The Elements of Good Writing in Media

Good writing is made up of many elements. Writers must display natural curiosity, passion and a drive to undertake the hard work of writing. Writers must write a great deal, writing and revising, practicing consistently to hone their craft.

Learning to write is much like learning to play an instrument. Good writers put in the hours to improve their craft, yet there are those who do not truly understand the process of learning to be a good writer. If one chooses to undertake media writing, that person must put in the effort to learn exactly how that area is unique.

There are those budding writers who become confused about writing, and they might best benefit from media education. These individuals initially think to themselves, “I’m literate; I can read. Surely, I can put letters together, form words, and then make sentences that will form paragraphs.” While it is true that this is a form of writing, that does not necessarily make good writing.

Good writing is something that many in online media education are attempting to explain and teach. However, many teachers are still learning the craft themselves! They need a professor to challenge them in writing essays and other media.

I once had a professor that challenged my classmates and I to an essay contest. During my freshman year, the professor gave the assignment, and my first thought was, “I’m a smart kid; I know how to write an essay.”

However, when the professor returned our essays, he explained that most of the essays had earned “F’s” with a few earning a “D.” There were two essays that had been awarded a “C” – an average grade – and the professor explained that those two writers had “fought for” that grade.

Many years passed before I understood why he gave the class such an assignment. The essay was not about explaining what good writing is; he taught us that we needed to “show” rather than “tell” in our essays. The assignment was not truly to explain good writing, but to demonstrate to the professor good writing techniques in my own work.

What is good writing? Good writing exhibits concrete details that paint a picture for the writer’s audience. Good writing expresses points of view, and it utilizes words in specific ways. Good writing should be structured to a point so that readers can follow the passage. It is not vague. Readers should be able to not only access what the writer is trying to say, but to understand the details and supports for a specific point of view.

Good writers are able to express themselves in a meaningful way throughout the media industry. People must be able to grasp what writers are intending to express. It should be accessible, using vocabulary that is appropriate but not so challenging to readers that they can’t understand the concepts behind the essay. Writers should work to lessen any “speed bumps” for readers – wordiness, unfamiliar words, lack of context clues or jargon in one’s writing. Good writing grabs the reader’s attention and holds it for the duration. It stimulates the mind and leaves the reader understanding the writer’s point of view and perhaps inquisitive to learn more.

Storytelling: A Definition of ‘Story’

At the most elemental level, when you consider what art or story is, you’re thinking about the first moment of consciousness or awareness. At the beginning of civilization, humans made marks all over the wilderness to chart their movements. These were just arrows or instructions on how to find an animal or a plant food source. Later, we began to put marks on the trees or structural walls that symbolized internal meanings.

That’s the start of creating a story where you have not only the external information, the goal or destination, but also the internal emotion that came with it. That is the launch of communication media.

At its base configuration, you’ve got art or storytelling as the meeting of external and internal story elements. And there are few exceptions when you’re thinking about art or media forms, whether high art, low art, big-budget movies, experimental films, literary novels, or paperback novels. There’s always an external and internal story.

In high art, the internal story is more strongly emphasized. The more base and genre-linked the story, the more attraction it holds for the masses when an external story is emphasized. A high-action film is all the physical activities. But if you have an action hero with no internal story, audiences are just not interested, we can’t watch.

But you can think about the story in other ways as well. The E.M. Forester example, which is often cited by writing instructors and literary gurus, is the king died and then the queen died, right? That’s not a story yet. That’s just external fact. The king died – and the queen died of grief is a story because the plot provides an internal story as well.

In journalism, it’s the same. It’s very hard to just report media facts without bringing an internal story. People will ask, “Where’s the story?” It’s something that can be quite irritating if you’re a journalist trying to share helpful information with the public: “These are important facts; I want to get this information out there.” But your editor, a staunch member of the media industry, is saying that there’s no story because there is no internal content.

The public has a really, really hard time remembering or relating to any external facts in media writing without internal content or media education. But I don’t think that that’s really part of storytelling as much as it is part of us. That’s just the way we relate to information and how we structure our memories. It’s also how that we relate to each other. With the help of online media education, people can learn to appreciate the internal story in art and journalism while developing a deeper ability to understand human nature.

Specializing in Researching for the Media Industry

The ability to research is a must-have quality for those in the media. Because video and audio clips are forever, nothing is more embarrassing than for a media industry professional or spokesperson to be caught relaying disinformation.

However, most spokespeople rely on a researcher to take the time to go through articles, compile data, and determining the facts around a topic.

