The five tips for hiring a freelance journalist or writer in this article come from my editors at home magazines, local newspapers, niche architecture and design publications, and editors at e-zines.
These rules have helped me improve my articles and pitches so that I can confidently face new writing challenges, satisfy long-term clients and convince editors and publishers with a committed, ethical and professional way of working.
5 Tips for Finding Great Freelance Writers or Journalists
1. Hire a freelance writer who can write facts without sounding like a running review.
In a nutshell, that means you pick a reporter based on a strong combination of clips relevant to your publication, and give them a little “test” article to see if the author can fulfill your desire to hear from you. get rid of the “peanuts” comment. Requirements Gallery”, which is an editorial term for useless information. Test articles should contain relevant information such as current statistics and expert sources or opinions that are easy to verify.
2. Review the freelance writer’s portfolio to see if it contains accurate articles, uses sound advice from experts, and uses relevant resources.
These things make the content better. This may require you to quickly read 2-5 articles from the freelance writer of your choice to ensure that the interview dates, source names, contact details, and footnotes mentioning experts are all correct.
This way, editors and publishers can ensure that the freelance journalists they choose can do good research.
3. Do freelancers use original sources when citing?
When it comes to hiring freelance writers and putting quality first, it’s important to say yes to this question. Most freelancers prefer the easy way out, citing secondary sources (websites, other magazine articles, etc.)
If you want your publication to be seen as an expert in the field, the freelance writer or journalist you choose must have the skills and attention to detail that can only come from direct conversations with experts and trusted sources.
But journalists can cite press releases, government circulars and other well-known sources (such as the FDA) in newer publications and even in some older ones.
4. Is your magazine or publication mentioned by name?
It’s important to find freelance writers who believe in doing their homework! This means finding a freelance writer who is good at research, who has read at least a few back issues of your publication to understand its style and content, and who can “bring the truth in an original way.”
Read a cover letter or question from a freelance journalist to find out if he or she shares values that are important to your publication, and whether the article or topic he or she is promoting has fresh ideas and a unique voice. That meant not only telling a funny story about a man from Australia who quit his job to pursue his dream of selling his grandmother’s recipe for cheese chicken chops, but also the name, the family story, the origin of the business idea, his age. , his past failures, what motivates him to keep going when things look bad, and other details that make a good, specific report or story sell well!
5. Can you trust the information a freelance journalist gives you, check the sources he or she cites?
A dedicated freelance journalist must always be honest with his or her editor, whether it be the real name of the source, to describe how the events actually took place (even if they have to be shortened due to word limitations or the reader’s discretion). viewer), or meeting the deadline .
As for protecting the privacy of sources, this can be done by providing the real name of the source to the editor-in-chief and only if the editor-in-chief says so. This allows editors to ensure that the source is good and relevant to the article. Sometimes editors can even give authors better directions to follow to improve the story, or warn authors about sources that are biased or known to have misled other freelancers in the past.
Article Source: http://www.EzineArticles.com/6354351
