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Topic: Frustrated Music Journalist
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| Author | Message |
| somethinglike28 | Posted – 1/8/2005 3:38:58 PM | show profile Hey all- I've been plugging away at being a music journalist ever since I graduated school in 2000. I've had different full-time jobs to support myself and have kept my eyes and ears open to new opportunities. Lately, though, my confidence is straining. And it's not the first time. I've written for a couple of well known publications and a lot of lesser known ones, but haven't been able to really get as far as I want: I'm talking Blender, Spin and others. I consider myself a good writer and have received great feedback from people in the industry. But I can't seem to land those great breaks - even with decent contacts. I try pitching ideas, thinking I have solid ones, but there's usually no response or ''We've got it covered. Thanks.'' At times I think I'm being so pretentious actually calling myself a music journalist. That's because I don't have steady work and my strides are small. Anyone else experiencing this? I just had to vent this. Thanks. |
| limericks4all | Posted – 1/8/2005 5:02:23 PM | show profile It's hard -- you have selected a tough niche. There are very few full-time music journalism jobs, and the competition for freelance gigs is pretty intense. All you can do is keep plugging away. |
| Razor | Posted – 1/8/2005 5:40:45 PM | show profile Keep Trying I've done band reviews and profiles and interviewed national acts as well as local acts. There's a few things I'll tell you about music journalism. Magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin are not what they used to be 10-20 years ago. The features are briefer and there is almost no objectivity left. Pick one of these rags up and leaf through it to see for yourself. They have all become giant advertisements with little else added. And they could care less about writers' salaries. I once worked with a colleague who interviewed Slash from Guns n Roses when he put out a solo CD with his new band. She spent two days on the interview and it was a four page feature spread in a popular East Coast music newspaper and she got a whopping $125. Her perks were she got to share a few whiskeys with him in NYC after the interview. So the money is not there. But if you love music and that's your niche, go for it. Perhaps you can land more gigs and the magazines will come looking for YOU if you land intuitive interviews first and THEN pitch them to the mags. Develop better questions other than the same old crap I see in these magazines. Timothy White did it decades ago when he landed a celebrity interview and pitched it to Rolling Stone, where it was published and where he went on to an incredible career at a time when the magazine was hot. |
| somethinglike28 | Posted – 1/8/2005 8:54:39 PM | show profile I've actually thought of trying to write stories and THEN pitch them to magazines. But it always seemed like, at least in music journalism, it wouldn't get you far. If you speak to publicists and you say you're interested in an interview, it's always ''What publication is this for?'' And I get worried that I won't have a story unless the publicists KNOW it's going to run somewhere. Maybe I should try it the other way. I don't know. |
| WritingSoul | Posted – 1/9/2005 5:07:32 AM | show profile | email poster somethinglike28 -- Can you enable your email, or drop me a note? Thanks! |
| bjoconnorfla | Posted – 1/9/2005 11:36:58 AM | show profile The other posts make good points -- there aren't a lot of jobs doing this, and there are a ton of wannabes and fans who will write this stuff practically for free (which is about what their stuff is worth). These people have no taste, no interest or sense of journalism, no knowledge beyond whatever pop crap record companies want to shove on consumers, and are just pathetic graspers who want to be part of ''the scene.'' I mean, look at most music writing today. First, it's not about music, but celebrity. Second, it's all suck up and puff pieces. If you want to be a real journalist who covers music, learn how to cover the business. What moves the industry, where does the money go and come from, how does the market function, how has it changed in the past decade, etc. Learn to read balance sheets and annual reports. Learn about how many talented real musicians are displaced by the Ashlee Simpsons of the world and why that happens. Understand the fragmentation of radio and what satellite means. Tell me why the biggest influence in pop music is Walmart, not Green Day. Second, focus your work on markets where you can use this knowledge and tell readers something they need to know. Establish your credentials at smaller publications that might take a perihperal interest in music -- such as a trade pub. on marketing. There will be less competition and you can carve out a niche where you're an expert, then approach the major music pubs with some real ideas sted of begging to be the one who ''gets'' the ''interview'' with some pop flash in the pan who says the same thing to 100 other reporters. I was a newspaper entertainment editor for several years and it was awful. I can't imagine a worse fate than having to care (much less think and write about) the majority of crap that passes for entertainment. Most music coverage is just an extension of the marketing dept. at any major label, with fawning writes grateful for access to a ''star.'' Most publications want you to do nothing more than a ''me too'' story that apes whatever is in People last month. Believe me, this is not work for grown-ups. Still, if you really want to do this and fight the good fight, you're going to have to take a different path than aiming for the big pubs right from the start. Good luck. |
