a certain amount of money per word, with a specific word limit on a piece. Others will offer to pay a flat fee for a story that fits within a word-count range. Other ways of establishing this also exist, but you can’t just think about the amount of time and energy associated with the writing of the story.

Reporting takes time and often cost money. In some cases, a story can be nailed down with a few phone calls and a few in-person interviews with someone nearby. In other cases, you end up going halfway around the world, like Choi did when he went to Russia, Morocco and the South Pole to conduct his reporting. (“I love traveling, and have been to all seven continents and on multiple archaeological and paleontology digs,” he noted.)

Money might not be the only motivating factor, as Choi noted while explaining how he sometimes considers the value of a job in other ways.

“There are other factors when it comes to whom I pitch stories to, such as prestige,” he said. “Writing for The New York Times may not be a great return on investment, but it’s great publicity and helps me get other jobs, and I treat such gigs like paying for advertising.”

However you calculate the value, be it in cash or other ways, figure out what you are earning from each gig and get it in writing.

 

Know your rights: Depending on the circumstances, the rights you have to the material may be more valuable than the cash you get from a particular piece. Many publications have moved toward a “work for hire” model in which they can do whatever they want with your piece as long as they want. This limits you in a lot of ways, so be careful with the fine print in the contract before you sign it.

“Ideally, as a freelancer, when you sign a contract, you get rights back to your story after, say, 90 days,” Choi said. “That way you can resell stories in, say, foreign markets, or if stories get collected in books.”

In some cases, you may care a little less about your rights than a paycheck, but you never know when an article could lead to a bigger project. A number of movies and TV series came from a single article. For example, “Shattered Glass” began as an article written by Buzz Bissinger.

“You need to read your contracts carefully. Ideally, you want the rights to your stories—so if Hollywood or Netflix comes calling, you can reap the benefits, but also, and more practically, so you can reprint it elsewhere and spin off for other stories,” Rehagen said.

Even if a big-name organization doesn’t come calling, retaining as many rights as you can to your material will allow you to control how your work gets used or reused. In a “work for hire” situation, you lose the ability to say “no” if you don’t like how the organization is using your material or what other projects are underway based on it.

“The area of concern in this area has always been owning the content — think of it as Michael Jackson buying the rights to The Beatles’ publishing to retain the wealth of many resells and replays of The Beatles’ songs, even though The Beatles are the authors,” White said. “Every single contract you will sign to work for a media outlet will give all ownership to the outlet, not to mention a possible NDA so that essentially the experience is “owned.” Retaining ownership rights, with some exceptions, will only belong to you if you start an outlet or buy it as an investor; otherwise, rights generally belong to the outlet.”

 

Dealing with rejection

Nobody likes hearing, “Sorry, not interested” when it comes to a story, but for freelancers, this can be particularly problematic. Finding a balance between investing in a story and overly investing in a story can be crucial to keeping your head above water, Rehagen said.

“I often do a little reporting to flesh out my pitch—but I don’t know anyone who does the entire story on spec,” he said. “It’s just not feasible to front that time, money, and energy without knowing if you’ll ever get paid or published.”

A lost opportunity to publish a story means a loss of time, energy and wages. This is why it doesn’t pay to have the story completed before you pitch it.

“I never pitch completed stories to outlets if I can help it for two reasons,” Choi said. “First, no outlet may end up picking up the story, and if that happens I will have wasted time and effort for no reason and I will likely disappoint the sources I interviewed, potentially burning bridges for later stories. Second, every outlet has a unique voice, and a story written with one story in mind may need to be drastically rewritten if pitched to a different outlet.”

Here are some ways to deal with rejection in a positive way that could still yield a good story:

 

Is the pitch “mostly dead” or just dead?: Remember Billy Crystal’s character in the Princess Bride? He’s talking to Mandy Patinkin about the dead guy on the table and he says, “He’s not dead. He’s only mostly dead.”

The same level of absurdity applies to your work. After it’s been rejected, you need to see if your work is dead or mostly dead when it comes to the pitch.

Dead is when the editor says, “This just isn’t something we want. Best of luck elsewhere.” At that point, you can give up on that outlet and look elsewhere.

“Mostly dead” is where the editor gives you a second bite at the apple. The editor might want to see more material before committing or might want to postpone the story for a good reason while still retaining interest in it. When you get a “mostly dead” response, see what constructive criticism you get from the rejection, determine how easy it will be to deal with that criticism and see if it’s something you want to do. If it’s a set of simple fixes for an editor who has been good about taking your work before, give it a shot and see if you can get an acceptance. If it requires you to do something you are unable or unwilling to do, consider other options.

 

Hope for the best but plan for the worst: When you pitch an article to a media outlet, you clearly hope the editor will love it and buy it on the spot. However, since you can’t rely on that outcome always happening, you want to have a back-up plan (or four) so that your initial work on the story doesn’t go to waste.

As Choi said throughout this series, working in a niche has many benefits: You become an expert on the area, you become the go-to writer on those topics and you work repeatedly with certain editors. One other benefit is that you know multiple outlets that want stories like the one you are pitching at that point. Therefore, if Magazine X decides the story doesn’t sound all that great, you can see if any of the criticism in the rejection merits addressing, spruce up your pitch and send it to Magazine Y.

 

Know when to stop: The late actor and comedian W.C. Fields famously once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use in being a damned fool about it.” That’s some pretty solid advice when it comes to pitching a story.

You might really have an emotional attachment or a driving desire to see a particular story get published and that’s great. However, you have to remember you also have a passion for making rent and eating food, so you need to put your time and energy where it will help you meet those needs. You can give a pitch a few shots, but if you keep getting rejected and you can’t seem to make the editors want it, consider that you might be wrong about how important this thing is and then move on.

(Continue to Part III)

The Art and Craft of Freelancing (Part I)

EDITOR’S NOTE: One instructor who was adopting the News Reporting and Writing book mentioned to my editor that she would have loved to see a section or a discussion of freelancing in there somewhere. The minute I found out about that ask, I set off to find some really smart people who could help me deliver on this.

Thus, here comes a multi-part series on how freelancing works, how to become successful at it and some general suggestions to consider for anyone planning a freelance career. I hope it’s more than enough.

Do you have a “I wish your book had included X” element? Contact me and I’ll see what I can do to make it happen.

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Freelancing is a pretty good gig if you’re not tied to a steady paycheck, have a lot of inspiration and some good street smarts. The goal is to find topics that matter to you, meet the needs of a specific audience and find venues that will help you reach those readers. Some of my favorite former students have made a really good living by doing it.

When I started working on this topic, I reached out to a couple of them who work in vastly different niches but all work in the same basic freelance ecosystem. They provided me with some key information about the way in which they got involved in freelancing, how they work within their areas of interest and how to make a living as a freelancer. Throughout these posts, I’ll be weaving in their comments as we go, so let’s meet them up front:

CharlesCharles Choi began freelancing in 2001 after completing his master’s degree in journalism. He has worked primarily as a science writer and his work has been published in a variety of outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsday, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Scientific American, Wired, National Geographic News, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and Science magazine. He is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the Asian-American Journalists Association. His main base of operation is the New York City area, although he has travel the world in pursuit of stories, including trips to Russia and Antarctica.