Researchers can make a successful career out of these skills. They may research for the media spokesperson, or they may work as a researcher for documentary productions. A research staff person is critical in providing the production staff with the vital information on a topic. A research staff person is a bit like a computer database; they are expected to hold on to various bits and pieces of information over time. Some even report the information they compile. Others take part in media education projects working behind the scenes.

Some research staff members may put their research to use in a variety of ways. They may write for a newspaper, or they may be a part of a new group of online media writing enterprises, such as blogs and podcasts. Podcasts are becoming highly popular as more and more are depending upon online media education for their information.

One can use reading, writing and research skills in a number of ways in the online world today. A research staff member is able to contribute much to a media organization, and many employment opportunities to utilize those skills are present in the job market today.

Change and Growth Are Vital Parts of Media Education

The state of media writing today is very different from the state of writing 10 years ago. Even 20 years ago, websites were brand new. They were novelties within newsrooms.

The most important product that that newsroom may have created in the year 2000 was the print edition of all of the work from the reporters there. And if you look at a television company, the most important thing there was not its website but whatever the reporter or correspondent or anchor would be saying on the nightly news later that night. So, remember that the media industry that you’re choosing to work in is in flux, and change has become a near constant these days.

Judging from the jobs that I’ve worked in, changes in management, learning to adjust, and becoming reorganized as a staff under new leadership are experiences you can expect to go through, especially if you decide to become a staff member of an organization.

So, as you see in your online media education, digital communication is becoming more and more important, but there is a split in the industry. Those who work in major media organizations that put out a television broadcast or a newspaper may be really devoted to the paper copy or the televised copy of the information that they have to share that day. However, the digital presence of a news organization is competing with these more traditional forms of communication. A news organization’s homepage becomes its front page. The benefit of that digital organization’s homepage is that it can be changed without having to print anything or make any major changes. With a click of a button, you can create a new front page.

Even though Variety is more than a hundred years old, we want to be as fleet and intelligent and new as we can, which is why we have a number of great reporters of different ages and generations and interests in our newsroom. They’re interested in all different kinds of music and different pockets of film. We even have a lot of people whose main source of entertainment is TikTok. That is in our newsroom; that is represented.

Each year, we sponsor the Power of Young Hollywood event where we cede the mic to the upcoming generation, the biggest trendsetters that are all under 20. And you wonder how they’ve been able to gain a foothold already. As long as you’re willing to understand that things change, and you want to change and grow along with the industry, that’s how you keep fresh.

Online Media Education: Writing Versus Editing

People always ask me, “What’s the difference between a writer and an editor, and why does one become a writer or become an editor. Or can you do both?” Personally, I do both.

But, a writer is mainly focused on crafting their pieces. I mean, they’re going to draft them. They’re going to potentially edit them. I was editing and writing always. A lot of times, people ask me that question, “Why did you become an editor? What’s the difference between an editor and a writer? Or, is one better than the other?”

Personally, for me, I became an editor and went down that path for probably two reasons. One, because you have to have a really big ego to be a successful writer. And the reason why I say that is you’re dealing with a lot of criticism, a lot of rejection. To be able to survive that, you have to be able to deal with that level of rejection and criticism. It’s a little easier, sometimes, to be in the background and not get that in your face all the time.

The other reason is that I had so many ideas. I was so curious. There is no way physically and mentally that I would be able to do and execute all the things I want to do myself. That’s why I needed an army of people doing things — I can assign them things and then edit them. And then we’ll tell all these stories I want to tell that I can’t physically do myself. Furthermore, some people are just more talented than me. They have a great writing style or voice. It’s very satisfying to work with people in the media industry who are talented and give them an extra level of attention.

As a singular career path in the media, if you’re looking at editorial, you’ll continue to improve as a writer. There are a lot of writers who are editors for years and years and years, and then they write a remarkable novel. In the past, it was really looked down on in the publishing world that it was another failed writer. You had to sort of keep it a secret that you were working on a novel on the side. I think that’s changed a little bit.

The etiquette may still be to keep your mouth shut a bit with media writing, but there’s a reason that those editors do that. And, you know, they’re just very skilled. They know how to structure a story. They know the workflow of the story. When they have a story to tell, they know how to get it on the page.

How to Write Compelling Stories for the Media Industry

One of the more difficult aspects of the media industry is figuring out what’s interesting to others and what makes a good story. That starts with the pitch — the story of the story. What is the reader going to learn? Why does the reader want to know it? And what has come before the story that you’re writing today?

