Archive for the ‘Journalism advice’ Category
Now is the time to be pitching
I, horse riding in northeast China, two summers ago
If there is one piece of advice I would’ve given to my 20-something self, when I had started freelancing full-time, it would be to pitch more.
Pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch some more. Pitch. Pitch again. Re-pitch. Pitch.
Right now, although it’s a hard time for many media publications, editors are still crying out for fresh content.
They’re hungry, in fact, for new voices. Over the past week, I’ve seen dozens of call-outs for pitches, on Twitter, from editors at a smorgasbord of titles.
Journalism is as popular as ever, if not more so. More of the world is literate than ever before; Internet penetration continues to increase; and people are reading articles in the millions and millions.
So write the pieces you want to read; write the stories that only you can. Channel your energy and creativity into well-crafted pitches that will be greenlit. (Remember to negotiate for higher fees! You don’t want to sell yourself or other freelancers short.)
This week all I’ve been doing is pitching or re-pitching or refining pitches. I feel burned-out, in fact, from all the pitching. I’m waiting for the cows to come home.
Try to make each pitch well-crafted, interesting or original, and, crucially, well suited to the editor you’re pitching, the section s/he runs, and the publication. Don’t pitch a sex toy feature to the food section of a children’s magazine.
If you want tips and advice on how to pitch there is an abundance of material on the ‘net. Also on this blog — just use this tag: pitching.
Good luck. Any questions or comments, please write a comment on this post or email me.
Also, if you find these posts enjoyable, edifying or entertaining, why not support this blog? I’ve been creating content for this blog for several years and now it would be great if you could show your support. Please send appreciation to paypal.me/LuHaiLiang89
Those Beijing streets in 2013, when I first started blogging.
Five Years As A Full-Time Freelance Journalist
It’s been over five years since I went full-time freelance, with many tales of woe and wonder accrued, and it was in Beijing, that city of crushing concrete and flickering dreams, where I, an ambitious migrant, learned the ways of this marginal life.
I wanted to draw attention to some of my most memorable and notable articles I worked on over that duration. It has been a journey of near financial ruin, some wonderful highs, truly terrible lows, and an endless procession of images that are so dense and numerous that they don’t stand out easily in my mind, something I consider somewhat of a curse.
Freelance journalism is no kind of career and I do not advise you, dear reader, to enter this occupation. It is badly paid, demands much of you, and the glory of it is a bright mirror made of silver ghosts. They will haunt you, those glories, because they are so elusive and whispering. If you want to do something truly fulfilling, be a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a public servant without vice and ambition.
(I’m serious about this. If you deeply care about social issues get into public policy, activism or just become seriously rich while pledging part of your income to charity. If you really want to make a difference don’t sit on the fence like a journalist — get into politics. If you want to be truly creative, start writing fiction. If you like celebrity, start TikTok-ing.)
Don’t follow in my footsteps. Don’t get sucked into this vortex of monetary oblivion. Live a wholesome life with regular hours, great benefits, and free coffee. Build up your days with a succession of normal events and normal milestones, properly celebrated and fondly reminisced. If, however, you do decide to plunge in here’s what you might expect.
The time I went to North Korea as an undercover journalist
Aljazeera, Is North Korea on your tourism bucket list?
Although this happened in 2014, I wanted to highlight it because it remains one of the boldest things I’ve done. I decided I wanted to go to North Korea. In a lane off a small street, in downtown Beijing, there exists the offices of the oldest established North Korea tour operator, founded by a Briton no less. In that building is where I laid out my idea, to their general manager, about what I wanted to do, and where we negotiated how I would proceed. Tourism was a growing phenomenon and I thought I would write about it.
The Kims and I, in Pyongyang.
What better way than to “smuggle” myself onto a tour? The investment was high. The tour cost a lot of money, more than I had ever spent. It was eight days, traveling all around North Korea, all inclusive. But I had told zero editors I was going there. Didn’t know who I would pitch the story to afterwards.
While I was there I took a copious amount of notes, which lie in a Moleskine in a drawer in England, and hundreds of photos and dozens of videos. I used a Canon S120, a digital compact camera, and an Olympus Mju-II, a film camera I’d picked up in Beijing. Those Canon S120 photos would eventually be sold to various publications and helped to recoup the money I’d sunk and more.
