You are NOT a journalist if…
06 May 2011 18 Comments
in Slightly Insane Tags: Blog, Rant
This rant has been building up for quite some time. It may get me stalked, stabbed, glared at, and possibly tarred and feathered, but I can’t hold it in any more. Don’t read on if you are easily offended.
You see, I am a journalist. A freelance journalist. I do this for a living. I have been doing it for around 18 years now and I still don’t think that I am a “proper” journalist. I can investigate, analyse, report, study, and understand a subject, and write about it in the correct way for the correct market. But have I been to Afghanistan and seen the suffering and reported on it in such a way as to change people’s lives? No.
I do, however, have a grasp of the fundamental essentials of writing. You know, things like grammar, punctuation, tenses. I may not be perfect (there are probably a ton of errors in this post alone) but at least I can recognise them and correct them, when I see them.
SO
When I see badly written twitter descriptions that claim that the human who penned those hideously mangled words is a “freelance writer” or a “journalist”, I want to find them and spend some time explaining why they are neither of those things. With a sharp pen.
You are NOT a journalist if you write a blog. Sorry. Unless the site is a news site, or one of your blogs as you DO journalism, or a hyperlocal, or a place where you are honing your skills after training (important point that, training…)
You are not a freelance writer if you write a blog either. You are a person writing an online diary. Many people who write blogs have phenomenal writing skills and should be freelance writers, many don’t and shouldn’t. The problem I have with all this is that bad grammar, poor spelling, shocking tenses – these are all things that make potential employers think twice about hiring anyone who claims to be a freelance writer.
Those of us who know our libel law from our criminal law, who know what journalism ethics are and what to avoid, who spend hours every day poring over the news and revising our skills, we get tarred with that brush. We have our rates pulled down to below minimum wage because our craft is being devalued.
You wouldn’t claim to be an electrician because you printed it on a business card. You wouldn’t claim to be a lawyer because you read a book about it once. Words may be everywhere and abundant, but unless you know how to use them, like any tool, you are not an expert, you are not a journalist, and you are not a freelance writer.
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May 06, 2011 @ 23:38:56
I’m a journalist, I’ve earned my stripes several times over; but I’m also a journalist who blogs; I’m a blogger (and proud); I’m a writer. While it makes me laugh when people call themselves ‘Editor’ when they’re really just Editor of their own blog, I can’t get upset or bothered about it. Journalism is a skill, it’s how I’ve earned a living for 23 years, it pays my mortgage. But I’ve also just accepted some copy written by a blogger, who is not a journalist, because it’s so nicely written. I would never ignore a blogger who came to me with a story, for the same reason. Spelling and grammar can always be corrected. The story’s the thing.
May 06, 2011 @ 23:10:37
Hello! Thanks for a thought-provoking read.
I wrote a piece on this you know, for Press Gazette, once – oh my God, I got told it was “fucking lame,” out of step, and plenty more besides…and that was by, in at least once instance, the editor of a section on a national newspaper.
A bit of a rude awakening that was!
I agree it may be galling to see people call themselves (note lovely use of capitals…) a Freelance Writer and Social Media Consultant, but like it or not, if they get the right idea at the right time and have the right contacts, their lack of appreciation of how you should use an apostrophe is not going to stand in their way of flogging that idea for a tidy sum, and if they have anything about them, they will learn about grammar and marketing and writing and copyright etc etc and if they are committed to earning a living as a freelance writer, they will learn the necessary skills and get on with it.
For me, there’s a potential to be more wound up by sites that pull articles together from bloggers, that don’t pay and are so obviously lacking in the skills of a sub editor, it makes you want to wince. They may even call themselves magazines or lifestyle sites or something or other to make themselves as swanky as possible and pull in advertising/get freebies. A blogger may list articles published on these sites as part of a CV or writing portfolio – when the reality is a real life editor with a budget to spend may not be impressed.
Some bloggers will be better qualified than me to write for some publications – say they have an expertise in science, or law, or nature or medicine – they have the potential and means to come up with better, more timely, better targeted and compelling pitches to relevant publications or sections – and so long as they can deliver (there’s the crunch!) good luck to them.
I think blogging, social media, marketing and PR skills can all enhance a writing career and massively boost income – look how many magazines/newspaper sections etc have closed in recent years. If someone has been able to show through their blog how they can write, how they can drive traffic and engage with their audience, and build one in the first place, then that may, in some people’s eyes give them a head start when it comes to writing for paying markets online.
As journalists, some of us are having to learn this skills to survive, and in many cases, bloggers may be ahead of the game.
Hope this makes sense. x
May 06, 2011 @ 23:18:29
I completely agree that those skills are essential to becoming a well-rounded professional, you are absolutely right, Linda. Spot on there.
May 06, 2011 @ 23:27:15
Aha but it may not stop it being annoying.
