A Question for Fellow Journalists

Journalist friends or those who studied journalism: 

For a book I am writing, I need to hear from you. Send me a short quote on why you decided to get into this business. What was the "A ha!" moment -- the deep down gut reason or an incident or inspiration -- that triggered you to say, "I want to be a reporter?" 

You can either post it here or email me at heidilynnrussell@yahoo.com. Names are not necessary for quoting -- I'm following a theory and want to see if it plays out. 

Thanks.

Organizing the Assignments

Being a freelancer means being your own boss.

And that translates into constant self-discipline to work as if someone is standing at your right elbow shouting, "Deadline was 5 minutes ago!"

The problem is that there are some mornings where there are so many pieces of things to do that it's hard to get started with just one. This is one such morning for me.

Now I don't know if you've ever taken a Myers Briggs personality test, but in one of the categories, I consistently score 100 percent as a "J," or "Judging." Basically, that means I live a structured and decided lifestyle. I'm a planner to the nth degree.

So on a morning like today, I put my J skills in action. Here's how I tackled the mountain of tasks. It's a very simple solution for you, too:

Get out a blank piece of white paper and a black Sharpie. Why use a magic marker rather than an ink pen? I find that if I write my tasks in thick, black ink, my mind snaps to attention. The larger letters command my action.

Now draw two vertical lines down the paper and two horizontal lines across. This should give you boxes in which to write.

In each box, write and underline the name of a task. In my case, three of my boxes had titles of three different stories I'm working on. One box was for personal errands. One box was for correspondence with current editors. One box was for business development.

In the boxes with the story titles, I listed what had to be done for each story. Which sources do I still need to contact? Which line of research still needs to be unearthed? Which one has a pending interview? And what time will I start writing each one?

The box for personal errands lists things I have to do this afternoon that have nothing to do with work.

The box for correspondence with editors included a list of phone calls and emails for pitch follow-ups, story planning sessions and other housekeeping matters, i.e., checking on when I can expect my money for work completed.

And the box for business development? My list includes time to work on my book project, time to redesign my business Web site and time to research new companies to pitch.

As you can see, no wonder I had such a mental block when it came time to diving into my Monday morning! The list was enormous! But by dividing these tasks up in categories and looking at them on this sheet of paper in capital letters written with a fat Sharpie, I'm now focused and ready, and I've already crossed several things off the list.

Which brings up my last point .... When you complete a task, cross it off. I don't know why this psychologically helps me, but doing so gives me a boost of energy because of a sense of self-accomplishment. I have more drive then to tackle the rest of the items.

Will I get to all of them in one day?

Certainly not.

But the list will stay in front of me all week, and by Friday, I'll feel like I've earned the downtime I will so richly reserve.

You will, too! Try it!

Real World Rewards for Your Work

Sometimes the real payment you receive for your work isn't money.

A funny thing happened this morning to remind me that this business of writing is about so much more than putting words to paper ....

I'm researching a story about programs to help soldiers and veterans with substance abuse issues. I pulled up the Army's Substance Abuse Program Web site and was tooling around to see the types of courses and aid they have available.

Suddenly, my eye fell on a phrase I know very well: "PRIME for Life."

The link for it went straight to a program description, and I knew that well, too.

Ten years ago, I freelanced for the company that put that program together. My job was to take their course materials and edit them. I didn't get rich, and my name wasn't included in the final product. No one knew I had anything to do with it.

But this morning, when I saw the same course materials on the Army's Web site and realized that soldiers and veterans were benefiting from them, I felt so gratified and happy.

The real reason I got into this business was to help change lives. I know that sounds like a Pollyanna, but it's true. Throughout my career, I've always sought stories that will enrich and inform people, spur them to action or cause them to think hard about their perspectives and attitudes.

As a newspaper journalist, I usually saw tangible results of my efforts on at least a weekly basis. As a freelancer today, I don't always get that immediate affirmation.

This was that type of feeling. It was a decade after the fact ... but what a feeling. I needed that shot in the arm to remind me that what we do really does matter.

And whether you're a rich-and-successful or a poor-and-struggling writer, this type of payment is the best there is.

