The Art of Pitching: How I Got Published in The Atlantic

Don't take my comment here as a rebuttal to the facts in your specific case, but I want to point out that the core concept of what journalists do is to filter and summarize. A journalist will never tell the whole story because that is not their job. In a good story, I see my published-output to total-reportage ratio to be about 5% or less, i.e. very little of what I've researched and reported makes it into a published piece. In a typical hour-long interview, only maybe a few minutes of what was actually said may be represented. But ostensibly, that's because the other 55 minutes helped inform me what the relevant 5 minutes are.

That said, even in positive stories, sources will call me back and express surprise/disappointment that, for how long I talked to them, they were just a single paragraph in my bigger story. I see it similar to the surprise people have when they hear how a good programmer, ideally, puts out an average of a few lines of code a day. The work is not just about what you physically put out, but what you leave out.

Tangentially, it's worth noting that some stories may change midway when more facts are known, and the interview subject doesn't realize that the direction of the story changes. Once I was asked to write a routine profile of a well-known business owner. I stopped by his office and had a very nice interview with him. Then as part of my regular routine, I did a quick check of court records to see if his or his company's name showed up. And it turned out there was a recent case filed by an employee making serious allegations of mistreatment and sexual discrimination. So I called the CEO again and asked him to comment on that, and he expressed displeasure that, rather than telling the story of how great his company was, I chose to focus on cheap linkbaity sleazy distortions.

If you hear his side of the story, it's going to sound like I betrayed him to follow my own SJW-narrative to get clicks. That was not the case at all -- I was just a newbie and had no problem writing a happy story. If I had chosen to completely ignore the complicated, negative facts, then it's fair to argue that I was still pursuing a "narrative", one in which everything was going hunky-dory with the company, rather than life being complicated and messy.

That said, there are what I consider to be sketchy practices when it comes filtering: when the reporter deliberately misleads you into why they're interviewing you, e.g. telling you they want to do a profile about your awesome volunteer work when really, the story is about you being accused of crimes. And also, choosing to quote you out of context, or using the "sexiest" quote just because it's sexy-sounding, not because it represents your story well at all.

Again, not a commentary on your specific case. Just more of a reaction to others who think it's shady when journalists don't tell the "whole story". Journalists never tell the whole story. That's an impossible feat, even if it were desirable.

This happens really often and with much renowned publications (NYTimes, Washington Post, Guardian, La Repubblica are just a few that I've seen ppl complaining about similar behaviour) so much that it made me think that if you don't have control over the final draft, sometimes is better to avoid it all together.

It's so fascinating to me when people ask how to find editors. Journalists are notoriously addicted to Twitter. Not only are they very discoverable by doing a search for their name/job title with "+ Twitter", many of them are also unable to not reflexively reply to someone who follows them on Twitter. Or even if you don't follow them -- just read Glenn Greenwald's feed and look at how many randoms manage to get his attention.

That said, it's hard to do a pitch via Twitter. I'm just saying use Twitter as a way of getting acquainted. And honestly, reading someone's Twitter feed helps you understand a bit about their personality and where they are coming from, which again, is helpful knowledge in any cold call situation.

I've thrown people in the spam filter for a lot less. "re: twitter" as a subject line is even more objectionable to my personal tastes -- but I dislike journalists who are intentionally trying to mislead their audience, even in an email subject.

Agree. The article had good points with the part about pitching especially helpful. I do get too that the focus of this piece is more on how to get into these publications. I do wish though that the author spoke a bit more on how he survived as a freelance writer.

If you're a good enough writer with good ideas and you keep pitching persistently, you'll get traction soon enough. It's whether or not you're able to survive the unstable early goings that's the issue.

From my experience, if you're jumping into freelance writing without any savings (and starting from scratch with no connections with editors, no previous published pieces, etc.), it's hard to survive. Pitches take time (some editors might take months to reply). Writing/research takes time (you're essentially unpaid until your piece gets published). Even harder is the invoicing. You have to hound some publications to pay you (some take 45+ days to pay after your piece gets published). You really have to plan your pipeline well. When I tried doing it full-time for a bit, I planned ahead in terms of income (i.e. income from this month came from all the work I did in November). The moment you slow down or you stop pitching though, you know it's going to affect you in two months time.

Getting through the gates is tough but the hardest part is trying to find sustainable work that can pay your bills month to month. If you can develop relationships with editors (who consistently greenlight your pieces or give you regular assignments), that helps a lot. But, if you're starting out without any of that, the constant grind to find something regularly is stressful.

I still do it because I love it but I don't do it full-time anymore because I need to pay my bills.