How to write like a journalist.

Want to know how to write like a journalist? Read journalism.

Sounds obvious, but there's really no better way. You don't need to know what a "lede" or a "nut graph" or a "dek" or a "narrative arc" or a "kicker" are if you can internalize the flow of a good news story. Spot news or feature, op/ed or news analysis, the best way to be a better writer is to surround yourself with good writing -- then read it.

Read Associated Press stories each day to internalize hard news. Read stories in a magazine's feature well to internalize a good (or bad!) lede, a narrative arc and how to string together 3,000 words to make them feel like a more fleeting 300. Read weekly columnists to see how they support an argument without venturing off on a book-length tangent.

A good editor can hold your hand on a tour through these examples by breaking down what makes them tick. But he or she can't help you absorb the steps, pivots and leaps that make good prose memorable.

It only comes with practice. And it starts with reading.

Tina Brown and the fight to save journalism

If you're a writer, get out of your comfort zone. 

If you're an editor, surround yourself with writers.

And if you're starting an online publication, do so with conviction. It will work.

Eventually.

Sage words from celebrated editor Tina Brown (Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Talk, and now The Daily Beast) last night at Columbia Journalism School's Delacorte Magazine Lecture, a weekly public lecture by notables in the publishing world put on by Victor Navasky of The Nation.

Brown's Daily Beast -- for which at least one friend of mine writes -- has been in the spotlight since its launch last fall. A new media venture by an old-media person, if you will.  An online pubication brave enough to not accept (interns aside) free work. A digital venture (questionably) backed by IAC's Barry Diller. 

But Brown revealed last night that the venture is very much her vehicle for figuring out how publishing can survive in a "free," online-only environment. Correction: not just survive, but thrive. And in this current state of media flux, it's exciting to me to know that someone is pursuing something with conviction, and not floundering about trying to stay afloat.

Highlights which I'd like to pass along to you, readers:

• Deploying narrative journalism on the web successfully is Brown's greatest challenge.
• The Daily Beast continues Brown's tradition of high/low coverage (or "class and trash," as I like to call it.)
• Some of her best writers didn't start as writers at all. Some of her best writers were passionate about topics they weren't writing about for a living. It was Brown's challenge -- and naturally, to her benefit -- to correct this. Example: Dominick Dunne, whom she told to keep a diary; Jeffrey Toobin, whom she simply gave enough time to develop his own (less-than-legalese) voice.
• Editors must "make their world writers," and surround themselves with them. They are immensely creative people, she said, and you must know their strengths and weaknesses and, of course, always have talent on hand.
• A big area for development is in-depth, feature-length business journalism. Not closing-bell coverage, but CEO profiles and such things. "Capture characters," she said. 
• The Daily Beast is doing what newsweeklies should be doing -- analysis and less breaking news coverage -- in the smart and intellectual way that Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report are struggling to transition to at the moment. But, with the added benefit of linking off to the best of the web's stories.
• The advantage of analysis: "People are gadflies, but they're also obsessives." So while hopping on the breaking news train is fine, people are still drawn to long-form, in-depth analysis telling them something they didn't already know.
• "A good editor (at least, one in the vein of Tina Brown -- Ed.) likes a strong staff around them." Strong as in personality: "I have a terrible weakness for irritants."
• Working online is actually less stressful/anxiety-ridden than print, because there are much fewer moments when someone's piece is cut because of limited space. "It's more physically grueling, but it's not as stressful in terms of disappointing people."
• "It's so fashionable to trash the press all the time."
• On the theory behind paying writers and investing in them: "You have to invest in people." Unlike her big-budget Conde Nast days, Brown can't hire writers on contract anymore, so the web environment makes it harder to develop people and give them a financial safety net at the same time. On the other hand, limitless space is helpful in that regard.
• 2009 is the year of the freelancer. "The Gig Economy," she called it.
• The Daily Beast has started to solicit advertisers, which will be its main revenue stream. Ads will appear in the spring.
• On outsourcing journalism: "I think it's preposterous." 

Before attending, I knew little of Brown. I knew she and Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post) were often cited as brash new editors-in-chief/publishers in the new media/online journalism world. I knew Brown had a fantastic pedigree. I knew she was British. 

But that's about it, honestly. So I was surprised when I heard these wise words come from someone who has been in the magazine business so long -- and who seemingly got into online publishing by necessity.