In hindsight, I could’ve negotiated for more money for the first feature that came out of that trip. I was young and did not realise how much the story was worth. I should’ve asked for more. But back then, $450 for a feature and $450 for a photo gallery seemed a lot to me. It was worth more than that though. Sigh. But, like I said, I eventually recouped my money, plus more, and magazines such as Marie Claire would pay well for the photos. Also, I went to North Korea. As a journalist. So, I’ll always have that.
The time I told everyone that I got a 2:2 degree in journalism
The Guardian, Feeling depressed about your 2:2 degree? Get over it, employers have
I read multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University, earning a B.A. In the UK, a bachelors usually takes three years and you get a final grade for your degree. A First is the highest award and quite hard to get. Most people get a 2:1 and it’s respectable. What most students do not want to get is a 2:2, known colloquially as a “Desmond” (after Desmond Tutu). But that’s what I got.
I always found it ironic though that I was telling everyone I got a 2:2 in journalism, in The Guardian, a publication most student journalists would kill to get a byline in. C’est la vie.
The time I failed at being a travelling journalist in Burma
Watching the sunrise getting messed up by balloons in Bagan, Burma.
CNN Travel, Myanmar monks feel the pressure of tourism
In the winter of 2015, I attempted an experiment at traveling while also doing journalism. It was a precursor to what I do now, which is basically travel the world writing articles. But I was not good at it then. (I am still not sure if I am good at it now.) And I spent three weeks in Myanmar travelling, and mostly failing at finding stories except this one travel story I wrote. But it remains one of my favourite published pieces.
The story of my WIRED commission
In my last post I said that out of the 12 pitches I sent to editors in January, I only received one commission. That commission came from WIRED (UK), a publication I have long admired, and is a branch of the original mag founded by one of my heroes, Kevin Kelly.
Anyway, that commission has now been published. You can read it here.
This is the story of how I got the idea for the pitch and what led me to pitch WIRED, who I had never contacted, or written for before. It may be of interest to the aspiring freelance journalists out there, to gain some insight into how I come up with ideas, and how I go about pitching.
It all started with a library visit. I joined my local library, and I go there every so often to take out books and to browse the magazines. Reading magazines and other publications is an excellent way of coming up with story ideas.
But you have to be alert for potential items of interest. I was sat in the library, reading through The Economist. I read an article about Tencent, videogames, and government regulations in China, when I came across the following paragraph:
This was very interesting and I hadn’t known these things before. I read it again. I took a photo with my phone of this paragraph.
This paragraph has angles. There’s the female gamer in China angle, which is significant because it’s a higher proportion than in the west. There’s this game, Love and Producer, which has been “wildly popular” with Chinese women in their 20s.
Story ideas should be specific, based on details, not generalised. You can’t pitch a story about videogames in China, but you can pitch an idea about a very popular game that’s hooked millions of young Chinese women that’s about dating four men, and by the way, women gamers are almost half of the market in China, unlike in the US or UK.
I then contacted a few Chinese friends to ask them about this game. I got some information from them, preparing my knowledge for a potential pitch.
I use Twitter and I follow lots of editors on there. I happened to see the tweet of a WIRED editor who had tweeted a call-out for pitches themed around love and romance, obviously tech or science-related, and with her email address. I took a screenshot of this call-out, for reference.
Then I pitched this editor the story idea. And the rest, as they say, is history.
*
More pitching blog posts:
https://theluhai.com/2015/01/05/part-one-freelance-journalists-on-their-first-ever-paid-commissions/
https://theluhai.com/2014/01/17/how-i-got-my-first-ever-paid-freelance-gig/
How to Become a Freelance Journalist in China
This is a brief guide to the posts on this blog. I arrived in China in the autumn of 2012, and had just graduated a journalism degree. I learned the ropes of freelance journalism when I moved to Beijing.
This blog started in the autumn of 2013 after I had begun to freelance more professionally. The posts from previous years were written while I was still learning, but I hope that they may be of use to you.
How do you get a visa as a freelancer in China?
This is usually the most pressing question. And my guess is that this is the biggest hurdle for those thinking of coming to China to do journalism. The official J-visa (full visa status and accreditation as a professional journalist allowed to do journalism in China) is difficult to get. It’s not easy to get even with the full backing of a major news organization. Suffice to say that unless you are employed or sponsored by one of these large media companies, it will be nigh on impossible to secure a J-visa.
