Musings of a twenty-something

The Duchess of York has hit back at the press making derogatory comments about Princess Beatrice’s weight.

A columnist in the Daily Mail made a jibe about the Princess – calling her “a pampered Miss Piggy”, pushing The Duchess to launch an attack in a PR launch of her new ITV1 programme.

Read the full story here.

Any magazine worth its salt knows the importance of a good touch-up. Gone are the days when the reader of a woman’s glossie can expect to see a ‘natural beauty’ on the front cover. Presented instead is a work of art that is deviod of laughter lines, uneven skin tone and any wonky feature that in real life is considered endearing. The goal is symmetry and perfection, and it is that that shifts the mag from the newstand. 

This month, The New Yorker offers a very lengthy profile on the work of Pascal Dangin, the retoucher’s supremo. Working for Vanity Fair, W, Harper’s Bazaar, Allure, French Vogue and Italian Vogue he is the re-toucher or choice for many of the heavy weight photographers including Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel and Mario Sorrenti, and is on speed dial to a collective of vain celebs that won’t let a portrait escape to the press without a wave of his magic digital wand. 

This week I’ve mostly been thinking about (and reading about) freelance journalism.

How can us new-kids-on-the-block, freshly taught journo’s put our skill-sets to the test and begin to get some pay back on the hefty tuition fee’s we have shelled out to learn our craft?

How can we get the trillions of ideas out of our heads and onto paper and hopefully into print?

And how do we stand a cat-in-hells chance of being noticed amongst the bucketload of freelancers that already out there, successfully pitching and getting their articles published.

Here are a few pointers I’ve gathered that can hopefully answer the questions;

The success of the freelancer weighs heavily on their ability to pitch.  Without a strong idea that is highly targeted to the publication, you are likely to fall at the first hurdle. No editor will be bothered with your idea unless it is evident you have researched their publication.  Media coach Joanne Mallon offers some invaluable tips on the art of pitching here.

The pitching process also involves building a good relationship with the commisioning editor or features editor – here are a few pointers on ’selling’ your idea to the editorial dept of your chosen publication.

And it’s not all about your writing, being a good freelancer involves the ability to keep track of your pitches, published articles and most importantly if you want to eat, your invoices. Journalism.co.uk offers some top tips on the nuts and bolts of the freelancing process.

Irate journalists now have an outlet to anonymously vent their newsroom induced rage, courtesy of angryjournalist.com who offer the prompt, Why are you angry today?

I don’t know whether to be depressed or amused that in just over two weeks the site has generated over 1100 posts.

Here are a few of the gripes on there:

Angry Journalist #1067 “I’m angry that so many readers don’t know the difference between a news article, an ad and an opinions piece. I constantly field calls from readers who want to talk about that “article” that is so obviously an ad, and those who want to complain because an opinions piece was biased, and “news articles” shouldn’t be that way.”

 

Angry Journalist #861: “I’m angry at sources who only know two words: no comment.” 

 

Angry Journalist #754: “Spending three days writing a feature, getting in shit for spending that long on it, and then having it bumped out because an ad got booked on the page….that royally pissed me off today.”

 

Angry Journalist #693: “I hate that instead of looking up how to spell something I just use another word that means the same thing. Or do I?”

Hohum.

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