 

NickNick White has spent the last 15 years as a freelancer on the West Coast. He has worked on a variety of topics, but tends to publish heavily in entertainment media outlets. His work has appeared frequently in People, Us Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, TVGuide.com, Infinity, and AOL, as well as being published in The Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, E! Online, Celebuzz, InStyle.com, Alternative Press, Wetpaint, iVillage, and OC Weekly.

 

ch4rehagenmug.jpgTony Rehagen began freelancing in 2009 when he was on staff at Indianapolis Monthly magazine, writing a few pieces for Men’s Health. Since then, he continued to work staff jobs while freelancing on the side. He is currently a contributing editor for St. Louis Magazine in Missouri as well as a freelance writer for magazines and online publications. He was named a five-time finalist for the City Regional Magazine Association’s Writer of the Year award and his work has been included in the book “Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists.” His freelance work has appeared in GQ, Pacific Standard, Popular Mechanics, ESPN The Magazine, espnW, MEL Magazine, Southwest Magazine, Bloomberg Digital, SB Nation and others.

 

Getting started

Publications usually have a robust staff of writers and editors who cover the basics the readers have come to expect from them. A freelancer’s goal is to find news that nobody else knows about and pitch those ideas as stories. Choi noted that freelancers are like a staff’s enterprise reporters: They don’t do the day-in, day-out pieces, but they fill a niche that matters to the readers in a unique way. So, what makes for good freelancing? Here are some thoughts on how to come up with some good freelance pieces:

 

Develop a sense of wonder: If traditional journalism is about a standard “who did what to whom” approach, freelancing tends to dig into the “how” and “why” a lot more. This sense of curiosity can yield a wide array of interests that will let you find interesting things in a variety of places that other people tend not to examine.

When we are little kids, we desperately want to know everything about everything we see. That sense of wonder manifests itself in about 10,018 questions that range from how a license plate gets made to who is responsible for the voice in the phone’s GPS directions. Eventually, we stop asking those questions aloud and then we just stop wondering. Tony Rehagen said his sense of wonder has led him to all sorts of experiences as a freelancer.

“My strength (and weakness) is my insatiable curiosity for just about damn near anything,” he said. “I always joke that I know a little about a lot of things and a lot about very few. For instance, over the past month I’ve written about ethnomusicology, mass extinction of megafauna due to foreign pathogens, NBA basketball, the science of whiskey distillation, a personal essay on when to leave your job and a travel piece about St. Louis. That’s part of the reason I got into general interest magazines in the first place.”

 

Find a niche: The wide range of topical wonder can be helpful in keeping ideas fresh, but it also helps to have a home-base topic that will make you an expert in an area. If you develop a niche, you will work repeatedly with publications and establish relationships with editors. It will also make you a “go-to” freelancer for publications seeking coverage on that topic.

“The fact that I largely work in a specialized niche — science journalism — greatly helps focus whom I pitch stories to, where I get story ideas from, and what the pitches should look like,” Charles Choi said. “Freelancers usually have at least one specialty for this reason…There are many other kinds of stories I can write other than news-focused ones. For instance, I can pitch profiles of scientists, or explainer pieces, or stories delving into the scientific aspects of major news events, or stories focusing on the business or political sides of science, and so on. However, I personally enjoy writing news-focused stories, and it makes up the brunt of my workload — everyone has a specialty.”

Choi’s point about having a niche also raises an important element of freelancing: Find something you like to do.

“When I was first starting off as a freelancer, a key way I made a living was finding interesting stories in areas that few other freelancers worked on — for instance, physics and chemistry,” he said. “I found these niches because I had a personal interest in physics growing up — I was fascinated with the science of things like black holes because of years reading and watching science fiction.”

All three writers noted that they liked the idea of finding new topics and writing stories that go beyond what they could do as staff writers. They also noted they enjoy the fields they cover. If you don’t like what topic you are covering, you will be less motivated to find stories of interest and you will be less likely to pitch them successfully. Even worse, if you ARE successful in your pitches, you will end up writing stories you hate and that vibe will come through in your pieces.

 

Dig in and dig deep: If you want to make a living at freelancing, you need to find out what sells and who is buying. Staff writers can have an “off” week when it comes to finding content, but freelancers live off of their labors, so knowing what works and what doesn’t in terms of getting pieces sold will matter.

“Essentially, I find the model is to immerse yourself in different aspects and coverage areas of your given industry and stick with the one that pays the most reliably or gets the best response from the boss, readers, or click numbers,” Nick White said.

In some cases, you’ll locate a particular area within a niche, such as biology or physics within the field of science. In other cases, you might locate a story approach that works well and then replicate it with multiple topics. For example, you might find that a short profile with a five-question Q and A sidebar on high-school athletes in your area is often the most-read piece you write in a given week. Repeating that approach can lead to additional successful pitches in which you feature additional athletes.

The goal is to also dig into areas where you see a need but no one else is doing the work. In a lot of cases, publications know there is too many story ideas available without enough staff to cover them all. If you can find those deserted areas that are crying out for coverage, you can create a nice cottage industry for yourself.

“When I combed science journals and press releases, I could see that there were plenty of story ideas that were not getting written up, and so I pitched them knowing that others were likely not pitching them and knowing that my interest in these areas would help me tell compelling stories,” Choi said. “Basically, I filled niches in which there were few competitors and ample opportunities. Once I made a reputation writing these niche stories well, editors sent me other pitches in these niches (in one case, a regular column on nanotechnology) and related niches (astronomy, planetary science, cosmology, electronics). Those editors also knew I could write well, and when I let them know I could write stories outside this niche, they pitched me other stories as well, typically ones they didn’t want to write themselves. In this way, I gained expertise in geology and paleoanthropology.

 

Preparing for the pitch

To work as a freelancer, you need to have great ideas and you need to make editors and publishers see why they are great. To do this, you will need to “pitch” your story to them in the form of a query letter or email.

Queries are like fishing lines: You toss them out on to the water with the hope that something will jump on them. The better the bait and the better the fishing hole, the better the likelihood of getting a bite. To do this, you need do a few things before you approach a potential client:

 

Research the publication: You need to find out as much as you can about the outlets to which you plan to pitch. Just like a form letter for a job application, generic pitches are bad because they seem flat and forced. You want to dig around and find out what the publication does, how it works, with whom it competes and more. You want to figure out what kinds of things they published, how long the stories they publish tend to be and what audience they cater to.