5 Most Frequently Asked Questions About Being a Freelance Journalist in China
There is still a massive demand for information, news and stories
Publications are hungry, starving for new and exciting information and stories. If you are placed in a niche or location that’s in demand, then you could be hot property.
6 Things I Learned about the Freelance Journalism Market While I Was In China
Four months equates to a season, in a year, and so 2015 was irrevocably marked by this season of difficulty. But, there have been bright spots. Most notable among these was the money I earned from freelancing. This year’s haul is almost four times as much as what I earned the previous year from freelancing.
A Year in the Life of a Freelance Journalist Abroad
I first got paid for writing in a place where writers typically never get paid: an internship. I spent last winter in Washington DC writing for an international affairs journal called the American Interest. My main gig was producing short 200-400 word news analysis posts for their online blog. At the end of my time there I wrote my first-ever feature story and that is what I got paid for ($200).
Part One: Freelance Journalists on their First Ever (Paid) Commissions
Meet your fellow journalists
Find them on Twitter, LinkedIn – search out bylines and reach out to them. Most will gladly meet up for a coffee. Some may even share freelance and job opportunities down the line. You’re all in the same boat, so having that network can be invaluable.
5 Things To Do Upon Arriving in a New Country as a Freelance Journalist
There are many more posts about freelancing, and the experience of freelancing in China. Please have a browse of this site if you are interested.
Where I am right now
Published on Monday, December 7, in The Independent, p. 23.
After four weeks in Yunnan, I am back in Beijing. Before I fly back to England for Christmas I am staying on a friend’s couch in Beijing.
Recently, I was published for a piece analyzing international affairs. It was my first time writing such a piece for a national newspaper. I asked the editor for advice on tone, to which he replied: “It’s supposed to be written in an authoritative manner, by you, our correspondent, who knows about China’s approach to climate change”.
The pressure was on. Certainly I did not want to write an article with my name on it, and my picture, a first for me, that had holes in it — or a poorly researched piece that could make me look like a fool in the printed paper, and online, for an audience of millions.
But the piece was well received by the editor and appeared in Monday’s issue of the paper. As a foreign correspondent I have made progress since August, when I received a phone call from London, from the foreign editor of The Independent, asking me if I was available to write a story.
The call came around 6pm my time, which is about 9am in the UK, and of course I said “yes”. The editor knew me because I had, some months ago, Tweeted him on Twitter asking if I could contribute to his paper. We exchanged messages but nothing came of it. As no-else was available at that time, that day in August, he suddenly remembered me and gave me a call.
That evening, I rushed around Beijing, doing interviews, calling people, and wrote up my story in a Starbucks. The story I wrote impressed the editor and was printed the following day. From then on I got more work with The Independent.
A couple of things to note, especially for any budding freelancers out there. While I was on the phone to the foreign editor, even though it was my first ever time speaking to him proper, I still asked him if I could have a higher fee for the article I had not yet written. He said “yes”– he’d give me a bit of a higher rate (he didn’t have much of a choice) and so I established, from the beginning, a precedent for getting higher rates from them.
It’s important that freelancers do not price themselves out of their jobs, and importantly, price other freelancers out of their jobs.
It’s important that editors respect you, and that you respect yourself and your work. It is a question of confidence that you value yourself to a point where you feel you can ask for better payment. But it’s a good habit to have.
The magic first sentence
“Finding a date in Beijing is not especially difficult”.
“When you land at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, yours very likely will be the only plane that day disturbing the quiet, although rather bumpy, runway”.
“Five years ago, Beijinger Robert Zhao went on a trip to Tibet”.
“Let’s start with Mary”.
These are the first sentences of some of the articles I’ve written. Most of them, as you can see, are pretty simple. But all of them came about quite suddenly.
So how do you write the first sentence? I can only speak from my own experience, but most of the time it just comes. The sentence will offer itself and I’ll trust that instinct and stick with it. From the opening sentence, everything follows.
I once read somewhere that if you have a title, the first sentence, and roughly know what the ending of the story will be, then half your job is already done. Sound advice, I thought.
I once copied out the first sentence of every essay contained in Tom Bissell’s book of essays Magic Hours (many of them started out as features for magazines). That is the extent of my writing geekery. I did it just out of interest. I wanted to see how a writer I much admire opens his pieces. I highly recommend such exercises. Once you copy and analyse in this way, you see the structure, the bones, that make up good writing, all the more clearly.