Brown spoke honestly and thoughtfully -- she wasn't there to publicize The Daily Beast, and didn't really reference it unless it was referred to in a question she was asked.

In listening to her opinions and advice, I came to respect her for this reason: she had a clear view of what she wanted and where she wanted it. An entrepreneur, she was pursuing publishing online, she wanted talented writers, she didn't want to cut corners nor spend funds happily. 

Personally, I don't like everything about The Daily Beast. (For one, I think its design, while adventurous, is a little hard to digest.). But I do now understand why things are the way they are on the site, and the thinking behind those decisions.

An old professor of mine likes to use the phrase, "Acts of commission, rather than acts of omission," when referencing online work. I can see that in operation at The Daily Beast.

Brown's vision may not be an ironclad business model, but it was her conviction that struck me. At a time when so many journalists -- newspapermen and women, freelance writers, editors, publishers, etc. -- are running to the next thing (blogs! Facebook! Twitter!) or just simply lamenting their own downfall (layoffs! cut pages! no ads!), I found it refreshing -- exciting, really -- to hear such a clear voice at such a cloudy time in journalism.

Online, have rules of journalism ethics changed?

A new post by Robert Miles on OJR.org analyzes the challenges print journalists face as they transition to the web -- specifically with regard to the assumptions they make regarding ethics and procedure.

The practice of journalism is an act of service. But if we are going to be able to continue to serve our audience, we will need to change some of the conventions and assumptions we've brought to our practice if they now stand in the way of our ability to serve. What good are conventions designed a generation ago to protected our public image if following them today leaves us with a shrinking audience and no advertisers to support us?

Miles takes three popular tenets of traditional journalism ethics that he believes journalists must change in order to remain relevant online:

• Old rule: You can't cover something in which you are personally involved.
• New rule: Tell your readers how you are involved and how that's shaped your reporting.
  
  
• Old rule: You must present all sides of a story, being fair to each.
• New rule: Report the truth and debunk the lies.
  
  
• Old rule: There must be a wall between advertising and editorial.
  
• New rule: Sell ads into ad space and report news in editorial space. And make sure to show the reader the difference.

It's clear that the op/ed beginnings of the blogosphere have affected journalism, and the debate's out as to whether that's for good or not. But writing standards and news cycles aside, it's clearly forced journalists to reconsider the rigid rules they were taught on the job or in school -- which I applaud. The old adage is, "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." So why do we take journalism's rules on face value?

With consideration to skepticism, why aren't we questioning our very journalism education?

Above, Miles clearly isn't suggesting that journalists change their core beliefs; rather, he's redefining how journalists can best empower readers with valid information. And I think we ought not follow journalism's rules with such religious fervor so much as follow journalism's intentions -- purpose, really -- with that same energy.

'Putting content on the Web would destroy our paper'

In today's New York Times, Media Equation columnist David Carr explains the story of the TriCityNews of Monmouth County, N.J., who he says has prospered by shunning the Web entirely:

"Why would I put anything on the Web?” asked Dan Jacobson, the publisher and owner of the newspaper. “I don’t understand how putting content on the Web would do anything but help destroy our paper. Why should we give our readers any incentive whatsoever to not look at our content along with our advertisements, a large number of which are beautiful and cheap full-page ads?"

Which, given the current state of media affairs, is a shocking pronouncement.

Carr elaborates on his column, describing a way of thinking that is best summed up as, "if it works, work it." He mentions John Koblin's New York Observer piece (perhaps this one, though Carr's article sadly and ironically doesn't link) describing how business magazine competitors Forbes, Portfolio and Fortune went through layoffs, with the Web getting hit the hardest. He mentions popular new media poster boy Nick Denton of Gawker Media, who predicted a 40 percent decline in Web display advertising.

Carr's solution in this week's media equation? "It's probably not a great time to be indexing into the Web either."

In other words, he doesn't really digest it at all.

David Carr is a smart guy. I've been lucky enough to meet the guy a few years back, before the book, back when the Carpetbagger was a new phenomenon.

But I don't think he quite solved this equation.

While his column is lean, and his space limited to explain nuance behind the situation, I really don't think he adequately explains the references he draws between very different types of publications. For example:

When it comes to brand advertising, print has a strong track record. Advertisers like the analog presentation in TriCityNews for the same reason they come back in droves to Vogue.