| VillageGal | Posted – 1/9/2005 12:24:13 PM | show profile I reviewed rock music for many years. I had great clips. I cracked SPIN ( big deal) and numerous other markets, but I never made much money from this. I don't think it's a good way to make a living as a writer and the older you get, the less appealing it becomes. So write about music if that's what you love, but get other specialties. |
| pabloloserama | Posted – 1/19/2005 8:21:00 AM | show profile good luck It's a hard nut to crack, for sure. If you haven't been getting a lot of work at alternative weeklies around the US, you should head that way. The best thing to do is focus on your local metro area alt-weekly and get published a lot there. Also, pitch the Village Voice--people who get published there get noticed at the majors. I'll also add that the cast of music editors is fairly tight--you'll notice a lot of spill through in by-lines between SPIN, Blender, Rolling Stone, etc. The other thing you should be doing is pitching non-music stuff at glossies so that you can get clips and credibility. If you have clips at notable glossies, that will help carry you when you are going after SPIN or Blender or Rolling Stone. And don't forget there are a handful of other music glossies that are market options. If you have a narrow or non-common musical focus (world music, for example), that might help. If you have great pitch ideas and get shut down by the big music magazines, don't hesitate to repurpose the pitch and use it elsewhere. That way, you can still end up writing about it and will have a music-related clip to use in the future. Finally, it goes without saying that persistence wins out a lot more than talent. |
| Deadliner | Posted – 1/19/2005 1:53:40 PM | show profile My suggestion is that you broaden your interests as a writer and work your way into a specialty. It took a friend of mine years to break in as a entertainment writer, but he was able to get much more freelance work as a consumer electronics and products writer. When one of the magazines he wrote for had an entertainment feature, he was on their shortlist of writers and later became the person they turned to for such pieces. He then took his entertainment-based clips and reputation to a major newspaper, and has since found steady freelance writing for them. |
| nonono | Posted – 1/19/2005 4:37:19 PM | show profile agree with deadliner. You can't be so specialized in today's journalism industry--not only not about the topics you cover but neither about the mediums you cover any topic in. Try the teen markets. try the entertainment magazines. try online and local papers, incl--esp the alternative weeklys. |
| nonono | Posted – 1/19/2005 4:40:05 PM | show profile oh and by the way, as anyone who worked for SPIN when it was great will tell you, it helps if you sleep with the editor or an editor there. There are men AND woman editors at most music magazines--whicheverway you swing. (That's meant tongue in cheek--albeit based on accurate info--so please don't jump all over my ass, mb highnmighty) |
| VillageGal | Posted – 1/19/2005 5:20:33 PM | show profile Just for the record, I never slept with any editor when I freelanced for SPIN. As I recall I had a different editor for every review I wrote, musical chairs. I think that was back in the late 80s. |
| somethinglike28 | Posted – 1/19/2005 9:58:35 PM | show profile haha..don't think sleeping with an editor is a route I'm willing to take. But I'm sure it happens. |
| nonono | Posted – 1/20/2005 12:19:42 PM | show profile well, celia whatshername did, and a host of others. It's all in the mawsuit that was filed against Guccione in the early-mid nineties. |
| jmm | Posted – 1/20/2005 6:56:47 PM | show profile The thing I always remind myself to do whenever I feel stopped, is the last thing we sometimes think to do. I turn inward, not outward. I zero in on my writing skills. I finish a piece and I say, no, not good enough, and write it again and again. Raise your goals. See how it goes. You say you are a good writer, and a good writer knows how to become a better writer. great writing should give you the edge you need. |
| jmm | Posted – 1/20/2005 6:58:36 PM | show profile I just read bj's post and I really liked what she was saying about developing industry knowledge. Defninitely. be a cut above. be a bunch of cuts above |
| iwatsu_master | Posted – 1/20/2005 7:07:51 PM | show profile try a college journalist's tack I've worked for a 10,000 circ campus daily for four years, and though I haven't worked for the arts desk myself, I've noticed that even this small-ish paper has gotten interviews with acts like The Killers and Neko Case. Again, I'm not arts focused myself, but it seems like the solution here is twofold: 1) land the bands you like before they make it big. They'll bend over backward for the press and 2) pitch to smaller papers, esp. alt-weeklies as has been suggested. They'll likely pay more than $125 for a reliable writer on breaking band, and they should suffice for a band about to break. The people I know who get into music journalism largely seem driven by their love of the music and not the magazine they're writing for. |
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