Linda recently posted..Womens fiction bloggers and moderator wanted
May 06, 2011 @ 16:52:06
I am a blogger and proud. My bio on twitter for the first 6 months even declared that I am a “novice” blogger. I do write for other people and get paid but still I am a blogger as what I am writing are blogs. I have looked into studying journalism, but at the age of 38 reckon it looks way too much like hard work and so I am happy to sit back and let the experts, who to be fair, have studied hard and worked harder to be able to call themselves journalists, get on with it. In a word RESPECT! Great blog!
Sally
Sally Todd recently posted..My Fashion Shame! – Tots100 BlogHop April
May 06, 2011 @ 23:19:21
Thank you so much Sally, that’s not only a beautifully written comment, but the compliment made me melt. Thanks so much for your thoughts.
May 06, 2011 @ 15:34:20
I’m a PR and I am inclined to agree. There are a lot of very talented bloggers out there and blogs is not something PR can afford to ignore, especially as it gets your news out directly to a community, but I still see a very distinct line between media relations and blogger relations. I would not consider my blog to be journalism – more a stream of my consciousness (boring really). That said, the HuffPo is an awfully powerful news source!
May 06, 2011 @ 23:19:47
Oh yes, HuffPuff is excellent. But is that not a news source in itself I ask?
May 06, 2011 @ 15:15:32
To an extent, I have a lot of sympathy for those who phrase their professional experience in an optimistic manner, though.
I remember seeing a blogger once writing a bio that said she’d consulted with international brands on their marketing – she’d been to a blogging event organised by their PR agency. I regularly see bloggers who write one blog touting themselves as ‘social media consultants’. And yes, lots of bloggers who write (unpaid) on their own blogs describing themselves as freelance writers and journalists.
I could roll my eyes and rant about my degree and my post-grad and years of professional experience but – does it matter? Creative industries like journalism and PR have always had an element of ‘fake it till you make it’ and any client worth their salt is going to ask for clippings and references and these bloggers don’t tend to have them, which excludes them from most professional opportunities.
Take it as a compliment. Most people think journalism ranks somewhere below being an estate agent in the list of desirable occupations, it’s nice to see that some people consider what we do is a bit of a status symbol!
May 06, 2011 @ 23:20:19
You know, I never saw it like that. Good bloody point!
May 06, 2011 @ 13:03:23
I am so with you on this, I am a blogger and a freelance project manager. I never say I am a freelance writer or journalist. I am pants with grammar, punctuation and all that Jazz. What really does offend me is when people on twitter attempt to be pedants or claims to be “all that and more” and they clearly are not. I am just a blogger who has had a few articles paid for out of luck rather than judgement, but I have not been to uni, studied journalism or learnt any trade.
May 06, 2011 @ 13:20:05
Welcome to the team! Would you like a badge?
May 06, 2011 @ 12:19:48
i am not offended, everyone has free speech, but a quick question. so those who self publish books are they just journal authors as well. would like your input and by the way, i like your boldness…it is good to banter.
May 06, 2011 @ 13:23:00
That is an excellent question. Self publishing is undergoing something of an image overhaul at the moment, especially with the move to digital. There is a young lady in the USA who is a multi-millionaire since December thanks to her self-published titles and, as a result, has just received a prestigious publishing contract. Is she a novelist? I would say yes, she was. Perhaps being defined as a novelist in the digital age is more about how many people download and read your book than about how your book was published?
May 06, 2011 @ 11:27:23
I think you can tell people you’ve written a novel regardless of whether it has been published or not. But until it has been published with or without an advance, and it doesn’t matter if no one actually buys it, or if self publishing then only when someone buys a copy, then and only then can you proudly say ‘I’m a novelist’.
May 06, 2011 @ 11:24:03
You’re a journalist when you find a story, verify the facts, work out an angle, ring up the people involved for quotes, and put it together in a who, what, where, when news story or feature that is published either in print or online. And someone pays you for it.
Blogs are therefore not journalism
Writing website content is not journalism
Technical writing is not journalism
Commercial writing of any kind from PR and marketing to case studies is not journalism
They are all writing, but they’re not journalism. As Heidi mentioned though they can be a route into journalism, as long as you’re prepared to learn journalist skills. Just like I did, as a journalist, when I started blog writing. That was a different set of skills, and indeed the learning curve was steep. But if you’ve learnt one kind of writing you can learn another.
No one is going to pay you as a journalist though if your grammar and spelling aren’t at least up to the basics. So without those two you’ll fail at the crucial hurdle (getting paid).
May 06, 2011 @ 11:15:05
Contentious! Blogging (some seven years ago) was my way in to journalism and freelance writing, although I wouldn’t have called myself those things back then. I once heard someone say you could legitimately call yourself a freelance writer or a journalist when people had paid you to write something. But does that mean you can’t say you’re a novelist till your six figure sum is in the bank? Dammit.
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May 06, 2011 @ 11:24:52
Ah, but I happen to know that you have other qualifications that ease you into the category of journalist quite comfortably. And you are still hesitant about proclaiming that you are a freelance journalist. My gripe is with those who boast about this skill when they clearly do not have it, or the experience to qualify for it.