Well that's a real tough connection to draw. The TriCityNews is a local newspaper; Vogue is a national luxury fashion magazine. TriCityNews' advertisers are local and faithful; Vogue's advertisements are a part of a major campaign -- and when times are tough, luxury retailers pull back in a big way. Vogue has the advantage of being a glossy magazine, in which nearly nothing is "news" by any stretch of the imagination. And while I don't know anything about TriCityNews beyond the scope of this article, it seems to be a local neighborhood rag more for local interest than breaking news. And I suspect -- correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Jacobsen -- that advertising doesn't fluctuate nearly as much as Vogue's, which, by the way, is often sold as an advertising package alongside sibling mags such as Glamour and W.

My point is this: To connect the lessons learned from this small publication that "the Web is to be avoided" to the larger media landscape -- even if only inadvertently implied by the very publication of Carr's article -- is to be misleading.

Let's look at some of the references:

The business magazines: All three mentioned are owned by major magazine houses (Forbes is Forbes, Portfolio is Conde Nast, Fortune is Time Inc.), and all three bring in luxury advertisers to a degree. Forbes has been in need of reinvention for awhile, and its website is hard on the eyes. Portfolio is a new magazine that never quite distinguished itself among the pack and whose publisher deliberately avoided investing online. Fortune is a Time flagship magazine but whose CNNMoney.com website is popular but woefully underused as a confusing catch-all pot for Money and Fortune's material.

Gawker Media: A collection of upstart blogs, Gawker is popular in major metropolitan areas (especially New York) but not much elsewhere. Gawker sites generally rely on being "first" in a string of reposting of news articles from other sources. Occasionally the sites have original commentary -- Denton himself contributes the site's most digested thought and Hamilton Nolan often comments just with his selection of stories -- but generally, it's a site that thrives on being the online trendsetter. Advertising has been experimental throughout the sites' lifetimes; Denton hasn't really settled on a system for more than a year's time and any sites that don't work from a financial standpoint are quickly spun off (Consumerist, Wonkette, etc.), no matter how popular.

The Wall Street Journal: Big media newspaper whose site, unlike almost all, including the Times, charges for most access. Paid subscriptions are up 7 percent from a year ago, and the implication is that with advertisements down, it's easier to get money from the readers themselves.

So my point is that it's unfair to lump together, even in passing reference, a family of breaking news and commentary bloga that exist only online, three magazines with different root problems (but the same financial symptoms) and a local city paper whose readership simply doesn't use the Web to read truly local news. Contrasting that with the sole exception in the news business -- the WSJ, whose rabidly loyal and wealthy readership continues to pay up front -- seems to be even more misleading.

(And for the record, when I want to read a Wall Street Journal article that's behind the pay wall, I just go without. The Times usually has a similar treatment to a story anyway.)

When you read any article, the first thing you should ask yourself is "why?" As in, "what is the point of this?" Usually, it's general interest, or news, or contextual.

I read this column looking for the big "So what?" and all I got were contradictory anecdotes. I didn't get an equation -- I got an expression.

Which may have been Carr's intent -- to say, look at this one publisher in the midst of others! But what I fear is that the lesson implied by the article is that the Web isn't quite the Holy Grail publishers should be chasing after. And for that, I disagree -- perhaps a tiny local paper need not use the Web (though having contact information and subscription information would be useful) for its news content, but all the other national publications must, just by their very nature.

To boot, I think the economy came a little to early in the print-to-Web transition, and with funds at risk, people are pulling back into something that's comfortable: the print business model. All of these publications, be it newspapers or magazines or online, have had 10 years or more to really sit down and think about the Web as a new business model. And yet so many have failed to think outside of the box. So it's a matter of confidence: when the money's at risk, they slash online staff, thinking that those readers and the staff that write for them are worth less to the publication. And that's true. But they're worth more to the brand and its future, and that's the misstep I see happening.

After all, if we're counting pennies, pixels are a lot cheaper than paper.

Andrew Sullivan: "Blogs Herald a Golden Era for Journalism"

(Image credit: Trey Ratcliffe)

Senior editor Andrew Sullivan writes a wonderfully literary piece in The Atlantic about, well, why he blogs and why blogs are so important:

No columnist or reporter or novelist will have his minute shifts or constant small contradictions exposed as mercilessly as a blogger’s are. A columnist can ignore or duck a subject less noticeably than a blogger committing thoughts to pixels several times a day. A reporter can wait—must wait—until every source has confirmed. A novelist can spend months or years before committing words to the world. For bloggers, the deadline is always now. Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.