You might have the world’s greatest feature on model train building, but if the model train magazine you’re pitching runs 400 word stories and you pitch something in the 4,000-words range, you’re not getting a second look. If you pitch a story on how to play football with your kids, but you market it to a futbol magazine, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

Figure out if the publication has done work on this or if their competitors have. If they have and you have a new angle, mention this. It’ll show that you’re not just firing blindly. If the competition has done something, explain how your story will move your editor’s publication back ahead of the pack. It always helps to show that you’re not a newbie to the field.

 

Find an “in” if you can:  White said one of the best ways to connect a story to a publication is when he has a connection to someone at that organization.

“Story-selling is something that is best done through establishing a relationship first in my opinion, even if it’s a low-level acquaintance situation,” he said. “The story itself can be secondary to selling the pitch.”

All three writers mentioned that forming relationships with people at various media outlets will lead to improved success in getting a pitch picked up. Even more, the more frequently they work with a person at a media outlet, the easier the pitch becomes.

“The amount of salesmanship I put into a pitch depends largely on how often I write for a given outlet,” Choi said. “If I’m pitching a regular client, they know how well I can write, and so I just give them the basic facts of a pitch, and that’s usually good enough — basically what the lede sentence would be, if I’m pitching a short news story.”

If you have a connection at a media outlet, you want to make it count for you when you pitch. Find that person and make the pitch to him or her. If that person isn’t responsible for making the decision on pitches, at least mention in your pitch that you have worked with that person. This person could provide valuable support in trying to reach the decision-maker.

 

Develop a sniper’s mentality: When it comes to a pitch, you get one chance to impress an editor so you need to make it count. Get yourself set, get your eye on the target and take one good shot. If the editor feels like you’re wasting their time, they won’t open your next email or letter. You don’t want to be known as “that annoying weirdo who keep sending lousy pitches.” Before you write your pitch, understand that you will need to showcase your enthusiasm without over-hyping your piece. You should provide the editor with a sense that you understand the publication without overdoing it and keep your writing as tight and strong as you will when compose your piece. If the pitch is full of errors or the writing is weak, all an editor is going to see is a preview of a messy story that will take more time than it is worth.

(Click here for Part II)

Guest Blogging: Don’t look for the best job. Look for the right one.

EDITOR’S NOTE: One of my favorite quotes that reflects a good life philosophy comes from the movie “Miracle.” Assistant coach Craig Patrick tells head coach Herb Brooks that the roster Brooks built is missing a lot of the best players available to him. Brooks response is, “I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones.”

Far too often, I counsel students who “chase” jobs because they think it’s what they’re supposed to want or do. They measure their worth by the size of their media market or the cache associated with their titles or the sense of gravitas connected to a publication. They want to be able to say, “I work at the (fill in name of giant media outlet here)” as it seems to codify and verify their self worth. When I talk to these students (and former students), I keep telling them, “Don’t chase something because you think it’s something you’re supposed to want. Instead, find what you actually want and enjoy and do that. You’ll never regret it.” 

When old friend and former student Pat Garvin posted about his experience speaking to students in the same way, I asked him to put his thoughts into a post for you all. The reason? He’s actually doing the media gig he wants. You might assume it’s easy for a professor to say, “I’m sure you’ll be amazing at the Northeast Southwestern Tattler! Who needs the New York Times?” However, Pat walks the walk, lives the life and has a great bit of wisdom for folks looking for “THE job.” Enjoy

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Each week, we will strive to post content from a guest blogger with an expertise in an area of the field. This week, we are fortunate to have Pat Garvin a visual journalist at The Boston Globe. Interested in being our next guest blogger? Contact us here.

The end of the fall semester is coming up at many colleges and universities, and for some students, so is graduation. Whether you’re graduating in a few weeks, a few months, or a few years, I’d like to put your mind at ease.

A few times a year, I get to speak to journalism classes at The University of Missouri about what I do. As I went there myself, the class instructor asks me to tell the students about where my career has taken me since I was a Mizzou student.

I look forward to these classes, as I enjoy showing them the work that my teammates and I have done, and I enjoy explaining the reasons behind the choices we made for each package. But I also enjoy being the voice that tells them not to measure their self worth by what publication they go to after college, especially if their friends end up at big name places at 23. I remember how easy it was for me and my friends to compare ourselves to each other based on who got what job and how big the circulation was.

If you’re a few weeks out from graduation, you’ve likely seen this scenario around campus, if you haven’t experienced it firsthand. But try not to get caught up in comparing who takes a job at which publication. To borrow a phrase from Admiral Ackbar in “Return of the Jedi,” “It’s a trap!”

For some people, the huge national papers are part of their path, and that makes them happy. They will do great work, and they will feel fulfilled. And that’s good, because we will all benefit from their work. Others might go to those marquee name outlets, be miserable, and burn out. It’s tempting to say that the people who are happy at big papers are successful and the people who don’t make it there are not successful. But that framing assumes that success for everyone is going to be measured by whether or not they end at the biggest website, newspaper, TV station, etc.

I make it a point to tell students that we need not — and should not — frame it this way. When my friends and I graduated, we naively equated big ambition with happiness. We assumed that once we got to a dream paper, then we will have “made it.” But that ties the idea of success and happiness to the name on the building, rather than who you’re with, what you’re doing, and what you’re learning. In the years since graduation, my friends and I have shifted our understanding of what it means to be a successful journalist. Now, we can appreciate that if you’re happy and your family is happy, and you’re learning and growing, then that is what success looks like to me. And that can happen at multiple places.

I often tell journalism students that it helps to follow five guidelines:

1. Identify what you want.
2. Figure out what you need to do to get that.
3. Start doing those things.
4. Be flexible, and if what you want changes, that’s OK.
5. Never take any interaction for granted. Each person you meet in a building is valuable, whether it’s the editor-in-chief or the custodian.

These are good to remember whether your ambition is to end up at a national news outlet or to become an editor at your hometown paper. These guidelines frame it in personal terms, and that’s hopefully relieving for any journalism student who felt pressured to pursue a path that doesn’t feel right. With these guidelines, the goal isn’t to end up at the biggest place you can, but rather, where you think you’ll be able to flourish. And maybe the biggest place you can be is where you will flourish. That’s OK. But it’s also OK if you find yourself happy and fulfilled at a smaller publication.

Guest Blogging: Journalists need to understand rape culture to report on sexual abuse

Each week, we will strive to post content from a guest blogger with an expertise in an area of the field. This week, we are fortunate to have Tracy Everbach, an experienced journalist and professor from the University of North Texas, here to discuss the recent spate of sexual assault stories in the media and journalists’ obligations while covering this topic. Interested in being our next guest blogger? Contact us here.

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“It was 40 years ago.”

“Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a 30-year-old single male asking a 19-year-old, a 17-year-old, or a 16-year-old out on a date.”

These are actual quotes from public officials defending Roy Moore, Republican Senate candidate in Alabama. Moore is accused of initiating a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32 and of pursuing several other teenage girls when he was in his 30s. Moore called these allegations “fake news.”

