An Insider's Guide to Breaking Into Freelance Journalism

What’s the quickest way to build solid writing clips while earning $20 to $30 for a few hours work? If you said “writing freelance stories for my local newspaper,” then you’ve no doubt already discovered this untapped marketplace.

Reeling from staff cuts, newspapers are increasingly relying on freelancers to fill their pages. If you can write clean, crisp and concise copy, you’ll have no problem finding work as a freelance journalist.

Getting Started

Every editor has a horror story about a freelancer journalist who left her hanging at deadline by not turning in a story or turning out to be an untalented hack who couldn’t write a decent grocery list. So don’t be surprised when an editor doesn’t immediately jump up and praise the heavens at your offer to write stories (They’re stories, not articles in the news biz).

If you don’t have newspaper experience, offer to write your first story on spec, meaning the editor is under no obligation to pay if she doesn’t think it’s up to grade.

What Will I Write About?

What you write about depends largely on how much your newspaper pays. If it is $30 a story, don’t pitch an in depth investigative requiring dozens of interviews and hours of poring over documents.

Even small community papers generally have staffers assigned to local government and the cops and courts beat. Pitch feature story ideas, such as profiles of community members, the local theatre group or other non “hard news” subject.

You can do a 500-word story about local teen Alfred Smith who collects blankets to give to the homeless in three hours.

Take Photos

Every feature story needs a photograph. Small newspapers freelance journalist $5 to $10, sometimes a little more, for each photo they use. You don’t need a top of the line Nikon to grab acceptable news photos, but your cell phone probably isn’t going to work, either.

Do your editor a favor and read the instruction manual. Learn how to adjust the shutter speed and ISO values so pictures aren’t blurred or dark.

Get the subject in action. Please, no photos of the subject just staring into the camera. For our teen blanket story, a picture of young Smith handing out blankets at the soup kitchen is better than one of him just standing in front of a heap of blankets.

On behalf of editors everywhere, I beg of you, no giant scissors at ribbon cuttings and no one holding a giant check (grip and grins we call them in the industry).

Make sure you get the names of everyone in the picture and write a “cutline” for each photo you submit describing who is the photograph and what they are doing.

Art Of The Interview

Before running off to interview your subject, you need to prepare. Draw six columns on a regular size sheet of paper. Label the columns, Who, What, When, Why, Where and How. For each column think of several questions that readers will want to know about your subject.
For example:

• Who inspired you to collect blankets for the homeless?
• What is the hardest part of collecting the blankets?
• When did you start collecting blankets?
• Why are you collecting blankets for the homeless?
• Where do you go to deliver the blankets?
• How do you get the blankets?

Pick three of the most relevant questions from each category and list them in a logical order on another sheet of paper. These will be your interview questions. Preparing questions ahead of time ensures you’ll control the flow of the interview and have all the information for a story by the time you leave. Go to an interview unprepared and you’ll forget to ask something important and the subject will wander off topic.

Do I Tape My Interviews?

This is a hotly debated topic even among experienced journalists. The answer depends on your note taking skills. You don’t need to write down every word your subject utters. For instance, “I bring thirty blankets to the soup kitchen every Friday” can be captured as 30 blkts/fri/soup kit.

Direct quotes must be captured accurately. Many reporters employ both a notebook and a recorder, checking the recorder only for key quotes. Never rely only on a recorder alone. If it fails (and eventually it will), you need to be able use your notes for a story.

From Notes To a Story

Try and write the first draft of a story as soon after the interview as possible while the details are fresh in your mind.

The inverted pyramid story format is as old as newspapers and still works well. The first paragraph serves as the “lead” and tells the reader what the story is about. Leads should be no more than 35 words and no more than two sentences long.

Next, write the most important part of the story, followed by the second most important part and then the third, etc. Quotes add color to the story and give readers a feel for the subject. Keep quotes short and use them to move the story forward, not repeat information.

Bad: Smith takes the blankets to the soup kitchen on Fridays and hands them out at the door, something he says the patrons really appreciate.

“Every Friday I give people at soup kitchen blankets when they get there,” Smith said. “They really like it, especially when it’s cold outside.”

Good: To distribute the blankets, Smith looked for places where the homeless gather.

“Every Friday I stand at the door of the soup kitchen and handout blankets to people who need them,” They really appreciate it, especially when it’s cold outside.”

AP Style A Must

The Associated Press Style Guide is the Bible of news writing. It contains hundreds of words and style points as decreed by the AP gods.
Most of the words and conventions in the AP Style Guide you’ll probably never use. However, there are several bread and butter you need to know:

Time: It’s a.m. or p.m.-- The city council met at 11 a.m. and then adjourned to executive session at 12:30 p.m.

Dates: January, but Jan. 1 or Jan.1, 2020. Spell out months when they are not accompanied by a date. Abbreviate months with more than five letters when used with a date.

Percent: Always use a number and spell out percent: 5 percent not 5% or five percent.

See here for the basic the basic AP points every freelance journalist needs to know.

How Long Should a Story Be?

Keep feature stories short, somewhere between 15 to 20 inches. Every 100 words equal about three inches. Aim for somewhere between 500 to 650 words. Shorter stories are easier for readers to digest, quicker to write (meaning more money per hour) and force writers to be concise with their word use. I can tell you from experience that a 500-word story is generally three times as good as a 1,500-word story on the same subject.

How Do I Format My Story?

Write in 12-point courier, single spaced block paragraphs, double space between paragraphs with no bold, italics, underlining, or words spelled out in all capital. Any formatting a story needs is done during production of the newspaper.

Sample Story layout:

Gotham boy collects blankets for homeless (suggest a headline)

By Fanny Freelancer (author’s name)

One Gotham youth has taken it upon himself to make sure every homeless person in the city has at least one warm blanket.(Lead)

The first main point goes here. Keep paragraphs to no more than five sentences.

-30- (Signifies the end of story)

Turning In The Story

Send your story via e-mail as a .doc or .txt attachment. Don’t use .docx or any document format. Attach photo cutlines as a separate document. Make sure to label photos so that are easy to match to their respective cutlines.