Best journalism advice/tips you ever received

I'm lucky in that I'm as much a ridiculous overtalker as I am an overwriter, so I maintain balance.

 

Something that's saved me many a time as a reporter and an editor: Its vs. theirs.

 

When it doubt, cut it out. If you're not sure if something belongs in an article, it doesn't.

Read your article from the last graph up. Without the flow of the narrative, you're more likely to catch a misspelling, missed word or grammatical error.

 

We are not the story, we are the storytellers.

 

Keep good track of all burger/wing/taco nights in your area.

 

Here are a few serious ones:

-- Learn to do as many things as you can, from writing columns and gamers and features to keeping stats, taking photos, creating competent videos, recording podcasts. Hopefully you won't have to do it all in one day, but it'll really help you down the road to be able to confidently tell someone you can do so many different things. Especially at smaller shops, outside of the very basics (go to game, produce content), the job is what you make it. Might as well use that opportunity to produce content that will reach audience in new ways and give you some quality, diverse resume clips.

-- Don't pretend to understand a sport you don't understand. Didn't wrestle in high school and don't know what the hell just happened? Don't know shit about why cyclists ride in a peloton or what a kayaker is trying to pull off? Ask. Tons of your readers don't know either and they'll appreciate your story a lot more if you can describe what happened to an expert and a novice.

-- Try. Goes along with the "knock on the door advice," but can be applied to so much. Most people -- ok, maybe not most, but many -- only barely try, to get that story, get that interview, follow up on that idea, even apply for that job. Things will work out way, way more often than you'd expect.

 

-- Turn questions you ask yourself, little things you notice, into stories. They'll often be unique and more interesting than many standard profiles. Like, for instance, cyclists shave their legs. Can it really make that much of a difference? How much difference does it make? (Maybe there are answers to that one. No idea. But just keep your eyes open and learn to turn your own curiosity into unique stories. There's no better recent example than John Branch making a feature out of "why do basketball sneakers squeak?")

-- Look for ways to elevate your profiles into bigger, wider stories, for instance, rather than doing a profile just on a local ultramarathom runner, maybe make his or her personal story the backbone of a feature on the growth of ultra running.

 

No one told me this but I know it too well.
Protect your story ideas. Never trust your colleagues.

 

Best advice? "Don't go into journalism. There's no money in it."

Obviously, I didn't listen. My mistake.

 

Boy this thread is full of old school journalists. The suits don't think this way. It's STAY IN THE OFFICE. ACCOUNT FOR EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR TIME HERE. Getting out of the office now is frowned upon, folks.

 

Yes they do. I know Fredrick is cynical, but cmon. We're eliminating all copy editors. Nobody needs to be edited now. The reader we're told doesn't care about errors and they can be fixed online. That's the new mandate. Take it or leave it.

 

In regards to Tip No. 1, I had a former colleague tell me a few years back when I was having trouble with a lede to sit back and ask myself "What's the point?" meaning what's the most important or noteworthy thing to take away from the story? That turned out to be a huge help and is something I still do to this day.