The Moore story is just one of a cascade of sexual abuse accusations that have become public in recent months, from candidate Donald Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” comment, to Anthony Weiner’s emailing pictures of his penis to girls and women, to Harvey Weinstein’s “casting couch,” to Kevin Spacey’s molestation of young men.

How do we as journalists handle these types of stories?

It is helpful to understand that these are NOT stories about sex. They are stories about violations and crimes against girls and women, boys and men. They are stories about power and taking advantage of others who don’t have it.

It also is helpful for journalists to understand the concept of “rape culture.” This is defined as an accepted societal belief that normalizes rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Rape culture blames the victim for her or his own assault or harassment and encourage myths such as “she asked for it,” “he couldn’t help himself,” and other falsehoods.

The visual below may help explain the concept. (The graphic is not perfect. The words at the top of the pyramid are “Rape,” “Incest,” “Battery,” and “Murder.”) In a nutshell, rape culture often deters victims and survivors of sexual violence from coming forward about crimes because of a fear they won’t be believed, that they will be blamed, that they will be ridiculed and/or feelings of shame.

Pyramid

The Associated Press Stylebook offers surprisingly little help on covering sexual abuse, beyond an entry under “privacy” that tells us not to identify people who have been sexually assaulted unless they voluntarily identify themselves. Yeah, okay.

When accusations are flying, what are our obligations as journalists?

First, we should show compassion for those who are victims or survivors. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, a Justice Department-funded agency, finds that a majority (63 percent) of sexual violence cases never are reported to police.

Rarely are such accusations false, and we should understand it takes courage for someone who has been abused to come forward. The Sexual Violence Resource Center also finds that only about 2 percent to 7 percent of sexual violence cases are falsely reported. Therefore, as journalists, we always should be skeptical, but should keep in mind that false reports are a tiny proportion of reported cases. Some news organizations tend to jump on these false reports as big stories, which caused them to appear more prevalent than they really are. More on that in a minute.

In addition, we should focus our journalism on the bigger picture rather than dwelling on individual cases. Topics to address include:

  • Why do survivors of abuse decline to report cases? The fact that many women and men have been coming forward about celebrities in the past few months points to a possible beginning of change to rape culture. It shows that when survivors bond together, they can find strength in each other.

 

  • Why do men (and most of the perpetrators are men, even when men are the victims) engage in such behaviors?

 

  • What about our society and culture supports the myths that victims are to blame for their own assaults? That false reports are rampant?

 

  • Why don’t we talk more about sexual consent and what it means? This is an excellent video that helps define consent by comparing it to a cup of tea. College students love it. (Profanity warning here. There also is a “clean version” for middle and high school students.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8

 

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is a stellar resource for reporting on sexual violence. For example, it advises: “Rape or sexual assault is in no way associated with normal sexual activity; trafficking in women is not to be confused with prostitution. People who have suffered sexual violence may not wish to be described as a ‘victim’ unless they choose the word themselves. Many prefer the word ‘survivor.’”

At this point, I’m guessing some journalists are asking, “What about the Rolling Stone story?” The magazine ran a story in 2014 that described a gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity. The story was later debunked and the magazine retracted it. Rolling Stone was ordered to pay the fraternity $1.65 million.

While the Rolling Stone story had many problems, the main ones were not false accusations; they were journalistic failures. The story was based on one source, a survivor who apparently had been through a traumatic experience at some point. The reporter and editors did not check or corroborate records and sources to verify details of her story. Columbia Journalism Review took the story apart in detail, calling it “A failure that was avoidable.” CJR also published tips to avoid repeating the mistakes and noted that the incident should not deter journalists from reporting on the valid problem of campus rape.

Journalists reporting on these types of stories need to know some of the basics about sexual abuse and violence, as well as myths that continue to be perpetuated. Accurate and fair journalism is essential to changing rape culture. It also is the first step to changing sexual harassment behaviors in newsrooms.

 

Guest Blogging: A look back at media coverage of several transgender candidates’ election victories

Each week, we will strive to post content from a guest blogger with an expertise in an area of the field. This week, Bethany Grace Howe, a doctoral student who has written extensively on issues pertaining to the transgender community, discusses the media coverage of election victories by transgender candidates throughout the country. If you are interested in guest blogging on a topic of interest, please contact us here.

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I won’t pretend that as a transgender woman the Nov. 7, 2017 election of Danica Roem’s historic election to lead Virginia District 13 didn’t thrill me. The first woman to be elected and one assumes seated as a state representative, I’m proud of her and what she means for people like myself.

Even more towards my own personal joy, it’s especially wonderful because she defeated someone who billed himself as the state’s “chief homophobe.” I won’t deny my sense of schadenfreude at seeing him sent packing from government. Or, to put it in a way more typical of my liberal-Oregon roots: “Karma’s a…”

That said, as a journalist I’m also excited about what the night meant for myself and others like me. Not because of what the media said, but what it did not. Not one article in a mainstream publication mentioned the details of Roem’s transition. Not the liberal New York Times, nor the more conservative Washington Examiner. Even Fox News considered that irrelevant to the story at hand.

Can it be said all media outlets did so? No. Though I have no immediate means to prove it, I suspect on election night some of the more right-wing conservative talking heads chose to do so. (And maybe some liberal ones, too.) Not surprisingly in the least, Breitbart labeled her “a man living as a woman.” And I’d have to pretend to be surprised that they would make such a choice.

That, however, is the point: they made a choice. One that my perusal of media covering that evening and election shows responsible media outlets are making in a way that respects the identity of transgender people.

In Minneapolis, two African-American transgender city council representatives were elected the same night as Roem. No mention was made of their transition in the election coverage.

Outside Atlanta a transgender woman was elected to city council in Doraville. No mention was made of her transition in the election coverage.

And in Erie, Pennsylvania, a transgender man was elected to the school board. No mention was made of his transition in the election coverage.

If this seems repetitious, then I’ve made my point: transgender people should not have to explain or defend their identities any more than members of other diverse groups. People of color or religious faith: we don’t make them quantify and defend their experience. No one asks them to prove they’re African-American, nor how long they’ve been a Christian and why.

I suppose it could be argued that this is a trend limited to major media markets, or those in more liberal blue states, like Minnesota. Atlanta, though more liberal than the rest of the state, is certainly not a hotbed of transgender liberalism. And Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania, where the Erie School Board newspaper coverage was based, is in Cumberland County, a location that saw Donald Trump outpoll Hillary Clinton by 18 percent.

Does this mean everything is just dandy out there in the world of transgender people and media? Certainly not; Breitbart and other faux-news sites like it will remain widely-read purveyors of hate and ignorance. I’ve no doubt either that there are small-town media outlets where small-minded editors prevail over contemporary ethics. Though you don’t have to look that far – or that small – to see where transgender people still must defend their identity.

“Danica Roem born September 30, 1984) is an American journalist and politician of the Democratic Party from Northern Virginia. In the 2017 elections, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Roem won the Democratic primary on June 13, 2017, and the general election on November 7, 2017. He is set to become the first openly transgender person to both be elected to a U.S. state’s legislature and serve his term.”

