Musing on the news

Just some small comments on news writing:

Back it up, back it in, let me begin

I’ve dabbled in all sorts of writing, trying to not only find my niche but also something to sustain me professionally. Book writing is great, but I do need a day job. My background is primarily in feature writing -putting a[n opinionated] spin on a recent news item (just how I like it, especially as it’s my opinion)- and content writing for corporations’ websites/marketing material. All have a significant message to be told.

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And another thing! [Me being opinionated

I had work experience at a local newspaper for three months and was offered a cadetship, but I turned it down as I thought it wasn’t really what I was after in my career.

Why go?

The reason why the newspaper was not my particular niche was that about 50% of the time I was chasing news from media releases. From my chair. At my desk. By phone. Or email. And it was local news on fetes and Meals on Wheels which wasn’t the hard hitting news a uni journo was after. In my present company, I freelanced as a legal feature writer, which I really enjoyed. I had a wide creative license in how I structured my articles and punned my way through the headlines. The opportunity to extend my freelancing into a permanent role as a financial and legal news reporter really appealed to me and I decided to give it another chance. And believe me, the learning curve is steep.

What do you want from me?

The biggest challenges of my news writer role:

1. State only fact, not opinion. Yes, this is difficult for an opinionated person whose background is expunging opinionated pieces. Extremely difficult. I’ve caught myself analysing the facts and giving my opinion, and drawing a conclusion from those facts [which is usually an obvious conclusion]. But what I have learnt in reporting is if they don’t outwardly say it, then I don’t say it. Just. Stick. To. The. Facts. Okay, got it. [FYI One more month I will be able to contribute to the value-add of the "Comment Only" section to place my own findings! But until then...]
2. Media releases are your best friend and worst enemy. Yes, media releases are the bane and joy of a journo’s day. A red herring served on a silver platter. The information is all there but whether it’s newsworthy or accurate is another story altogether. And the usual answer to your probing questions: “Refer to the media release”. But it’s wrong! These are the times where I miss the face-to-face interviewing of feature writing.
3. Volume of the input v Brevity of the output. Specifically to the subject matter of my role – reading over 40 pages of material or tracking down seven primary sources to output one paragraph. It’s a few hours of work to create an alert that takes 5 seconds to read and 1 minute to write.

For the love of it

And that is why I do what I do. For the love of writing. Any writing.