The trials and tribulations of a freelance writer

This is an extract of the undeniably entertaining, witty and highly intelligent article by American freelance writer Richard Morgan: 'Seven Years As A Freelance Writer, or, How To Make Vitamin Soup'

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"When people say they want to get into freelancing but don't know how to do it, what I tell them is: OK, fine, you don't know how to freelance because you've never done it before, but take something you do know how to do - dating - and just use the same rules. Freelancing is basically just courtship, but the freelancer-editor relationship is nothing more than friends with benefits. The editor likes you because you remind the editor of when she had enthusiasm and appetite and vision, and so you make the editor feel powerful in the way that nostalgia empowers people.

But the editor will never choose you over the publication to which he is married. It will not even be a fleeting thought in the editor's mind. The freelancer can have a lot of fun, but is ultimately the editor's plaything. And any one freelancer is, above all things, unnecessary and replaceable. I always felt like the most fumbling juggling act in the industry.

Freelancing is an adventure the way "Locked Up Abroad" is an adventure. Journalism even at its best is already a fairly caustic and draining experience. All the qualities that make you a great journalist make you a terrible person: gossip, urgency, obsession, noisiness, theatrics and hysterics...Freelancing requires such strict adherence to todayism, to sycophancy, to the grubbiest, lowliest submissions. It is an on-spec life and it is full of what can only be described as insane serendipity (or serendipitous insanity)..."

Web 2.0: The Machine Is Using Us

OUTFOXED

While the Fox News cable network has promoted itself as a "fair and balanced" news outlet - so much so they it has even trademarked the phrase - not everyone believes that they're living up to their slogan, and this activist documentary by filmmaker Robert Greenwald takes a close look at the political perspective of Fox's coverage.

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism examines the right-wing slant of Fox News' reporting, as represented in stories the network chooses to cover and their shoehorning of editorial opinion into stories, revealed in interviews with former Fox employees and several noted journalists (including American broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite) who discuss the pro-conservative, anti-Democratic views of the channel's management and how they're manifested in their programming.

The film also puts talk show host Bill O'Reilly under the microscope and offers potent examples of his frequently abrasive interviewing style. Production of Outfoxed was supported in part by the leftist political action network Moveon.org

The Audience

Jay Rosen (2005)

"You don't own the eyeballs. You don't own the press, which is now divided into pro and amateur zones. You don't control production on the new platform, which isn't one-way. There's a new balance of power between you and us. The people formerly known as the audience are simply the public made realer, less fictional, more able, less predictable. You should welcome that, media people. But whether you do or not we want you to know we're here."

Lecture Nine

This lecture posed the questions: What are news values? And what can be considered newsworthy? They can be defined as: 

"The degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story and the attention that is paid by an audience [as a result]"

or 

"News values are one of the most opaque structures of meaning in modern society...Journalists speak of 'the news' as if events select themselves...Yet of the millions of events which occur daily in the world, only a tiny proportion ever become visible as 'potential news stories': and of this proportion, only a small fraction are actually produced as the day's news..."

or 

"[News values] are fundamental to understanding news production and the choices that editors and other journalists face when deciding that one bit of information is news while another is not"

Whichever definition, news values determine that a piece of news is something with impact, audience identification, pragmatics and source influence. 

I think the most agreed upon definition of news values was published in 1994 by A. Boyd; "News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as 'newsworthiness'..." Does a piece of news hold interest? Will it stand the test of time? News values vary across different news services and different countries and cultures. It is a very subjective discipline. Despite this, there are universal news values such as the employment of the inverted pyramid style of writing and the two phrases, "If it bleeds, it leads" (stories of notable deaths, murders, wars, accidents etc.) and "If it's local, it leads"(stories of droughts, floods, ongoing events, sports and politics). 

One of the things that most stuck with me since hearing this lecture was Harold Evans' - the editor of the Sunday Times - reference to editors as the "human sieves of the torrent of news". I think, echoing the thoughts of Bruce, that it is such an intelligent and accurate depiction of the editorial discipline. More than simply instinct and logic, Bruce emphasised the importance of experience in journalism. More significant than promulgated codes of newsworthiness is the "informal code of what constitutes a good story" which is "part of newsroom initiation and socialisation." (McGregor) 

We then proceeded to go through many different theories of what constitutes news values - what determines a story's placement if at all, its prevalence and its newsworthiness? In 1965, Galtung and Ruge analysed international news to discover common factors and news agendas which resulted in the determination of 12 universal news values: negativity, proximity, recency, currency, continuity, uniqueness, simplicity, personality, predictability/expectedness, elite nations or people, exclusivity and size.

They formed three hypotheses: The additivity: the more factors an event satisfies, the higher its newsworthiness, complementarity: the factors will tend to exclude each other, and exclusion: events that satisfy none of very few factors will usually not become news, hypotheses. 

Beyond those of Galtung and Ruge, we explored the ideas of Golding and Elliot, Stephens, O'Neill and Harcup, Masterson and McGregor. While doing this, I found quite a few similarities and a couple of minor differences between all of these different perspectives. The overall sentiment, however, was resoundingly similar and essentially adhered to the ideas of Galtung and Ruge stated above. 

When considering the threats to newsworthiness these days, three 'tensions' came to the fore:

1. Journalism/commercialisation of media and social life

2. Journalism/public relations

3. Journalism's ideals/reality

In this, we consider the words of Downie and Kaiser on lazy, incompetent journalism; "Too much of what has been offered as news in recent years has been untrustworthy, irresponsible, misleading or incomplete" as well as those of Davies on PR influence and tabloidisation; "...media falsehood and distortion; PR tactics and propaganda; and the use of illegal news-gathering techniques" and finally those of Rowse on hyper-commercialisation; "Media mergers are rapidly creating one huge news cartel...controlling most of what you see, hear and read. These mergers further corrupt the news process...news organisations cut down on serious coverage...". Mckinnon drew all of these together and said the combination of which "leads to an unfortunate trend...in which pressures of the newsroom (or according to some, laziness or inadequately trained journalists) result in everyday reuse of press releases without re-writing, checking or analysis." 

When focussing on the 'audience' in relation to news values, it is safe to say that we just want to be heard. We wish to inform the media of our existence, and of a shift in power. The audience is the public. From this lecture, I have adopted the belief that news values are constantly shifting. If they are to remain stagnant that would mean that the world has halted. News values relate directly to what is going on around us and without them being adaptable, journalism as we know it would die. The drivers of what can be considered newsworthy shift as society's values shift. It is undeniably an ever-changing field. 

Vogue's Empress

Anna Wintour

"You just need to have a love for what you're doing. It's not about thinking that it's the cool thing; it's about really believing in it. I was brought up to believe absolutely in the importance of journalism and communication and to have a real love for the printed word. I have so much respect for all the talented people I work with"

Anna Wintour - the Queen of fashion journalists

Anna Wintour, the legendary editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine for twenty years, is the most powerful and polarising figure in fashion. Hidden behind her trademark bob and sunglasses, Wintour has become an institution throughout the fashion world, widely praised for her eye for fashion trends and her support for young and upcoming designers. 

I am sure many, many girls dream one day to become the head of a magazine so influential and fashion-forward as that of Vogue, and I have to admit I am one of the masses in that regard. Anna Wintour has always been an inspirational figure to me. A decisive perfectionist, she holds qualities and experiences which I can only wish to obtain. This CBS interview and behind-the-scenes look at Vogue is one of many insightful meetings with Wintour over the years and it gives a taste of the fast-paced, dynamic world of fashion journalism.