This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Tips is a series which aims to provide young and early-career science writers with, well, tips to aid them in their budding careers. The series will attempt to link out to existing resources available online.
Today we showcase AnnFriedman’s twelvetips for young journalists to make it in the journalism world, published by the Nieman Journalism Lab. Friedman was formerly the executive editor of GOOD magazine and is now working on the crowd-funded publication, Tomorrow.
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As a young or early-career writer, you should read the NeimanJournalismLab. As you’re probably aware, the Internet and all things digital are forcing the journalism world to change. But coming up with new journalism models adapted for digital media has been easier said than done. Currently, we’re mostly still on the experimentation phase and the Neiman Journalism Lab is the place to keep in touch with those journalism experiments.
Roughly a month ago, “the Lab” published a short article by Ann Friedman. The article is particularly relevant to young and early-career science journalists. Friedman, a journalist and editor, gives twelve pieces of advice on how to make it in this evolving journalism world. She is brutally honest but in a refreshing way because her advices are sincere. She’s clearly been there and done those. She paints journalism as the hard profession it is and the hard world it is to break into. But do not let this deter you; chances are you’re already doing a few of them already.
Here are Friedman's first few tips:
Write something short everyday
Your ideas matter more than your prose
Fake it ‘til you make it
Write every piece three times.
Head over to “the Lab” to read all twelve tips with further explanations from Friedman here.
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Previously in this series: