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

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

#91

Post by gingerlime »

mike2477 wrote: post #26
pieterhg wrote: post #20

There's more to this story. I was the first person to be interviewed by this journalist (Michael Thomas @curious_founder). He approached me on Twitter to ask questions about digital nomad and remote work life (as I founded Nomad List and have been doing it for years). I told him it'd be great to see more honest depictions as most articles are heavily idealized making it sound all great, when it's not necessarily. 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/0B…

I too enjoyed your blog post and came back feeling happy for you. I appreciated what you went through and shared. Then seeing Pieter's comment totally turned everything upside down for me. I feel sorry for Pieter and for you. (A different kind of sorry, though).

> I had no vested interest in the page views my story on Quartz got.

I think that's a bit disingenuous. As a writer, if your story is successful and generate lots of views, this is definitely a strong factor in your favour. You're much more likely to benefit from a popular story. If you truly didn't care, then you can post on your own blog (even then I'd argue you care how successful it is).

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

#92

Post by kkoomi »

anigbrowl wrote: post #51
mike2477 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/0B…

I read your how-to article, and enjoyed your writing. And I came away with the impression that Pieter (who I had never heard of before) had chosen to settle down in Amsterdam, as in buying a house or somesuch. I wasn't interested enough in digital nomadism to go and read the article about him, but I thought I might read it over the weekend. then I come here and discover that Pieter was just spending a few months in A…

OP needs to frame this and hang it on his wall for the next few months. This is the prescription and medicine that he needs.

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

#93

Post by MarkMc »

6stringmerc wrote: post #37

This is a great article if somebody has unlimited resources to pay rent, buy food, and focus on obtaining a basically temporal literary achievement; however, it offers no practical utility with respect to actually getting paid to write and earn a living by way of the craft, so...uhh...if you need a textbook fluff piece, here ya go.

Although the author isn't struggling to make ends meet and land a paying writing gig, his advice is directly applicable to someone who is:

1. Check out Open Notebook - it really helped me see what my pitches were missing

2. A good pitch must have unique angle, be good storytelling in it's own right, answer 'so what' has lead to 'a ha...that explains why...'

3. You need to have lots of stories to pitch, be persistent and have a daily routine. Keeping track of each pitch in a spreadsheet is great for motivation.

To me it seems these are specific, not-obvious pieces of advice grounded in personal experience. Not at all fluff piece.

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

#94

Post by coldtea »

kristianc wrote: post #90
coldtea wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, clickbait might mean "BS content" to you, but it means "stuff we want to read" for those clicking on those links. We had clickbait titles for ages now for them to actually be a "bait" for anyone. Almost everybody knows what they'll get when they click on a listicle or a gossipy title or whatever, and they click on because they like the content.

This almost reads like 'We should encourage people to eat junk food because some people like the taste of it.'

Yes, "almost", it just lacks the "encourage" part.

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

#95

Post by 6stringmerc »

wyldfire wrote: post #57
6stringmerc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a trained writer but not a journalist, I feel there are two noteworthy points to consider in this rebuttal. The first is what set me off so terribly at Avi Selk, formerly of the Dallas Morning News, and now at the Washington Post, based on his framing of the Ahmed Mohamed "Clock Boy" story at first [1]. Here's the admission: > I simplified Pieter's story to fit the narrative I thought I saw. I was blinded by what…

Off-topic: I hadn't heard of Stephen Glass' [1] exploits, so I looked them up. > After journalism, Glass earned a law degree, magna cum laude,[citation needed] at Georgetown University Law Center. He then passed the New York State bar examination in 2000, but the Committee of Bar Examiners refused to certify him on its moral fitness test, citing ethics concerns related to his plagiarism.[3] He later abandoned his eff…

If you thought that was a trip, go take a look at Andy Fastow of Enron infamy. He was the compelling force that got me to write a screenplay adaptation of a couple short stories I'd put together over the years. It's my entry to the 2017 Nicholl Fellowship Screenwriting competition:

https://www.scriptrevolution.com/scripts/do-unto-others

Part of Andy Fastow's image rehab was, of all things, talking ethics.

http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/news/articles/andrew-fastow-fo...

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

#96

Post by 6stringmerc »

rev_bird wrote: post #54
6stringmerc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a trained writer but not a journalist, I feel there are two noteworthy points to consider in this rebuttal. The first is what set me off so terribly at Avi Selk, formerly of the Dallas Morning News, and now at the Washington Post, based on his framing of the Ahmed Mohamed "Clock Boy" story at first [1]. Here's the admission: > I simplified Pieter's story to fit the narrative I thought I saw. I was blinded by what…

I disagree pretty strongly with your first point. For starters, Stephen Glass wrote literal fiction; Michael Thomas is, at worst guilty of misrepresenting an otherwise true real-life situation. Glass is among the most notorious fabricators of all time -- we're going to start invoking comparisons to him when something doesn't line up exactly like we think it should? (edit: To clarify, I'm not saying this was a good id…

The end game of the Glass narrative is the most shocking but it's part of a larger slope of decisions and methods which culminated in total fabrication. A downfall of narrative integrity has to start somewhere, and usually it's not whole-cloth deception. A little here, a little there, and when the internal compass starts to re-align with the bearing, then it takes an outsider to notice the context.

Filling out a narrative to match a story is very similar to pursuing a hypothesis in bench science: If the material doesn't actually support the perspective, then the duty of the reporter - writer or scientist - is to construct a piece which accommodates the genesis, development, revision, and conclusion of a story. One that can be reproduced. If one of the main subjects of a piece comes out guns blazing decrying the use of their Good Faith contributions, then those are genuine compiler errors. Something doesn't add up. If the code - or the composition - can't pass muster then there are inherent flaws.

I will disclose that my view of Journalism is tainted by the Best and Worst practitioners of the craft: Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, and Hunter S. Thompson. I'm no stranger to contortions and line-blurring of Journalism and Literary License, of which this situation met almost none of my internal checklist criteria. If anything I ground my perspectives in the antagonistic yet passionate approach of Samuel Johnson when it comes to criticism...homeboy had the salt to even call out his benefactor in his Dictionary...

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

#97

Post by andrewfromx »

mike2477 wrote: post #15
sfashset wrote: post #11

Great article, but I'm wondering if it isn't missing the most important piece of information - how did you track down the editors, and their email addresses? Or is this information that can be gleaned from twitter?

Thanks :) You're totally right. I forgot one of the most essential parts of the process which is tracking down the right editor. The short version is this: find the most relevant publication, then search for the most relevant section (politics, business, etc). Then look on their masthead (you can google {publication} masthead) to find this for every magazine. There you'll find the editor of the section you want to wr…

do you publicly tweet them or send a direct private twitter message?
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