It’s uncommon, but it still happens occasionally. I’m talking about sources for stories taking control and giving their version of what’s newsworthy or worse, thinking it’s up to them to approve the story before you print it. Neither of these are very helpful to writers. In fact, it can become a royal pain in the backside to have to wrestle with third parties for ownership of your article (which technically is your editor’s story, but is yours until the bill is paid).The REAL StoryThose who suggest or insist your story take a different path sometimes mean well, but they defeat the entire purpose of your conversation, rendering it an entire waste of time. Most often this happens at the source-gathering stage, which makes it easy to weed them out. Still, there’s the occasional source who answers your first question with “Here’s the real story” and then has to be cut…
668 readersInterviews are an integral part of article writing. An article won’t survive the sniff test if it doesn’t have a few quotes and information provided by an outside source. I’m still a firm believer that the best interview is the face-to-face interview. Sharing the same space with your source, seeing facial expressions, hand gestures, etc.
478 readersI had an interesting interaction with an interview source recently. The project the source was helping with belonged to my client, whom the source knows quite well. Maybe that's where communication went wonky.There was an issue after the interview that I referred directly to the client. The solution was worked out, or so we thought.
542 readersAn open letter to clients - Dear Clients:We writers love you. We appreciate the trust you place in us every time you hand us your projects and agree to pay for a higher level of service. We do that, too. We match your project needs with your voice, your intended message, and your audience. With
571 readersSpeaking of republishing books from a couple of posts ago, how often does that happen in your business? For example, I searched for a long time for a "no longer published" children's book, The Green Machine by Polly Cameron, and I always found super expensive copies for sale. It seemed that people were always searching
1848 readersEditor & Publisher, a leading media industry news source, has returned under new ownership after being closed by Nielsen in December. Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc. now owns E&P. Charles McKeown will continue as publisher and Mark Fitzgerald is E&P's new editor. Charles "Chas" McKeown, who will continue as publisher of E&P, hailed the sale and the speed
472 readers5. How do you write a great lede? The lede is one of the most important components of an article. It hooks the reader, tells them what the article is about and encourages them to continue reading. Before writing the lede, ask yourself “What is this article about?” Go through your research and find the information,
595 readersThe Huffington Post’s Anis Shivani (the same guy who caused the fervor last weekend with his list of overrated American authors) has posted another list to the site that is engaging, briefly. He proposes 17 literary magazines that might survive the spread of the internet literary journal. The unfortunate part about this article is that
679 readersI love the year end best of and countdown lists. Every year I spend way too much time in front of the tube cheering and booing celebrity scandals, top news stories, hottest songs, etc., and why should the FWJ blog be any different? So pull up your chair and get that clicking finger ready because
438 readers// A recent commenter here at FWJ wrote she was having trouble making the transition to web articles from traditional print. Writing for the web is significantly different as I pointed out in “P.U.! Why that Web Article Stinks.” When people go to the web, they are often in short attention span mode. Most readers hit
671 readersThe other day we talked about the pros and cons of an email interview :”Email Interviews vs Phone Interviews.” Many of the issues that apply to email interviews also apply to phone interviews. The main thing is to consider which interview is going to give you the best outcome for your article. Phone Interview Pros Quick and
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