A good rule of thumb for media writing is that if you think a story is intriguing, others might like it as well. So, first ask yourself, “Is this interesting? Would I read it if I weren’t the writer?” That’s one good way to gut-check yourself and figure out if you’re writing something worthwhile that will grab an editor’s attention and make them want to share it with their readers.

What makes a good story? That’s something we all grapple with every day. It’s one of the most difficult parts of the writer’s job — and the one that’s most critical to your success. News editors are looking for something that’s going to immediately attract readers and make them want to know more.
Now, what you had for breakfast this morning may be new information, but it’s not something that anyone cares about. You need to find that sweet spot where you have a particular insight, or, even better, fresh facts about a subject that people already want to know more about. Then, you can bring those to your writing and say, “Look, you may have already learned something about this, but if you read what I have to say, you’ll come away with something new and better.”

How the Media Industry Hasn’t Changed

Nowadays, when we think about the multimedia environment, there’s been a lot of change from the past. We’ve been talking about new media like eBooks and sort of this evolving landscape for a good 20 years now. Remember that as you continue your online media education.

There’s always been a great deal in the way of antecedent and history in media writing. Because when you look at the invention of the printing press, even there you have this long cycle of egalitarian movement in print. You had originally these illuminated manuscripts, which were handwritten by scribes which took a very long time to produce compared to the blazing speed of today. You could really just produce only one of that manuscript.

But then you had something that just poured out into the world with the printing press. That’s essentially what we have again with the information on the internet, which was great for media education. And again, as it happened with the printing press, we had information that was really good and valuable in the beginning, and then kind of a sea of nonsense. Now you have this shrinking pool of where you want to get your information from. So increasingly it became these high-powered publishers because you trusted them more in the same way that we have our trusted websites today.

How Editors Help Media Writers Publish Abundantly

I became an editor because there are so many stories that need to be told. As a media writer, you can only work on so many at a time. You might have several stories going at once: You’re working on a long form story, a shorter story, and something more personal while also writing something with characters. Media education is a booming field, and as an editor, I can assign more pieces for media writing and have more stories being told at the same time to produce a wealth of storytelling.

Nowadays, there is an entrepreneurial side to writing. Writers are urged to publish newsletters, post blogs, or maintain a Medium account. You’re going to write online media education materials continuously. But you’re still limited to the amount of physical effort you can put into it. At some point you’re going to burn out.

When you’re an editor with a hundred writers all writing at once, you can time the release of their work, you can pace it. You can publish at different intervals and tell a variety of stories that relate to the media industry. You have the chance to share a broader perspective with these options in play that allow you to publish an abundance of stories.

How Data and the Digital Age Have Changed the Media Industry

Today, we have something called data at our fingertips. Before the era of digital journalism, we only knew who our readers were based on their subscription information. So, if you can remember subscribing to a newspaper on a piece of paper and mailing it to that newspaper’s office, you might provide some information like your age, gender, your name, the neighborhood that you live in. Those become the demographic and psychographic points of information for that news organization. That’s the information they had to go off of.

Then, that is the information they sometimes use to make decisions about the pieces that they did. In the golden age of journalism, what we did see is reporting for reporting’s sake, news of the day. The most important information was put on the front page. And you might find that information on a competing newspaper’s front page as well.

Nowadays, with data, sometimes newsrooms, news managers, and editors might make decisions based on really granular data that they have at their fingertips because people come to their websites and give over data that helps them understand, “Who are our readers? Where are they from? What are their likes and dislikes?”

Especially with social media helping out with that data, we know our readers so much more today than we did before. There are some people who say in the industry that that’s a great thing. We can find out more about our readers. We can serve our readers in a better way. There are others who say we depend on data too much, and we are making decisions based on the data that we have versus the news of the day and what is newsworthy.

This is the conversation that is happening within newsrooms today. You might see over the next 10 to 15 years these legacy outputs that come from these news organizations, like nightly broadcasts or newspapers, lessen as digital properties grow.

Defining Your Lane as a Successful Media Industry Writer

As you’re making the choice to enter into media writing, you need to first decide which kind of writer or journalist you would like to become. With more available media data and a greater understanding of who our readers are and what they want these days, we know so much more about what we can do to serve them.

With the proper media education, you can become a culture reporter or even a food critic. In fact, there are so many different routes that you can take based on both your interests and on the needs of the particular organization that you might be reporting for.

One great way to make your mark in the media industry is to become an expert in one or two areas so that when your favorite editor calls on you to report on a particular issue, topic, or story, you will be able to produce it right away.

We will now learn a little bit about online media education, the many ways in which you can report, and the wide variety of topics that you can cover as a journalist in the industry today.