More here at The Atlantic's site -- and no, this four-page article is not in fact a blog, ironically enough. Still -- it's an eloquent explanation of why, as Sullivan puts it in his extended dek, "it heralds a golden era for journalism."

How To Blog From Iraq

It's not quite citizen journalism -- after all, it is Newsweek -- but former j-school classmate David Botti, a Marine rifleman who has toured Iraq, is back in the troubled country blogging with his fingers and his eyes:

Newsweek: Soldier's Home, by David Botti

We always hear about journalists needing to understand the subjects they cover. I'm excited to read David's reporting informed by his previous experience on the other side of the civilian line. -The Ed.

If You're In Charge Of Designing A Publication's Website, Read This Post.

A wonderfully talented colleague of mine passed along this interview with the web designer for Monocle, a fabulous internationally-minded magazine that has embraced the web with zeal. In it, the designer, Dan Hill, shows the sketches and thinking behind a magazine designing for the web.

(It's a long read, but worth every inch -- if you're the impatient type, skip to where the first images of the home page begin.)

One thought in particular showed how Monocle sets itself apart from the, ahem, bigger publishing houses in the U.S.:

Thus we were doing the opposite of what most magazine-driven brands when they turn to the internet (often as an afterthought). The obvious choice is to plonk all the magazine editorial online, and augment with a few editors' blogs and such-like. At first glance, we were effectively letting the print material reside where it is best experienced - in the tactile format of the magazine - and instead exploring new facets of the brand with a broadcast-led website. But wanting to have our cake and eat it, the magazine material is there too, just reformatted for the web and immersed in a new navigational framework, appropriate to its new context.

Afterward follows diagrams and explanations: why a certain layout, why certain fonts, why certain choices and under what kind of constraints instituted by the better-known print product:

I inherited a fairly full worked through corporate identity, with typeface choice (generally, Plantin, Helvetica Neue, and Hoefler + Frere-Jones's Strasse from Numbers; all quite beautiful), a 4-way colour-scheme, a strong grid-based structure, and all the small detail elements - end marks, pull quote styles, maps, oldstyle numerals, a Monocle mark as well as typographic treatment of the logo, and so on - that the architecture of a magazine supplies. Further, the identity extended into paper bookmarks, envelopes, letterheads, and the nicest cardboard DVD wallets I’ve ever seen.

The challenge was to translate all that for the internet - something I've done many times before, working with the music or broadcast industries, but I'd never done with a monthly magazine.

The same goes for generating content for the web. So many magazines use their website as an incomplete content dump, never really offering their backlog of content but still making it seem like it's a seriously complex site. Monocle went the other way:

In terms of rhythm of updates, we deliberately decided less is more, and flying in the face of conventional wisdom (if you can have wisdom in a medium only a decade old) we produced editorial at a steady rate - essentially a well-made film or two per week - rather than bombarding the user with content. Deciding to filter, reflect and craft rather than immerse the user in a constant flow of data in lieu of information. Again, this was difficult for some to get their heads around, and we certainly have aspirations to increase the frequency to include a snappy daily bulletin, but this sense of quiet calm exuding from Monocle was another important statement: that you don’t have to clutter websites with every possible bit of information you can. And that - particularly for the busy people that enjoy Monocle - information overload is not something we wished to contribute to.

And, of course, making stylistic choices that convey the greater message and brand of the publication:

Visually, we wanted to make something that didn't ape current design tropes - the boring, over-used and essentially art-less 'web 2.0 look' of bright palletes, gradient fills and rounded corners - but had a more classical view, as befitting something a little more grown up. Richard Spencer Powell said the magazine design draws from modernism, of course (especially North and Mittel European heritage) but also looks further back into the early 20thC, and beyond the simple serifs and vogue for ornamentation, but look at the engravings, section headers, cartographic styles etc.

So the last thing we needed was a bevelled/shaded button style in yellow or fuscia.

And, finally, the hot topic of the moment -- how to successfully engage readers with user-generated content like comments and the like (the approach may surprise you):

In terms of user generated content, or user discussion of Monocle pieces, my view was that we didn't need comments on the site as people increasingly have their own spaces to talk, discuss, comment - whether that's blogs and discussion fora, or the social software of Facebook et al. So a more progressive approach would be to ensure that everything is linkable and kept online - with clean, permanent URL structures - thus encouraging people to point to articles from the comfort of their own sites. At some point, we could begin to aggregate responses to Monocle editorial, Technorati-style, perhaps...overall, this seemed a more mature approach to handling this brand, and the increasingly sophisticated environment online. It's meant we don't have to carry moderation costs, which I knew could be expensive, yet still trigger conversation. Towards the end of the year, a site described Monocle as "the most blogged about magazine", so part of that strategy would seem to be working.