“‘He’ was elected.” “‘He’ is set.” “He” – a incorrect pronoun the article goes on to repeat 17 times (along with “his”) in an article of just over 600 words. For what it’s worth, they included “she” or “her” a half-dozen times. Bad editing? Perhaps.

But I was kind of hoping Wikipedia would be at least as current as their entry regarding the latest Hollywood pervert to come down the pike. Priorities, I guess.

Sigh.

Guest Blogging: 5 tips on getting your freelance career rolling

Each week, we will strive to post content from a guest blogger with an expertise in an area of the field. This week, we are fortunate to have Erik Petersen, the editor of Fort Lauderdale Magazine. As an editor, Petersen often receives offers from freelancers to cover things that might be of interest to his magazine. These queries vary wildly in terms of tone, content and approach, so today Petersen is talking about what makes for a good pitch for a story, giving us an insider’s look at how best to get published. Interested in being our next guest blogger? Contact us here.

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As an editor of a city monthly magazine, I get lots of letters from freelance writers. They’re an interesting mixture. Some are one sentence long, others read like James Joyce after a few espresso shots. Some are clearly cut-and-paste jobs, some take a sort of free jazz approach to punctuation – and some make me want to learn more about this writer and what she or he might be able to do for our magazine.

Freelancing is a crowded, competitive field that includes many people who’ve built up relationships with editors over the years. But there are ways in – and a few things you can do to help yourself.

1) Get the basics right.

For example, I’ve got a great freelancer weed-out test built into my name. “Erik” and “Petersen” are not uncommon names, but my particular spellings of them typically get butchered anywhere outside of Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Nordic countries. If I get an email addressed to “Eric,” “Mr. Peterson” or (this has happened) “Peter Ericson,” the emailer has just been helpful enough to inform me that he will probably screw up something in a story, too. Delete.

Incidentally, if that advice sounds painfully obvious to you, that’s great. It should. It also means you’ve already got an advantage over a good chunk of the competition.

2) Make your email compelling but concise.

This might sound like another one that falls in the category “simple common sense” but again, not everybody does it. An introductory email/pitch letter should read like the journalism that will hopefully follow it – sharp, well-written and nailing a word count. Four solid paragraphs should tell me enough while making me want to know more.

3) Pitch stories – but know it’s not really about that.

When I hear from a potential freelancer, I want to know three main things: that she can write, that she has ideas and that she’s thought a bit about what my specific publication might need. One great way to do that is to pitch one or two good stories.

Stories that she most likely won’t write for me. At least not right away.

Publications vary, but here’s how it works at the one I edit. We’re a monthly, and we plan months in advance. Anything four months out has already been assigned; anything three months out is already being worked on. There are issues nearly a year away that we’ve got ideas about. Point being, there’s an excellent chance the issue you’re pitching for is already planned.

This isn’t always the case. If, for example, you’ve worked hard to get access to someone for a profile that’s relevant to the publication, that profile’s an impressive thing to pitch. (“Wow, Ol’ Jed the Reclusive Woodcarver never gives interviews.”)

But for the most part, with writers I haven’t worked with very much, I tend to assign. So by all means, pitch. But be ready to write something else.

Something else here also needs to be addressed. Are there unscrupulous editors who will take your good idea and give it to somebody else? Yes. In my experience it’s not overly common, but it can happen. Unfortunately, it’s just a risk you have to take. It’s one of the reasons, however, that I wouldn’t recommend writing a piece first and then shopping it around. Again, most editors won’t take a piece, give it to somebody else and say “Rewrite this.” But if one does, you don’t have much recourse.

4) Get face-to-face.

Editors get lots of email. Too much email. All the email. Seriously, I was just going to make a point about how much email we get by telling you how much is in my inbox, but I checked and it’s too embarrassing.

You want to make an impression, and that’s hard to do as one little subject line in a flooded inbox. In the email, or the follow-up email or phone call (don’t do too many, but a bit of persistence is good), ask to meet. Suggest coffee. Say you’d also appreciate career advice/a chat about the industry. (That last one’s good because A) useful career advice actually is helpful and, B) like most people, editors like to be flattered. And being treated like some Journalism Yoda who can help a young Jedi is flattering.) All those things you’ve perfected – a solid story pitch, knowledge of the editor’s publication – will be even more memorable in person.

5) Once you’re up the ladder, make sure you extend it down for somebody else.

Not long ago, a writer got in touch. He wrote concisely, pitched well, suggested coffee, got an assignment and became a regular. Then he emailed asking if I’d mind being put in touch with a former colleague who was also looking for freelance work. Somebody whose work comes recommended from a writer I like? Absolutely.

In a business that happens so much over the phone and email, personal recommendations go a long way. If you know somebody and respect their work, you can help them by getting them in front of an editor with whom you’ve established a relationship.

Just make sure they’ll do the same for you.

 

“Exposing the truth is what mattered most.” Alex Crowe’s reflections on the Mayville police chief debacle

Mayville, Wisconsin’s interim Police Chief Ryan Vossekuil will have the “interim” tag removed and be sworn into the job full time on Thursday. This blip on the radar of small-town life was the result of many things, not the least of which was a radio journalist who had been in town only six months.

Alex Crowe’s work on the story of how leaked documents and shady deals brought to light the issue of what happens when a reporter digs into a story and won’t let go. We outlined the process and details of how he did it in yesterday’s post. Today, I asked him to reflect on why this matters and what he wanted to let student journalists know about this whole ordeal.

Q: How did it feel when you broke the news?

A: “It was kind of frightening to have someone in City Hall that consumed with me and my reporting, but I kept my bosses in the loop the entire time and continued to do my job. I had the documents, I knew my reporting was accurate, and figured it was common for someone backed into a corner to lash out.

If I want to be a reporter on a bigger scale in a bigger city, I know people of power will continue to attack the reporter and their reporting. He stopped short of calling it “Fake News,” but it was the same attack we see in the national media. Facts are facts, and as long as I had those documents to back up my work, I knew I would be fine…

I felt kind of awkward walking into the Public Safety and Information meeting, because I was new to town and had stirred up such a controversy within my first six months as a reporter there. But shortly thereafter, the Council voted to rescind its motion accepting Voeeskuil’s rejection, and agreed to re-open negotiations with him.”

Q: I have a lot of students who believe that “important” and “impactful” journalism can only happen at really big places in big cities, but this story really did change something important in Mayville. What would you want to tell students when it comes to taking a job or doing a job in an area like yours? How can they make a difference?

A: “You never know where or when important stories are going to come up. Never. I took a job doing news at a classic rock station in Mayville, hoping to use it as a springboard to a better job right away. But what I quickly found out was that you can’t always control what happens.

