How do you manage that "hot little ball of panic" when you're near deadline on a medical story? Daniel J. DeNoon offers tips at AHCJ: "Too many interviews eat up your day. And it’s a bad idea to burn people whom you might need in the future by telling them 'thanks but no thanks' when they call. On the other hand, interviews fall through all the time. My usual M.O. is to line up three experts. You almost always get one, and three interviews is not too hard to manage."
Tricks of the trade
For self-conscious print journalists, being interviewed on radio can be unnerving. Media trainer Brad Phillips offers a dozen tips for easing into the airwaves: "I’ve done hundreds of radio interviews throughout my career. They seem simple. After all, you just pick up a phone or visit a studio and have a conversation with the host. But radio interviews are nothing like normal conversations (unless your friends take listener phone calls and go to commercial breaks!)."
We're talking about your blog, not your fence. As Joel Friedlander explains on TheBookDesigner.com, a set of foundation posts is among the first things your blog should have: "Sometimes these are called 'evergreen content,' 'cornerstone content,' or 'pillar posts,' but the idea is the same. These are articles that are so basic that newcomers to your site will need them now, or a couple of years from now." Friedlander also discusses the architecture of a foundation post.
About those "real people" that journalists like to include in their stories: Be careful, epidemiologist Bonnie Kerker warned science and health care writers at a New York event. “Anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron,” she said, urging her audience to use anecdotes only to illustrate the findings of a study, not the exception. Kerker and two other speakers, including NASW's Ivan Oransky, appeared Nov. 29 at a joint SWINY/AHCJ meeting at the City University of New York.
It doesn't matter how good your news release is, Denise Graveline writes, if reporters can't get its subject to come to the phone for a few quotes: "Even if your information is newsworthy and timely, you've done the right things to get it to the right reporter, and your heart is pure (or even if it isn't), all it takes is an expert who blows off the interview to result in no coverage." Graveline offers tips for PIOs on training experts in dealing with the news media.
You wouldn't throw a housewarming party before moving your furniture in, and you shouldn't open your blog to the public before taking these steps from The Book Designer site. Example: "You want to have a collection of at least 6 to 10 articles already on your blog. These should all address fundamental ideas, definitions, or principles of whatever your blog topic is. Presented properly, these are what we call foundation content, evergreen content, or pillar content."
Being on Facebook or Twitter is a good start, Denise Graveline writes, but if you're not careful, you might watch your words float away on the wind: "That's because you haven't taken the time to learn the art of timing your posts to social media sites. ... Often, the underlying reason is that no one behind your feed has researched timing — that is, the times of day and days of the week that yield the best levels of engagement for your business, brand or organization."
Speaking to your source directly is a tenet of reporting — except when it isn't. When you and your source speak different languages, interpreters intervene. Laura Shin writes on Poynter about finding and using interpreters: Quoting New York Times reporter Barry Bearak, Shin advises, “When you write, tell the reader what language was spoken and that a translator was used ... 'The reader deserves to know that the words have passed through the translation process.'”
As a wise man said, “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” So it goes with first drafts, But Joanna Penn offers advice and tool tips on The Creative Penn: “A perfect sentence does not appear fully formed on the page, and it is not followed by another one, and another, to create a perfect story in one go. That’s not how writing works – but it is the myth of writing which we must
There's no trick to getting grants to support your journalism, writes Jillian Keenan, who offers tips on the Poynter site: "I’ve conducted research in Cuba and Oman, lived in Singapore and England, and traveled around the world — all thanks to full or partial support of grants. Without those grants, my resume (and, more significantly, my life) would be pretty boring." NASW members can also search in the ScienceWriters funding sources database.