There’s a phrase that pops out from many of the help wanted ads I see for writers. “Original reporting required,” they say. Sometimes, there’s a comment from someone who responds: “What is original reporting?”
That makes me want to shout: original reporting is what ASJA members do on a regular basis. We clearly understand that our work as professional freelance writers entails chasing down the facts and reporting the truth. Occasionally, we’re asked to offer an opinion piece and, in those cases, we may even struggle to come up with an opinion. Our work is so engaged with reporting the facts from other sources that we may struggle when it comes to writing about our own opinions.
That’s one reason I was appalled at the unveiling of the fake news industry, and all it involves, during the 2016 presidential campaign. How dare these fake news writers take our profession and reshape it into an absurdity that may have influenced the presidential election?
How dare we devour that news, assume it’s correct, and spread it across the universe without clear evaluation? I was as frustrated about this situation as anyone else who has spent their life in the publishing field. But then, a project I was working on made me rethink my opinion.
While doing some research for the project I realized that in this country, citizens have been evaluating the news and news biases since before the time this country was founded. In 1729 Ben Franklin purchased The Pennsylvania Gazette and wrote articles under various aliases. In 1847, Frederick Douglass launched his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, and others followed. The first female presidential candidate, Victoria Woodhull, and her sister launched Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly in 1870.
I don’t need to point out that not everyone in this country loved all of the views these writers and publishers expressed.
Then the Web came onto the scene in 1989 and anyone had the opportunity to post anything, well researched or not, and upload it to the Web. Our skills at evaluating the truth were sharpened.
As much as we want to blame Facebook and its kin for the spread of new news genres, social media is not the culprit. It’s just the latest in a variety of methods used for delivering information. Intelligent readers now, and always, are required to sift through information and evaluate the facts to help reveal the ever-elusive truth.
That’s where our work as freelance writers comes in. Intelligent writers will continue to produce well-researched articles and books that are based on original reporting of the truth, as we know it. That’s our cumulative value proposition.
In fact, could it be that the value ASJA members bring to any project has actually grown in recent months? Ironically, as I was finishing this column, a content marketing e-newsletter arrived with a headline that said: Maintain Brand Integrity in the Climate of Fake News.
How better to do that than to hire a trusted writer with a thick portfolio of work?
The dozens of editors and agents who will meet with ASJA members during Client Connections and other events at ASJA’s upcoming New York Conference are there for a reason. These editors and agents understand that ASJA members deliver when it comes to original reporting and good writing.
Conference Chair Estelle Erasmus has spent months putting together an awe-inspiring slate of opportunities, classes and networking events for ASJA’s Pivot. Publish. Prosper. Conference.
There’s so much that will be happening during these two conference days, I hope that you’ll be able to join us to network with some of the best writers, editors and agents in the business.
Before we meet up in New York, though, do me a favor. The time has come to add that phrase “original reporting” to the list of skills on your website, your resume, and your LinkedIn profile.