I had a station in Milwaukee pass me over for a job, and took a real shot to my pride when that happened. But this story kept me going, and made me want to not only prove that station wrong, but prove that good journalism and reporting can make a difference wherever you are. With small-town papers and TV stations being bought out by giant corporations and closed down, small-town government has gotten a free pass to do whatever they want behind closed doors, in my opinion.

I think every single journalism student should know that public servants work for the community and constituents that elected them, no matter how big or small the area. Nobody should get a free pass to do whatever they want just because they think no one is watching.”

Q: If you could tell students anything about anything associated with this story, journalism in general or anything else, what would it be?

A: “Wherever there is a person in power, no matter how big or small, there’s a potential for abuse and corruption. Always. And there should always be someone there keeping that person in power in check. This story started in the Mayville Police Department, then moved to City Hall. But I never would have been able to do this story without talking to people first, then getting hard documents to back it up.

Every journalism prof at UWO hammers home this point, and it couldn’t be more true. Each and every interview gave me more insight and information than the last. I took notes, highlighted and color coded important information, then used that information to convince someone to leak the documents to me.

It was really hard coming to a new town, calling and meeting with people I had never met before in my life, and accusing them of doing things that were shady and could threaten their seat on whatever council or committee they sat on. But in the end, exposing the truth is what mattered most, and it’s what made this whole thing right.”

“I saw what real journalism could do.” Alex Crowe, a small-town scandal and the power of the pen (Part I)

The goal of most good reporters is to “move the needle” a little bit when they produce a story or a column. The idea behind this phrase is that you want your work to yield some sort of tangible outcome for the people who read, hear or see it. The work might lead to something as complex as the downfall of a president or as simple as having people donate “coats for kids.” Either way, the journalism should do something for somebody.

Alex Crowe, the news and social media director for WMDC in Mayville, Wisconsin, spent the last six months weaving himself in and out of a local story that galvanized the area, had the mayor threatening him and led to an interim police chief getting a full-time job.

Crowe arrived in Mayville in March after spending two years doing radio in Sisseton, South Dakota, a town of 2,000 people. Just before he came to Wisconsin, Mayville’s police chief, Christopher MacNeill was placed on administrative leave before abruptly signing shortly after that. A Wisconsin Department of Justice criminal complaint later surfaced that charged MacNeill with misconduct in office and obstruction in connection with the falsification of a police report. (That report pertained to the son of another police officer in Mayville, who also left department around that time to take a job in the Cudahy Police Department.)

“I thought the big story was there, so I did a lot of investigative research, but the Cudahy chief had his attorney threaten me and my station, and since we don’t have the funds to do battle in court, I was forced to drop the investigation,” Crowe said.

In an interview shortly after MacNeill resigned, Mayville Mayor Rob Boelk told Crowe he hoped the Police and Fire Commission would “Do the right thing and hire the next Chief from outside the department.” This didn’t sit well with the interim chief, Ryan Vossekuil, who released a statement to Crowe saying he planned to serve as interim chief until the PFC told him not to. It seemed all very pedestrian until Crowe said he heard from a source that things were getting weird.

“I was eventually contacted by someone in the know, who told me the mayor had placed a gag-order on the entire Mayville PD, stating that they could no longer talk to the media, and mentioned me specifically by name,” Crowe said. “The department took exception to this, because they felt all discipline should be handed out by the PFC, as outlined in Wisconsin State Statute. The tensions between the mayor and interim chief continued to fester.”

The whole thing seemed likely to end when the PFC interviewed about a dozen candidates and picked Vossekuil for the full-time chief. When Crowe called Vossekuil for a simple congratulations and follow up story, he found out Vossekuil was rejecting the offer. He showed Crowe a swath of documents that included the gag order, the contract and some email chains between him and the mayor, but to fully understand them Crowe needed copies of the documents.

“I filed an open records request with the city, but they told me no, and once again with no legal funds we were at a dead end,” he said. “Then, that person in the know who had contacted me earlier about the gag-order, asked why I had not reported on the matter yet. I said I couldn’t report without documents and solid evidence in my possession to back up my reporting. Lo and behold, the documents were leaked to me, and I began writing.”

Crowe found a contract that was filled with terms he described as “unbelievable.” It required Vossekuil to agree to a 12-month probation period, during which he could be fired any time and for any reason. He would have to waive his ability to avail himself of Wisconsin’s “Police Officer’s Bill of Rights,” which meant he couldn’t appeal his firing and he would lose any benefits he built up over his 15 years on the job. After he fully understood what it was the interim chief faced in this contract, Crowe said he went to work on the rest of the story.

“The main thing I did was talk to people,” he said. “Once I talked to one council member with details of the offer, they would offer me more information. All chats were off the record, but I took notes and then called the next council member with what I knew, and so on. Eventually I had an entire notebook full of names, details and information. By the time I wrote my first rough draft, I had talked with multiple members of the common council, Police and Fire Commission, the chief himself and others in law enforcement and City Hall. The only one who refused to meet was the mayor. I finally sent him a long email, telling him that I had the documents and information, and the story was going live no matter what, and that I truly wanted and needed his side before publishing. We met, and after that I thought I finally had enough information to publish my story.”

Once the story hit the air and the web, it went viral.

“It was read by over 20,000 people, more than twice the population of Mayville,” Crowe said. “The citizens mobilized, and organized a group called “Voices for Vossekuil.” They gathered at a Public Safety and Information meeting, and one citizen after another hounded the council and mayor. Finally, after an hour and a half, the mayor took the podium to speak. He trashed me and my reporting, and said it was full on inaccuracies and ‘misinformation.’ He later called my boss’ boss at Radio Plus Inc, and asked them to retract the story. After he refused, the mayor showed up at my station, unannounced to ‘apologize.’ He asked me and my boss three times to reveal my source. I did not. He called me a week later and asked me to retract my story, which I again did not. It was kind of frightening to have someone in City Hall that consumed with me and my reporting, but I kept my bosses in the loop the entire time and continued to do my job.”

After the story broke, the city council agreed to reopen negotiations with the Vossekuil on a reworked contract that didn’t contain the probationary period and added several benefits. Vossekuil accepted the new contract and is slated to be sworn in later this month.

“I felt a lot of pride, but not because I got a chief a job, but I felt pride because for the first time, I saw what real journalism could do,” Crowe said. “I saw that by investigating and reporting and continuing to simply do my job, I was able to get the truth out there and let the process work itself out. The attacks on journalism and reporting are so prevalent in our society today, and I really can’t describe the feeling of knowing I had made a difference in this community simply by reporting facts, staying opinionated and doing my job. It’s something that I’ll never forget, and something that makes me want to do this every single day for the rest of my life.”

“You are the only thing stopping you from doing great work:” Spotlight Fellow Jaimi Dowdell talks about her two-year project, investigative journalism and how students can succeed in publishing tough stories.

The Boston Globe’s coverage of the FAA’s long record of lax oversight and poor management has become a national story. The two-part series, Secrets in the Sky and Flight plan for Failure,looked at the ways in which planes were registered in ways to hide their origins and how pilots with dangerous track records were given free reign over the skies.

