How to avoid becoming a pork belly writer in Topeka, KS

• December 20, 2010

By Leo Valiquette

Regular readers of this blog will recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about the U.K. court case of Meltwater vs. the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), an ongoing story that spotlights the challenges of traditional media outlets to maintain control of, and monetize, their content in the age of Web 2.0 and news aggregation/media monitoring services such as Meltwater.

In that post I made passing reference to the dire straits of the overworked journalist, faced with staff cuts and diminished resources, who slogs away day after day trying to produce relevant and insightful news content that digs deeper than the headline and the news release. For these folks, the fiscal challenges of their corporate overlords have translated into longer hours, poor job security and loss of benefits.

Gawker.com recently published a hilarious animated short in which a seasoned journalist crushes the idealistic ambitions of a naive wannabe who wants to work for the New York Times, do important journalism and make a difference, oh, and meet the President, too.

Our world-weary veteran replies to these lofty goals with comebacks like:

• “Would you like to write about pork belly futures for a trade magazine in Topeka, KS?”
• “Would you like to live in your parent’s basement and work for the local weekly on a contract basis without benefits?”
• “How about covering the financial services industry for a website, until the website is bought by another website and they move all the writing jobs to Bangalore, India, and then you get fired.”

It’s funny because it’s true. And one has to focus on the humour because it would otherwise be far too depressing to reflect on how the Fourth Estate has been eroded.

The Gawker Guide to a Journalism Career, 2010 edition, is no less damning. Granted, Gawker’s take on the current state of affairs is an exercise in the cup always being half empty. Nonetheless, it is a fair reflection of the overarching trends right across the media and communications spectrum, from mainstream newspapers, trade press and broadcast media, to online media ventures and, dare I say it, public relations. There is no denying that the media marketplace is undergoing a paradigm shift that makes for a rough labour market.

Nonetheless, I remain stubbornly optimistic. I believe that the more inundated the consumer becomes with sources of information, the more valuable great writing will be to help put the chaos in context and find meaning. The challenge for all of us is to find a steady paycheque until this paradigm shift shakes itself out.

It all comes to what one defines as “great writing.”

There is a world of difference between a great writer and a skilled cut-and-paste artist, or a self-deluded hack who, blinded by their own brilliance, can’t step back and regard their work with the objectivity that is required to understand, and overcome, their weaknesses. Great writing is about much more than proper grammar and good syntax; it’s a union of analytical thought, thorough research, penetrating interviews, confident creativity and an ability to distil resource material into something fresh and new that both conveys and deepens understanding of the subject matter.

Great writing is the product of a great writer supported by a great editor. Raw talent is certainly a key ingredient, but this must be combined with humility. By humility I mean a writer must be a thick-skinned individual who appreciates, and can up their game with, constructive criticism. They are coachable. They appreciate that being a great writer means being a lifelong student. They are flexible and adaptive in terms of being able to tailor their creative output to serve a specific objective and speak to a specific audience.

So as someone who has worked as a journalist, editor, PR consultant and marketing writer for a multinational publicly traded company, I offer one key bit of advice, for what it’s worth.

Don’t pigeonhole yourself as a “journalist.” You are a writer, a specialist in communicating through the written word. A wordsmith. This is a transferable skill that can be applied in a host of ways. In the age of social media, organizations with a brand image to define, promote and protect need your skills now more than ever, even if many of them have not yet come to appreciate this fact.

If your true ambition is to one day be on the staff of the New York Times, don’t give up on that. But take advantage of whatever opportunities that exist now, journalistic and otherwise, to hone your craft and build an impressive resume. If those opportunities fall into the purview of “public relations” or “marketing,” think twice before dismissing them out of hand.