Unsolicited Advice for Surviving a Journalism Industry In Terminal Decline

Past results are not a guarantee of future returns.

I don’t like advice lists, but here I am writing one. Curious.

This isn’t a complete list, and partly because I am a freelancer, I don’t talk about organized labor or unions or many other potentially important things. Most of this derives from 15+ years spent mostly as an independent journalist, a year on staff at one publication, having written for dozens of others, some no longer extant, along with a few books. Now I’m 40 years old, emerging with a solid rolodex and steady assignments but never enough money in the bank and more debt than I’d like to admit. There are no promises here, no guaranteed paths to success (I’m not sure what that looks like anymore). There is only, as the zoomers say, cope.

1. Don’t write about yourself. Unless you have an uncommonly interesting or geopolitically important experience to relate — or perhaps you’ve developed a gorgeous lyricism that makes editors weep — find someone else to write about. Don’t foreground your own reactions to a piece of pop culture or a horrible political event. Write about the people who made it or the people affected by it.

2. Become an expert in something. Find what genuinely interests you — Medicare, the Chinese solar industry, an obscure government agency, the history of labor organizing, or, I don’t know, CRYPTO (ugh) — and become an expert in it. Read, watch, talk to as many people as you can. It’s good to pick up the phone. Go to events, interview people, write articles. Subscribe to trade publications or niche blogs. Keep up. And be willing to call yourself an expert, so that when the time comes — when an editor wants an article about China’s incredible battery industry or about how a niche fintech technology is now powering the biggest financial scandal in presidential history — you’ll be ready to contribute. And in time, editors will recognize you as an expert and keep coming back to you.

3. Have a job. Almost no one I know makes a decent, sustainable living from freelance journalism. If you have a day job in another industry, consider keeping it. If you have a wealthy spouse, consider keeping them. The benefit of journalism as a side project is that you get to pick and choose what you do a little more, hopefully focusing on articles that are more substantial and meaningful.

4. Have comrades. Competition is fleeting and can be soul-eroding. There’s a vast landscape out there of uncovered stories. Befriend your colleagues. Share intel, commiserate, offer help, TALK ABOUT MONEY.

5. Be flexible. Opportunities can come from oblique angles. Consider saying yes to something you might normally not do. At the same time, don’t say yes to something if you feel yourself waffling. Do you really want to work for 3 months on a podcast about the Sykes-Picot agreement? Can you finish that feature about Labubus without pulling your hair out? Stare at a wall for ten minutes and meditate on the answer. Then decide.

6. Always ask for more money. In most cases, the worst that can happen is they’ll say no. If possible, have an agent or representative ask for more money on your behalf. Don’t write for free or on spec. Every publication will plead poverty and point to recent budget cuts and imperious bosses. Ask for more money.

7. This is a wildly unequal industry. That’s why you ask for more money. That’s why you talk to your peers (respectfully) about money, who’s gouging them, and who’s offering a decent pay rate for reported features before the inevitable round of layoffs come down. Develop a certain strategic sense of where the money is and where it isn’t and whether it’s worth the headache of pursuing.

8. Develop relationships with editors you trust. You will follow them from job to job. They will become reliable partners in your work, especially when other, flashier publications invite you to spend weeks pitching and writing, only to kill your piece. You will take your abandoned article to the editor you adore and explain your predicament, and they’ll bring you in from the cold, offer some warm tea, help edit your article into better shape, and pay you one-tenth of what you hoped to get from a glossy magazine. But you will get it published.

9. Think about your privacy and others’. By writing about someone, you’re contributing to a permanent data trail. You might even make them (in)famous. Consider what that means and how it should shape your work, including the kinds of stories you choose. Consider the same for yourself: how much do you want to share online for the potentially para-social masses? And how do you want to be seen by the potential editors, readers, and sources who are lurking in your feed?

10. Be easy to contact. Have a website. Post your email address. Consider a second phone only for work. Use Signal. If you have a different legal name or a pen name that you can use for a little extra protection, that might be good idea. Think about creating an LLC.

11. You have nothing in common with corporate media. With a couple exceptions, people who talk on TV for a living are demons inhabiting a nether-realm of insane luxury and political delusion. If they ask you to come on their show to talk about that viral article for which you’re still waiting on the $700 check and should really start working on the next assignment, you should probably do it anyway.

12. Beware of the scene. Popularity is fleeting and elusive. Don’t chase markers of prestige. Don’t worry who’s reading your articles or who might read your book (they probably won’t). Don’t go to parties or events because you hope that someone will be there. They are probably rude or boring. You will learn to identify the scenesters and climbers — the people who are just happy to be there with one publishing credit in a mainstream publication, the gossip-mongers, and the people who are only there to extract what connections and favors they can on their way to a job at the New York Times. Take the gossip and leave the rest. Congratulate them on their latest (“excited to read your piece!”) and walk over and talk to the people who are actually your friends, or, even better, someone you don’t know.

13. Remember the work. You will meet people who will wash out or give up. It’s a grind. Maybe they’ll have a mental breakdown on the G train or leave for the rehab they so clearly need. They might decide that a few years as a beat reporter or book critic is enough, and eventually they move back home or take a job in corporate comms. This is a valid, even noble path, depending on the vicissitudes of one’s life. But you will remember the work, reading and writing as much as possible, always looking to the next story, the next tip, because freelance journalism is a “what have you done for me lately?” game, and you will be politely forgotten if you don’t continue to do the work. So put away whatever childish things you need, construct your life and days to be nourishing and disciplined, and do the work, write your articles and books, because a lot of your peers won’t make it. And soon enough, we’ll all be gone.