The Spotlight project grew out of the movie “Spotlight,” which chronicled the paper’s work to expose the child sexual abuse scandal associated with clergy in the arch diocese. Participant Media, Open Road Films and First Look Media created the Spotlight Investigative Journalism Fellowship, which provides recipients the ability to do their own investigative work at the Globe alongside the Spotlight crew.

Jaimi Dowdell, who previously worked as the senior training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors, was one of the journalists working on this project. She explained in a follow-up piece in the Globe how she and co-author Kelly Carr ended up spending two years of their lives on this piece.  She also served as a “pro” for the Reporting book and shared info on how to see if a “big story” is worth it. On Tuesday, she was nice enough to give me an interview for the blog, where we talked about the genesis of stories, how she got into this, what matters most in terms of sticking with a story and the advice she had for students. Our Q and A (edited for typos and clarity, most of which were mine) is below:

Q: You mentioned that you developed this “strange hobby” of collecting information on the registration numbers, but I didn’t catch exactly HOW you came to this hobby or what made you think it might make a good story. What piqued your interest for this as a story topic?

A: When I was a trainer for IRE, one of the most common questions I’d get was: How do you find story ideas? My answer was typically something like, “If you aren’t bumping into story ideas left and right, you might be in the wrong business.” It’s a little harsh, but I believe it is true. When reporters open their eyes and operate out of curiosity, I promise they’ll find ideas are everywhere. This project is just one example of how that can pan out.

In the fall of 2015, Kelly and I were poking around a state business registry database looking for information on a couple of companies completely unrelated to this project. While I was analyzing that database we stumbled upon something called an aircraft trust. Kelly’s business reporting background helped us out a lot here and she instantly started doing research on what, exactly, was an aircraft trust.

In the meantime, I downloaded the FAA’s aircraft registry database to see if we could learn anything there. That’s when we discovered that the number one city for aircraft registrations was in Delaware. Strange. Even more confusing was the fact that a Texas town with 2,500 people and no airport was in the top 15 with more than 1,000 aircraft registered. We soon realized that Onalaska was connected to that initial trust we discovered and we wanted to know more. This is what led us to our late-night and weekend searches of airplane registration numbers. Really, it was all about curiosity. No one asked us to do this, we weren’t getting paid, we just needed to understand more about what we were finding.

That’s when we started uncovering examples of U.S. airplanes connected to shady things. It became a bit of an obsession to find more companies and planes.

 

Q: You said this was a two-year project in your write up about the stories. Is this common for the stories you have done that were long-form or investigative pieces or was this an anomaly? Could you walk me through the timeline a little bit in terms of what elements took up what amounts of time and how you worked through this process?

A: One of the reasons this project took two years is because we had other jobs and responsibilities. Had we been able to focus solely on the project I think it would have gone faster. Then again, I think this is how a lot of good projects develop. At first, we had no idea if it would even be one story, but we kept digging and digging and it grew. We picked away and gathered little pieces until we could string together something that was meaty.

I think the key to some of these longer-term projects is to just tackle little things each day or each week. That way if it doesn’t pan out you aren’t out on a ton of time. Just give yourself 10 minutes a day to check in on records requests or make the necessary phone call to move things forward. Sadly, sometimes you’ll have to do it on your free time. If you’re passionate about what you do that won’t be such a big deal. These projects are a gamble and sometimes you need to put in that extra work to show others that the gamble will pay off. It’s also important to always have something to work on that makes you happy. If your long-term project doesn’t make you happy in some way then find another long-term project.

 

Q: In story you both wrote that explained how you came to create this story, you talked about the “obsession” you and Kelly shared about this topic. I often tell students who work on larger pieces that they have to really love the topic and feel strongly attached to it… How important was that element of desire you both had to get to the bottom of this and your overall love of the topic in making this story come to fruition?

A: You’re right. This story never would have happened if we wouldn’t have developed a desire to know more. Aviation is not a hobby of mine and it isn’t something I ever thought I would have dedicated years of my life to covering. But as we kept digging, we kept finding more that alarmed us.

There were many times that we thought about quitting or wished we’d never searched those first N-Numbers. But we knew there was a good chance that if we took a pass on telling this story, it might remain untold. After learning about how the issues we uncovered had impacted people, quitting just wasn’t an option.

 

Q: What were some of the bigger “road blocks” you hit along the way and what made them problematic? How did you work around them or how did the inability to get past them impact the story?

 

A: Some of the examples in the story took a long time to run down. We may have spent a month trying to get documents and back-up information that would eventually become one sentence. In addition, we were dealing with multiple countries so that added a layer of complexity for us.

We did so much research that the sheer amount of information we were dealing with became one of the biggest roadblocks. Figuring out how to manage all the documents, data and interviews was tough on its own. But then we had to figure out how to organize all our various examples without losing the readers in print.

To tackle this, we created a lot of timelines and wrote a lot of memos leading up to the actual drafts. We also had some difficult conversations about which examples and facts really moved the story forward and which ones had to be left out. We cut just about as much as we included which was tough but necessary. Our editor deserves a lot of credit for taking our initial copy and working with us to make it something we could all be proud of.

Another major roadblock was getting information from the Federal Aviation Administration. We worked hard to establish a dialogue with them, but they took a long time to respond to most of our questions. In the extreme, it took the agency 11 months to answer a specific question we’d asked in 2016. In addition, there were a couple of times that their online FOIA system simply “lost” our requests. These types of delays were common and we just learned to work through them. While this made things more difficult, it strengthened our resolve to find information. Persistence is important.

Q: The media has really latched onto this topic after you published the series. What has been the general reaction to the piece and what has been your take on how it might influence policy etc. going forward?

A: The reaction to the series has generally been positive. We’ve gotten some interesting tips that we’re following. In addition, Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts introduced the Aircraft Ownership Transparency Act of 2017 earlier this year after we shared our findings with him. That bill is co-sponsored by Peter King and Carolyn Maloney.

Another Massachusetts congressman entered our report as part of the record in a recent subcommittee meeting and asked a representative from the Transportation Safety Administration about the gaps we uncovered in FAA information.

 

Q: What’s next for you (and Kelly if you’re still tag teaming it)? Any big projects on the horizon?

A: What’s next is a great question and I bet I’m like many your students who are currently asking themselves, “What will I do when I grow up?” Right now, I see my goal as finding ways to support what I’ve come to call my journalism habit. In the meantime, I’m following this story and am excited about whatever is next.

Kelly and I are both thankful to the Spotlight Fellowship and The Boston Globe for providing the opportunity and forum for us to share our work. Really good investigative work doesn’t just happen. It’s important that newsrooms and outside organizations like Participant Media, one of the funders of the fellowship, continue to provide the necessary support for reporters to do their jobs the right way.

 

Q: What advice do you have for student journalists who are working on bigger projects that require tenacity and often include roadblocks from administrators or other record keepers? Any thoughts on keeping them motivated and preventing them from giving up?

