Three Essential Traits of Successful Journalists
Don’t go into journalism just because you like writing — it won’t be enough.
Don’t go into journalism just because you enjoy writing. Putting pen to paper isn’t enough. You hear it a lot, though: ‘I love writing so I decided to become a journalist.’ Writing isn’t the point. Or at least, it isn’t the only point.
I know this because I attended several panel sessions on freelance pitching and breaking into the industry before I began my career as a regional reporter. Senior editors at big media outlets including the Guardian and the Times offered advice. What one of them said stuck with me:
“We have journalists that write well but don’t dig for stories, and we have journalists that know how to dig for stories but their writing isn’t great. We can fix the writing.”
I worked for a newsroom. I wasn’t a freelance journalist but many of my stories were syndicated, i.e. sold to other major media outlets our company worked with. They were unique stories nobody else could get their hands on and were the result of lots of digging, coupled with an obsessive chasing of quotes from sources, and hours of unpaid overtime.