The 2013 Pledge to Start and Finish a Book

Happy New Year! I'll bet you have a great New Year's resolution that you plan to keep!

The last time I made a resolution was in 2000. I figured that it was a monumental year with the changing over to a new millennium, and that deserved a kick-ass resolution.

So I resolved to conquer a real fear. I sat and thought hard ... what was a real fear that I could tackle and have results to show for it?

I decided that one fear was horses.

I took horseback riding lessons for the first four months of 2000. For the first month, I was so frightened that my instructor literally held the horse's bit and led me around and around a pen, like I was 5 years old.

By the last month, I had progressed to trotting and even staying on the back of the horse when it reared its legs. I'll never be an expert, because truthfully, I never took to it like some people do. But I did cross that resolution off my list as a "mission accomplished."

I haven't made a resolution since then .... until this year, 2013.

I came to a difficult realization that I was spending much too much time on Twitter. It was time to rock the boat.

So I have resolved this:

Every time I feel the nudge to tweet or spend an inordinate amount of time perusing tweets, I will work on writing my book. I'm going to keep an open Word doc on my computer so that I can go straight to it and just write until the urge is gone. I haven't even started this book. But that's the point. I thought to myself, "I'll bet I spent so much time on Twitter in 2012, that I could have finished a book in the time that I was tweeting."

Will it sell?

At this point, I don't really care.

I just want to be able to say ... in my life, I was a newspaper reporter, I was an AP wire service reporter, I was a newspaper editor, I was a magazine freelance writer .... AND I WROTE A BOOK.

Just one book.

Let's see if I can get it done this year. It doesn't mean I'll shelve Twitter completely, but I do need to get my life back in balance.

Why I Ponder the 4th of July on the Last Week of December

We have a light snowy dusting among the grass blades and a roaring fire on this blustery December day.

But I'm not thinking about the hot chocolate or the mittens and boots ...

.... I'm contemplating fireworks safety, best ways to quench a dying thirst on a humid summer's day and Fourth of July cookout recipes.

Why????

Well, because in the world of freelance writing, you never live in the present when it comes to pitching ideas. Magazines are on an entirely different schedule than the rest of the world. While you're sipping egg nog in the muted light of a Christmas tree, your potential editors are already thinking ahead to the layout for the St. Patrick's Day issue -- maybe even planning for Passover or Easter spreads, too.

That's why, to stay ahead of your competition, you need to think even further ahead than that.

This doesn't just apply to stories about recipes and crafts. Spin it out and think outside the box. In October, I was thinking about tax planning stories for my Realtor magazines. In December, I think about pieces for the summer tourist season for magazines that reach small business owners in resort areas. In January, I move to pitching ideas on successful job hunting for magazines that college graduates will be reading in June. By April, I'm churning back-to-school coping stories for my military magazines, because their families may have moved to a new geographic location, and they need help adjusting.

As you can see, to beat your competition and always guarantee an assignment, you don't focus on the obvious, like pitching a story in May on the best ways to set a Thanksgiving table. (Although, hey! That's a good idea, too!) You can always send those ideas, but unless you're a regular contributor to that publication, chances are they've already been assigned to one of the writers with which the editors are already familiar.

Don't sit around and complain that competition is too stiff, or the economy is bad, or that your queries keep hitting the slush pile. Just think ahead .... by about five to six months .... and then think outside the box.

Plan your July work this week, and in July, get back to me about how much money you're making.

End of Year Pitches

December: The month when we all stop for a full week to hit holiday parties and exchange gifts and eat lots and lots of cookies .....

Or do we?

If you're trying to run a freelance writing business, this month is your prime opportunity to line up work for the coming year so that you're not scrambling month to month.

Don't know where to start? That's okay, I'm here to help. Here's what I do:

1) Make a list of all of your current clients. Check out their calendars for the coming year and for any themes that will be prevalent in each monthly issue. Contact them and find out if they will entertain a list of story ideas from you.

2) When you hear back from each client (who will always say, "Yes! Send us ideas!"), work on a list of 10-12 topics. This usually takes me about eight hours to research, but if I net just one or two assignments for specific months, I'm able to schedule that and know with certainty that it's money in the bank. It's not wasted time if it results in a $1,000-$2,000 assignment, is it?

