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

Hey! This is a great question and one raised by others. I plan to write more on this (totally spaced it on this article somehow).

If you CTRL + F search "The short version" you'll see the short version of my answer to this question. More to come!

Thanks for sharing that painful incident. Almost anyone who has been directly involved in a story ends up being unpleasantly surprised by the outcome. It is why I don't mourn the deaths of so many media outlets. They earned it.

So this isn't entirely true either.. Here's my take:

What I did wrong - I didn't run the quotes by Pieter before publishing. I was on a tight deadline, and I simply skipped this step. That was a mistake, but not unethical. Journalists are not required to run quotes by their sources. I only quoted from what Pieter told me. Those who want to verify can hear the whole interview here -- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8k8VS_zkdqYVGx3U01JU0xaYXc...

- I simplified Pieter's story to fit the narrative I thought I saw. I was blinded by what I thought sounded like a good story. So when Pieter said he had stopped traveling temporarily, I simplified that to "He stopped being a nomad." While he had stopped traveling when I spoke with him (he was in Holland when I interviewed him), he didn't intend to stop traveling forever. When Pieter reached out (and called me lots of pretty harsh names), I emailed the editor and we issued a revision. You can see this in the story.

What I didn't do wrong - For the last couple months Pieter has tried to tell everyone that will listen on Twitter what a shitty person I am. He's called me harsh names. He's questioned my ethics. And he himself has simplified a story: that I'm a clickbait seeking journalist with no experience and no morales. This has obviously been pretty hurtful. I've gone to sleep shaking with anger and sadness (partly because I know I made mistakes in my first-ever published story and I'm insecure about that, and partly because reading Reddit threads where people call you a fucking idiot just hurts). I don't believe I was unethical in any of this. As I mentioned, I used direct quotes and told the story that I heard over Skype.

- Pieter implied in this comment that I didn't write the truth and that I am embody what is wrong with journalism today. He compared my story to "fake news." I think this is a stretch. Again, I could have written a more comprehensive story if I had more than 800 words and 48 hours. But I don't think any of this can be compared to "fake news." My intent wasn't malicious, and I sought to tell the right story. None of what I wrote was untrue. Pieter just felt that it wasn't the entire story. This is common with profiles.

- Pieter also mentioned that I did this for "clicks" but this story was written at a time when I was taking time away from marketing and business. I had no vested interest in the page views my story on Quartz got. I don't even know how many it has. Again, I think this is an oversimplification of a complex human being.

I've tried to reach out to Pieter before, but he blocked me on Twitter. So because I know you are reading this here's my message: "Shoot me an email (mthomas dot denver at gmail) if you want to chat. I feel bad about the mistakes I made. But I don't want you always lurking over my shoulder ready to tell the Internet what a shitty person I am. I made mistakes that anyone new to a field could make. I had no malicious intent, and tried to correct the story when you asked. Please stop writing mean things about me and making me feel bad. I'm a human being with feelings and emotions."

Over and out.

...didn't see that coming.

So is writing 4,000 word articles that ideally help other entrepreneurs. That's a pretty important caveat to include. But hey, I'm biased :)