COMMENTS
One other thought. I think the term "journalist" is pretty broad. Most of the folks let go by the Boston Globe are probably more like "reporters" and less like "journalists." A reporter will simply report the events as they happened while a journalist will do some deeper analysis on the events and "project" a bit.
I think marketers need to be careful not to hire straight beat reporter types.
Great post. As a former journalist, I agree completely with one core point - if you want someone to cook up all kinds of smoke and mirrors to make your product appear to be so much more fabulous than any product could possibly be, don't bother with journalists as they will fail. Their talent is to find the truth and tell that story. But if you're ready to embrace marketing not as smoke and mirrors but as helping the right people find your product, then a journalist is a good fit. She's been trained to figure out what the story is, which can be pretty tough if you're very close to it (like all business owners are!). And, she's good at telling it in a simple and compelling way. And this is what you have to have to connect with the people who need what you provide: a simple, clear, honest story.
Although to many people, journalists write in an "even-handeded way," they still write w/ a slant, which is the beauty of their journalistic finesse.
If you hire a journalist (which was what my company did w/ me), have them maximize their ability to use language in a way that subtly and obliquely gets their bias across.
I did this a few months ago to help with my blog articles and it has made a world of difference! My writer is magic with words and reshaping my concepts and ideas into flowing articles - it is some of the best money I have invested in my website.
How often have you hired freelance journalists? Do you have to spend a lot of time hand-holding for each project, or only in the beginning and that tapers off? With graphic design, it's easy to justify "out-sourcing" a project if you just don't know the programs. It's harder w/writing, b/c I feel as a marketer we're just supposed to do that as our job description. Did you have the same issue or hurdle to overcome in order to start using an external content-creator?
As a former freelance journalist myself, there shouldn't be any hand-holding. As long as the assignment is clearly stated up front, a journalist will be able to take it from there and write the copy without any instruction — that's their job!
@lyndsey walker -- I agree that there shouldn't be any hand-holding, but as @katie poplin pointed out, it doesn't always work out that way. If you're hiring freelancers, they need to understand your audience and worldview. Sometimes that clicks, other times it's harder for freelancers to figure it out.
Kathy Boyd used to be a beat reporter for the FOX affiliate in Ft. Myers FL. Now she does videos andother marketing for Neighborhood America http://www.webinknow.com/2008/02/understanding-a.html
As a former journalist, I take issue with @Brian Halligan. I'm not sure where he got his perception of what a "beat reporter" does, but he's far from correct. I was both a beat reporter and an editor for daily newspapers, and I'm now a communication specialist for a nonprofit. I spent 6 years as a beat reporter and 5 years in various editing roles. Guess which position prepared me best for my current role?
Beat reporters are the ones with some of the best skills in information gathering and getting to the heart of a story, particularly on deadline. Reporters don't "simply report the events" -- every single reporter I know with more than a year's worth of experience takes the time and has the ability to assess every issue around a story and report on all of the pieces that are relevant. There are stories where that's not appropriate, but those stories make up maybe 30 percent of a beat reporter's job, at least in daily newspapering.
If I were to give any advice about hiring a former journalist, it would be to look at what kind of experience that person has. If the candidate has less than three years of storytelling experience as a journalist, that person may have weaker skills and need more handholding. A journalist with five years of experience or more will need minimal handholding once you've communicated your needs.
I agree that this a great post. I worked for two small town newspapers as a journalist and editor, so we did a lot of featuring stories on local residents. Most of these had no hard edge, they were just newsworthy quality narratives. Writing good marketing copy feels similar, from a writing standpoint. We have been trained to be fair and unbiased in our reporting, which adds some weight to our style in writing for business; there's less flash but more facts. I admit I had to retrain myself to add some emotion to marketing copy. The real benefits to business owners is that we're trained to write a good story on a deadline with only a few leads to go on and little to no oversight. Once a client tells us what to write and the angle they want, they can let us go and not worry about what we bring back. Additionally, if your business has to deal with the media to get press releases published, having insight into the industry is worth gold. When I was an editor, I loved press releases written by former reporters because there was little I had to do to fix it for my paper and it was always on time. The copy sent by PR freelancers almost always had to be reworked and was often too close to deadline to give it good placement. With media sources, especially newspapers, in decline, there are hundreds of hungry reporters who still want to write for a living. This is perfect time for companies to snatch up great, highly trained writers.
I think this is a great article.
I would like to see you dive into some other aspects of this a bit more in future posts, if possible. I think it could be useful for writers who are looking to make a career switch.
I recently switched from a long career at Forbes to a marketing and BD role at a venture firm and since then have had a number of journo friends ask about whether a similar move might be right for them.
For that reason, I think it would be great if you could get into some of the other skills and characteristics of a journalist which could be valuable in a marketing professional.
For example, journalists are great at getting to the truth and helping people tell their stories. This can be particularly useful when building case studies and testimonials about your company. As well, good journalists are always thinking about their readers and attempting to speak directly to them, providing them with useful and relevant information. IMHO, that is tremendously valuable when thinking about how to reach your customers on a deeper level.
Another thought: Journalists are used to being "external" communicators, are comfortable asking sometimes difficult questions to get to the root of an issue, and are adept at building long term, trusted relationships. They also tend to be self-starters who are used to handling constructive criticism.
I'm a former journalist (or reporter, I dunno which) now working in media relations. Your distinction between journalists and reporters reminds me of a distinction one of my journalism professors made more than 30 years ago: The difference? "A journalist is a reporter who owns more than one suit." The point? All journalists are beat reporters at heart. There really isn't a difference.
I graduated with a B.A. in Journalism, a major that trains you for the profession. While I have never held a Journalism job, I have found the degree to be extremely useful in my marketing career. Over the years a lot of companies have expressed an interest in hiring marketing professionals with degrees in journalism in their job postings. There is some overlap in the two fields, as advertising is often part of the school of journalism at universities. It’s nice to know that journalists are now in demand in the marketing field for new reasons.
I actually think that hiring a reporter to do your marketing writing would be a great thing. They would use their skills to research your company/products and competitors and industry, and produce well-written and seemingly balanced and objective articles for you.
Also, if a journalist were willing to be paid to promote your services, I don’t think that they would have a problem highlighting the positives and omitting the negatives as long as it was clear to the reader that it was promotional material and not a hard news article. If the journalist had a problem highlighting your services in a positive way, I don’t think that they would accept any money from you in the first place. They would consider it undesirable to be paid for developing promotional material.
This article really caught my eye. Our development and content management team are located in Bangkok, Thailand. But we have taken this same approach to developing the descriptions for a Wellness Travel project we have on at the moment. It is important that their Medical Tourism packages be described in a way that is concise and free of marketing speak. The journalist pool here is very diverse and has proved to be a huge benefit to generating a concise but neutral message.
As I was reading the article, "So You're Going to Hire a Journalist?" I learned that hiring a journalist for internet marketing has its advantages. A Journalist is accustomed to finding and researching information in order to expedite the task. Keep in mind, this factor can definitely be utilizes in the internet marketing industry. I believe hiring a journalist can connect consumers to people, products or services because of their endeavors to execute in a timely manner.
This blog couldn't be more timely. I think it's great idea to hire a journalist and have heard the same recently from a few colleagues, both online and off, who've had great success. We are looking for a journalist/writer who can help us. Any sites or places you can you can recommend looking for the right talent? How can i get hold of all these out of work journalists? If it helps, we are a SaaS in accounting.