Finding story ideas #2: meeting sources
“The source of a river or stream is the original point from which the river flows. It may be a lake, a marsh, a spring or a glacier. This is where the stream starts”.
This is a continuing series focusing on ideas and suggestions about how to find and come up with story ideas. To view previous entries in the series, use this tag.
Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a Chinese journalist. As a tech reporter, she has covered China’s rapidly developing tech industry.
She told me things of which I was only very dimly aware or not at all. She made them clearer to me and painted pictures and scenes of China’s technological landscape that, heretofore, I barely understood.
Who are your sources? And where are they?
Perhaps one of the greatest training that a stint on a local newspaper can provide is the lesson on how to locate, maintain, and cultivate sources.
I cannot say that I am as well trained as a reporter on, say, The Bournemouth Echo or The Hastings Observer in this matter, but I distinctly remember observing a journalist “working the phones” when I did work experience at The Brighton Argus when I was still a journalism student.
It was around 11am, and she had already done a bit of reporting in the morning frenzy, and now there was a lull. So she picked up the phone and started calling up her contacts — her sources. From what I could gather, these were police spokespeople, town councilors, heads of housing associations, neighborhood watches, local business people; those pillars of society that are often the first receivers of news.
When she got through to these people, on the phone, after dispensing with the pleasantries, her first question was: “have you got anything for me?”
What may be obvious to those on the inside is not obvious to those on the outside
Recently, while I was at a bar, I got talking to a couple of architects. One of them told me that a lot of foreign architecture firms had been shutting up shop in China in the past couple of years.
I was immediately piqued.
When I asked him to elaborate, he was dismissive — “I thought this was obvious”, he said — implying that it was common knowledge. But the fact that he was an architect (and an employee of one of the most famous architecture firms at that) made him inoculated to this piece of information.
Among architects, in China, it might indeed be common knowledge. But to those on the inside what may seem common knowledge is often completely unknown to those on the outside; people outside of that information circle.
The job of the journalist is to get inside that circle, pluck out the information, and then to distribute it to those outside the circle — in other words, the general public.
What if you’re going abroad, and starting out as a freelance foreign correspondent?
One of the single best things you can do, upon arriving in a new country, as a journalist, is to make contact with other journalists. Best of all, local journalists. They will have a different understanding of what’s going on in that country than foreign journalists. Both are valuable.
But the fact that local journalists speak the local language (obviously), use and interact with the things that they are reporting on like locals, means they can pick up on things that outsiders may miss. Specialty journalists (tech reporters, political journalists etc) often hold information even more unknown.
Other sources can be niche publications, journals, blogs, and event organizers. When I spoke to the tech reporter, she told me things that could turn into around half a dozen stories. And having contacts herself, she can be a springboard onto the next step. It was a very productive talk. And all it took was an email, a few text messages, and a focused chat, while I sipped on a coffee, on an otherwise lazy afternoon in Beijing.
Related:
Six things I learnt about the freelance journalism market while I was in China // Five things to do upon arriving in a new country, as a foreign correspondent
Pitchable outlets #3: CNN.com
This is a series examining publications and their accessibility to freelancers. Use the pitchable outlets tag to see more in the series.
Status: medium-high / 1st tier
Reach: CNN, short for the Cable News Network, was the first 24-hour cable news network and the first all-news TV channel in the US. It launched its online counterpart CNN.com in 1995. Since then the website has grown into one of the most widely read news publications worldwide. It has numerous bureau across the globe and international channels such as CNN Espanol and CNN Philippines.
For an idea of reach, one of my stories for CNN.com scored over two million page views.
Accessibility: CNN.com’s China section is well developed with broadcasting staff based in Beijing, and editors in Hong Kong. Its China coverage is excellent, even if their TV broadcasts still tend toward the bombastic, with deeply reported online articles and news features that are often informative as well as entertaining. They have a good stable of Chinese news assistants who help in producing short-form video, and in Will Ripley they have a video correspondent who makes use of innovative reporting techniques.
My contributions to CNN.com have been in news features covering cultural trends in China. I made contact with their China editor via Twitter — I found her Twitter account, Tweeted a message to the effect of, “Hey, do you take freelance pitches?”, and she replied in the affirmative. She then sent me her email address via private message on Twitter.
