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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.