I think there are some incredibly valuable lessons to be had here, and all designers for the web ought to be thinking about these issues in depth. Given recent discussion on this blog, Mark Potts and Avenue A | Razorfish, I'm looking at you with a friendly gaze; but I'm also looking at every online editor and the higher-ups that constrain their efforts at Condé Nast, Hearst, Time, Hachette, Meredith, Rodale, and so forth.

Because honestly: I know The New Yorker site won the 2008 National Magazine Award for General Excellence, but let's be honest -- can sites like that (clean content dumps with unimaginative architecture) and the insanely cluttered sites of men.style.com or even New York magazine's site really hold a candle to the clean lines, forward-thinking, mature site of Monocle?

I don't think so.

To me, they just look three steps behind.

Getting Inside Sewell Chang's Head

Last week, I was invited to hear The New York Times' prolific City Room editor Sewell Chang speak about what he does, how he got there, and his thoughts on new media journalism -- or as one could kitsch-ily say, Journalism 2.0.

Here are some highlights:


"When I was approached a year ago [for the City Room blog position], I didn't even know what an RSS feed was."
"The time has long passed that the Times is the one, be-all source to go to."

On the 'Morning Buzz' feature on the City Room blog: Chan said he reads all the major New York newspapers before he's even dressed. "I don't link to Page Six, obviously. We don't do society gossip."

On job convergence and relying on producers ("the biggest area of growth for the Times") for video and audio features: "In some ways, they're not encouraging us to do that, because we're not polished like CNN anchors."


Interesting stuff for a young journalist who admittedly is a "traditional, print journalist" and behind the wave of technology.

'Generation U': Why Time Reporters Just Wrote Their Own Career Obituaries

We're still catching up on important news this week, and one of the more interesting tidbits was a recent Women's Wear Daily report saying that Time Inc. print reporters won't be forced to do online work, thanks to a contract clause proposed by the Newspaper Guild.

Apparently, the two parties reached a tentative agreement for a three-year contract that includes guaranteed annual pay raises, and changes to severance packages and other benefits to Guild-protected employees -- but one of the additions is a stipulation that prevents management from demanding that print reporters must write for the Web.

(The magazines under Guild protection include People, Time, Fortune, Fortune Small Business, Sports Illustrated and Money.)

The Editorialiste asks: Can Time Inc. journalists make a bigger mistake?

As Columbia new media spokesman and writing-for-the-web guru Sree Sreenivasan said to me on Monday, "It's backwards. The guild might be making a mistake."

And I couldn't agree more.

Say what you want about new media, generations of journalists and the decline of printed readership, but it's looking to me as if Time Inc. professionals are swimming against the ever-strengthening stream of progress. But that's the obvious take on the news.

What I really want to know is: How exactly is this supposed to mesh with the 84-year-old flagship magazine's attempt to stay relevant in a 24-hour, wired, online news cycle?

When the flagship magazine slims down and takes contract work over full-time salaries, that sends a message that the time of the cubicle-embedded journalist is nearing an end. So when the journalists themselves turn around and say that they don't want to be a part of this "new movement," are they not hypocritical -- and furthermore, writing their own career obits?

It seems to me that this contract is two steps forward, three steps back. For every guaranteed annual raise and benefits package, each journalist is effectively saying, "Keep me comfortable for the rest of my career here, please, at the expense of the publication and my generation." All Time Inc. seems to have to do is wait it out until each journalist drops dead, phasing out the "resistant generation" and gladly handing the iconic magazine over to a new generation of technophiles for which writing for the web is the norm.

Of course, this will all happen, in say, 20 years -- when doing so will seem old hat and fitting of Time's reputation. But is this really the way to conduct business -- leaving (ironically) time to shape a publication and company?

I don't think so. Time Inc. employees, it's time to wise up -- buy yourself a laptop and a digital camera and learn how to do what the rest of the U.S. already does.

The New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman wrote today about "Generation Q" -- a "quiet" generation of idealistic college students who aren't into political or social activism. I beg the question -- are Time Inc. employees a part of journalism's "Generation U" -- Generation Unplug?