I’ve published two articles about China for CNN, and a travel story for CNN’s online travel section. The pitch for the travel story was forwarded on to their travel editor by my China editor.
I’ve also had a story killed by CNN (my first kill and for which I did not receive a kill fee). The story had been commissioned, but then subsequently killed by someone who had been standing in for the editor who originally commissioned it.
CNN has a roster of staffers who report breaking news and generate stories. For a freelancer, you will have to pitch original ideas; ideas that a freelancer would have the time and flexibility to cover. For instance, these could be stories from China’s rural areas or under reported regions and industries, which staffers may not have time to get to. Their email format is: firstname dot lastname @ CNN dot com.
Writing style: CNN.com has a quite distinctive writing style. They tend to use short paragraphs — one sentence or two sentence paragraphs are not at all uncommon. What this means in practice for the journalist is less writing, and more reporting. Both of the articles I’ve had published took months before they were finally published as numerous rounds of back-and-forth took place. My editor would often ask additional questions and for information to be added, all of which meant additional reporting.
Each paragraph in their articles contain important items of information. This does not mean their articles are not stories. CNN.com articles often contain narrative, but they will be truncated and will fulfill a purpose. Numerous angles will need to be covered and reporting will need to be deep and varied. The prose style is snappy and chatty but authoritative.
For a story about how Buddhism is once again colonizing the hearts of Chinese people, I used an interview with a young man who wanted to become a monk. The interview transcript ran to several pages, and was immensely useful, but his story was condensed into a much shorter version in the final piece. It nevertheless formed a vital part of the article, and demonstrates how a journalist needs to filter information in order to master the narrative.
Payment: CNN have paid me $300 for 1000 words, for articles. This is not bad, but, considering the amount of work involved, not great either. They will pay more for photos to go along with a story (ie a photo gallery) but only if you agree to relinquish copyright of your photos to CNN.
Finding story ideas: Tip #1
As a freelance journalist, your entire existence is dependent on coming up with story ideas.
Some of the stories that I find most interesting to report and write about are trend stories — pieces on new social and cultural phenomena.
Once is a freak; twice is a coincidence; three times is a trend
It’s often about noticing the patterns that might be lurking in the environment (are more people wearing funny hats? Why?), or in your social circles.
For example, I noticed that among my Chinese female friends in Beijing, who are in their 20s and tend to be well educated, with high salaries, several seemed to be working as secretaries for their (male) bosses. I wondered whether they were happy with this, if they wanted positions with more executive opportunity, or whether they were in fact happy with their lot. I sent off a pitch outlining why I wanted to explore this. It was rejected (the editor explained that they had already done a lot on the glass ceiling in China), but it was a worthwhile exercise.
The point is, if you happen to notice something, then that noticement (yes, “noticement”), could be spotting a wider trend.
From my reading and from noticing an increasing interest among friends, I successfully pitched a piece about how Chinese people are increasingly becoming Buddhist again. It’s that kind of cultural phenomena I find fascinating. (The piece is here, if you’re interested).
A lot of pitch-able story ideas are about these new changes. It’s interesting, kind of newsy, and importantly helps to capture the zeitgeist.
For the freelance journalist, it almost doesn’t matter if the trend or culture is actually changing. You need only ask the question: is it changing? Then you’re 50% toward a story idea.
How To Make A Name For Yourself pt 4: Defining Your Own Path
As a guiding principle life shrinks and life expands in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk.
Casey Neistat, filmmaker
There is a huge difference between making it within a system, and making it on your own terms.
Jostling along the path of freelance journalism, I’ve increasingly found that the clutch of bylines I’ve accumulated count for very little. All it means is that when I pitch or when I get emails out of the blue, from editors, I just have that little more cache.
It affords me more freedom; the ability to take up stories that really interest me. And take punts on travel.
But you will never make it.
Not as a freelance journalist.
But you may do as a bonafide writer. Or some other high-powered creative.
So how do you break out of the tiny little achievements that you get as a freelancer? By focusing less on the litany of tasks that require urgent deadlines, and focusing more on the slow long-term creative projects that once produced and completed will be of higher value.
Why?
Because that kind of work is hard. And harder to replicate.
That is how your define your own path.
This is a continuing series exploring the strategies of success of journalists and writers. Part one in the series can be found here – and here is the previous entry.
Lu-Hai Liang 