 

A: The advice I have for student journalists is simple: You are the only thing stopping you from doing great work. You don’t need to be backed by a powerful newsroom or have some lengthy resume to tackle important issues. Some of the best stories I’ve done began at home after work (or after class in college) when I was just curious about something.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be roadblocks – a ton of them. This kind of work isn’t easy, but easy isn’t much fun. Follow your instincts and don’t think you must do it alone. Talk to mentors and professors you trust for guidance. And two is always better than one: Get a partner. While Kelly and I were both nutty enough to follow this through, what made our partnership great was our complementary skills. The combination of both of our strengths allowed us to see the whole picture more fully.

At the end of the day, hard work and resilience is key.

How Audience-Centricity Plays a Role in Bears/Packers Coverage

When the oldest rivalry in the National Football League began its 195th meeting Thursday night, two people integrally involved in the “Dynamics” books were on each side of the battle. Ryan Wood, who covers the Green Bay Packers for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, and Pat Finley, who serves as the Bears beat reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, watched a 35-14 Packer victory, saw the game delayed by a lightning storm and included the usual chippy play that happens when these teams meet.

Wood has been featured on the blog before and offered his “Professional Thoughts” for the basic reporting chapter in the “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing” book. Finley talked here about his use of social media (including his viral sketches of Bears’ practices) and also contributed his “Professional Thoughts” to the second edition of the “Dynamics of Media Writing,” which comes out next year. Both journalists have repeatedly stressed that in all they do, serving the audience matters most.

This fortuitous happenstance of having both of them covering the same event from different sides gives us a chance to see how they applied audience-centricity to their work. Consider this “core theme” paragraph by Wood in his game story:

The Packers trounced the Chicago Bears early and didn’t look back, winning 35-14 on Thursday night at Lambeau Field. Before the Bears had their second offensive snap, the Packers led, 14-0. The first half ended with the Packers scoring three touchdowns, and the Bears providing three turnovers.

Finley has a similar set of information, but a different approach:

(The Bears) lost 35-14, a margin that somehow failed to properly capture the particularly putrid stench of the game. The Packers reclaimed the all-time series lead, and, just four days after winning their first game of the season, the 1-3 Bears again appear in disarray.

When it came to other key plays, each author focused on aspects that would be of most interest to his audience. Finley looked a turnover in the context of quarterback Mike Glennon’s poor performance and a growing drumbeat among Bears fans to bench him in favor of first-round draft pick Mitch Trubisky:

Glennon, perhaps playing for his quarterbacking life, dug the Bears in yet another hole. Down 7-0, he was sacked by Clay Matthews on the team’s first offensive play and fumbled. Jake Ryan recovered at the Bears’ 3-yard line, and Rodgers threw a two-yard touchdown pass to Randall Cobb three plays later.

Wood’s look at that same play included a key interest element: oddity. Clay Matthews’ sack made him the all-time franchise leader in this department:

On Chicago’s first snap from its own 25-yard, outside linebacker Clay Matthews crashed the left side and sacked Bears quarterback Mike Glennon 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Matthews’ sack, which pushed him to first in franchise history with 75 in his career, jarred the football loose from Glennon.

For anyone watching the game, the scariest moment of the night came when the Bears’ Danny Trevathan struck Packer receiver Davante Adams in a helmet-to-helmet collision that knocked Adams out and sent his mouth guard flying across the field. Finley ends his story including this bit of information:

The Bears’ defense raged against the Packers’ field position advantage all night, but were responsible for its most horrific moment — a helmet-to-helmet Danny Trevathan hit that sent Davante Adams off the field on a stretcher and to the hospital with a head and neck injury. Trevathan could face suspension.

Wood, on the other hand, noted the “cheap shot” in several paragraphs in his game story and also wrote an extensive sidebar on the event, which you can read here. One of Finley’s colleagues also wrote a piece on the hit, which places emphasis on different aspects of the event and uses a different tone than the one Wood used.

Additional coverage came from both writers’ colleagues, with Packer coverage focusing on the team’s 3-1 start and the success of its patchwork offensive line. Finley’s publication had multiple columnists calling for the start of the Mitchell Trubisky era.

Both writers (and their publications) told stories about the same event, but from different perspectives based on what they thought their audience would want to know. Bears fans don’t want to hear about how great Aaron Rodgers is or how Clay Matthews broke a record at their team’s expense. Packer fans don’t want to hear about the carousel of quarterbacks that the Bears have seemingly been riding since Sid Luckman left town.

This is the main goal of good journalism personified: Know your audience and tell them what they need to know in a way they want to hear it.

“Is a big story worth it?” Spotlight Fellow Jaimi Dowdell explains how you can tell

Investigative journalist Jaimi Dowdell recently published a two-part series with co-author Kelly Carr that examined the Federal Aviation Administration’s lax oversight that has allowed drug dealers, corrupt officials and people linked to terrorism to take to the skies with impunity. The journalists dug through thousands of pages of documents, revealing how planes were registered in ways that concealed the identity of the owners and how licensing of pilots provides almost no guarantee that these people are who they say they are.

READ PART ONE HERE
READ PART TWO HERE

Dowdell, who previously worked as the senior training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors, published the stories in the Boston Globe, where she was working as a “Spotlight Fellow.” The project grew out of the movie “Spotlight, which chronicled the paper’s work to expose the child sexual abuse scandal associated with clergy in the arch diocese. Participant Media, Open Road Films and First Look Media created the Spotlight Investigative Journalism Fellowship, which provides recipients the ability to do their own investigative work at the Globe alongside the Spotlight crew.

 

Dowdell, who along with Carr spent more than a year investigating, researching, interviewing and writing these pieces, is one of the featured journalists in the upcoming “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing” book providing “A View from a Pro” and more. In the book, she offers this advice for students who are trying to figure out if the “big story” is worth the time and energy necessary to tell it:

  • Does this story answer a question? The best investigations and data stories answer a question. Stay away from noun stories. Don’t do a story on “crime” or “salaries” because it just won’t be that good. Seek to answer a question or explain a phenomenon and you’ll be in better shape.

  • Does the story break new ground? Look and see what has been done on the topic. Just because a story was done in the past doesn’t mean it can’t be done again, but how can you move it forward? What is different? Why is this important now or to your community?

  • Does the story have potential for impact? We want people to care about your work. Why should they care about this? Is there room for change?

  • Are there victims or does this affect people? Again, you want people to care about your work and this helps.

  • Does this have a point to it? Keep making yourself write down a sentence or two explaining the story. What is the story? What is the news? If you can’t do it in a couple of sentences you need to go back to work. Keep asking yourself, “Is this a story?” Get feedback from other people. Be honest with yourself because your time is limited.

In closing, she made a key point that is true of all good stories:

“At the end of the day, you need to have a passion for the story and a desire to stick with it. Otherwise, no matter how good the story or how deep the pool of resources you have, the story will fail.”