3) After you've nailed work with current clients, now research new markets. Make sure your Web site is current (in this case, I'm revamping mine this year), and go through the same process that you did with the current clients. Look at each publication's editorial calendar. Send an email to each magazine asking if they'll accept pitches. When you hear back from each one, research topics based on the calendar and send 10-12 story ideas.

This may sound like it's time-consuming, but think of it this way: If you handle this during December every night for just one hour after you sign a few Christmas cards, you'll start seeing results.

Get the work on the calendar before the year begins.

As the snow begins falling, you'll watch the assignments snowball.

Libeling "The Hobbit" - A Former AP Reporter's Take

I don't pursue stories about movies or celebrities, because it's too close to my personal interests and quite frankly would be a conflict of interest for me to cover.

But this week when a story broke about animals being mistreated on the film set of "The Hobbit," I raised an eyebrow and put my coffee cup down on the table, a little stunned.

The first part of the problem was that the source for the information was the animal rights group PETA. The second part of the problem was that the news organization that broke the story was where I used to work in the mid- to late-'90s: The Associated Press.

Understand this.

When I was with the Associated Press covering politics in the statehouse of Pennsylvania, these folks would sometimes drop in for a visit. We'd take their press releases with straight faces, but the minute they were gone, the paper was crumpled into a ball and used for hoop shooting practice with the nearest trash can.

I tell you this, because it took a lot for us to take PETA seriously.  In fact, I once was sent out on an investigation to discover whether horses that were being auctioned were being mistreated. The editor sat on my story for a full four months and didn't run it. I went on vacation, and while I was gone, a state legislator held a committee hearing on the issue. So another reporter took my work, added updated information, slapped her byline on my copy and made it her story.

This is how we treated the stories that PETA brought to us. They were afterthoughts. We did not give them credence, and we held at arm's length every ounce of information and disdainfully looked at it with the greatest amount of skepticism you can imagine. Think of a 5-year-old Shirley Temple in a pink tutu holding a dead rat by the tail. There ya go.

And here this week ... is a story going world-wide, with an Associated Press byline no less ... about PETA allegations and a film I have anticipated for months.

I'm on the fence about this whole thing. Knowing what I know about how we tiptoed around PETA as if it was a biological weapon placed on a Manhattan subway, for AP to run this story gave it instant credibility with me.

And then I read what filmmaker Peter Jackson put out on Facebook ... and I read the accounts of the owners of the animals in question, who emphatically stated that in no way were their pets mistreated. Add to this the weighing in of some of the film actors on Twitter about this, and my doubt reached new heights.

I see a few problems with the AP account. They buried the Jackson response to the allegations deep in the copy. They also quoted people who had been fired and who had chosen to speak up on the cusp of the film opening and who had an obvious axe to grind. They didn't interview the owners of the animals, either.

As a fellow journalist who worked for AP for 4 1/2 years, my initial reaction is always to go to the defense of the journalist who reported the story. I know what it's like to be the "eyes on the ground," to interview those with the concerns, to ferret out the liars and those with secret agendas, to thoroughly question and provoke with questions in order to ascertain the truth. I know how to push buttons and read body language, anger and evasiveness. And I know that when I worked for AP, we never would have run that story if we thought there was any doubt to its veracity.

But that was then.

I have seen a cavalier attitude that has been brought about by the Internet and bloggers and people who fashion themselves as "journalists" because they put pen to paper but have no training or experience other than spouting their opinions for a wide audience.

I can't vouch anymore for the strength of the journalistic integrity of an organization like the AP like I once could. And having read the statements from the Jackson camp, I am chagrined at what seems to be a rush to be the first with the story rather than a careful vetting of the facts.

Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye, and the AP hasn't yet written it. But their silence on story followup is deafening and speaks for itself.

Either way, this is a disturbing type of story: It either shines a light on mistreatment of animals during one of the most highly anticipated films of the year ... or it shines a light on egregious reporting that borders on libel.

We have entered a new era of journalism.

Clearly.

Sadly.

Sickeningly.