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Topic: Writing about boyfriends/girlfriends
| Author | Message |
| mightypen | Posted – 2/4/2008 2:22:41 AM | show profile My boyfriend (fiance, technically) has a very interesting hobby that I think would make him a great profile for a specific magazine. I would feel the need to disclose to the editor that he's my boyfriend, but could that possibly turn off the publication for ethical reasons? The goal of the article is not to promote him, though I would probably mention at some point (for background details) that he is an artist. Not sure if I'm being nitpicky or if there really is cause for concern. |
| D_S | Posted – 2/4/2008 5:42:13 AM | show profile It is a cause for concern. While you may not have any intention to promote him, there is still room for suspicion to arise. Since he's YOUR boyfriend, you have an actual personal connection with the person. In journalism it is required that you shouldn't be personally/professionally associated with any of your sources. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 2/4/2008 5:53:17 AM | show profile I'd be particularly concerned if the story specifically promoted the art he sells. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 2/4/2008 10:18:23 AM | show profile You can't do it. Find someone else who does this hobby and make them the subject; if the story is that strong, it doesn't need to be about your beau and, ethically, can't be. |
| recovering_jersey_girl | Posted – 2/4/2008 10:57:28 AM | show profile I agree with Caitlin and others here. Get your bf to help you track down someone else that practices this hobby and go from there. |
| mightypen | Posted – 2/4/2008 12:28:37 PM | show profile Figured as much. Doubt many people would have a similar hobby. Perhaps another writer will have the luck to find him and write up his story. Thanks all. |
| Canadiana | Posted – 2/4/2008 12:34:40 PM | show profile My friend, also a freelance writer, has a husband who started a great non-profit org. She won't promote it/pitch it but I have done so (not successfully thus far) by pitching the org in a story idea to various trade and consumer mags. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 2/4/2008 12:53:09 PM | show profile I have been a small-town editor much of my career. If I never wrote about people I was close to / associated with, I'd be dealing only with the dregs of society ;) |
| writesonwater | Posted – 2/4/2008 1:02:58 PM | show profile You could always break up with him until the pub date. Just kidding! ;) When it comes to actual rellies, I have done this -- written a story about my late grandfather, and it said in the tagline I was his granddaughter -- it was part of the charm, I think. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 2/4/2008 1:06:19 PM | show profile Really, this happens all the time in small towns -- I've had my best friends be the news directors at TV stations who made me the lead story du jour -- not because of our friendship, but because it was a real lead story. The biggest concern to me as an editor is does it promote his business? But it occurred to me as I wrote to a friend about this very topic that perhaps I was perhaps hopelessly pimped out and should be banished to the dank dungeon of advertorial ;) |
| mightypen | Posted – 2/4/2008 1:58:46 PM | show profile His hobby has nothing to do with his business, actually, and unless the editor wanted to mention his career, I wouldn't write about it at all. I may try and find a first-person angle to this story so I can pitch it as more of a relationship essay. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 2/4/2008 3:11:39 PM | show profile I don't see this as a problem, as long as you tell them. |
| joyeuxnoelle | Posted – 2/4/2008 4:10:36 PM | show profile I agree with dribbledrive. As long as you disclose it to the editor it doesn't seem like a big issue. The question is WHEN do you tell them. If it were me, I would wait until after the initial pitch, but before they send you the contract. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 2/4/2008 7:06:27 PM | show profile If the bf doesn't stand to benefit financially from the reporting and you're upfront early on with the editor, and with the readers, I don't see where it would hurt. People write about family and friends all the time, though usually in an anecdotal sense within a larger article. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 2/4/2008 7:20:15 PM | show profile sorry I say NO. Conflict of interest. Ojectivity and credibility issues abound. You can suggest him as a story to an editor. She'll assign another writer. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 2/4/2008 7:23:11 PM | show profile If you admit your relationship with hi,m, it's okay. But not unless you do. This is very frowned upon. As a newspaper reporter I couldn't cover crime because my husband works for the police department. Sorry, small town, big town, it's a no-no. If you divulge the relationship , okay, but then editorialwise, that needs to be worked into/be significant to the story. You can ask someone at Columbia Journalism Review, but they'll probably be even less likely to condone this. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 2/4/2008 10:46:27 PM | show profile While the CJR sets themselves as the ejudicators of all things journalistic, I would be most concerned about telling my editor upfront about the relationship and keeping things honest. Journalists who live in small towns have to walk a fine line. You can cover things, but because it's a very small town, everyone will know if you're blowing smoke or not. They will keep you very honest, or your publication will look like trash. |
| D_S | Posted – 2/4/2008 11:12:07 PM | show profile Obviously, in a small town you'd probably know everybody on the street, but that doesn't mean you can't write about them. Problem arises if the source is CLOSELY related to you. In the case of OP, it's a boyfriend. The kind of people you'd feel good about promoting. If it was the boyfriend's ex, I don't think anyone would frown upon that. ;) |
| seeattleme | Posted – 2/5/2008 12:57:26 AM | show profile Probelm is, your editor's name isn't on the story. Yours is. And do you really want to write a story that could later be the subject of a lawsuit or just a nasty column questioning your ethics? Forget about the editor. It's the reader you need to be honest with. And most readers don't trust journalists who write glowing praise about a boyfriend or family member without admitting the relationship to begin with. And even then, it never sits well. It's seen as pandering, as self-promoting, as advertising. |
| joyeuxnoelle | Posted – 2/5/2008 8:04:50 AM | show profile | email poster But she's not writing about the boyfriend, or even about her boyfriend's business. It's up to an editor to decide if her relationship with the subject needs to be divulged. And if it is, what wrong with writing: "Wow aren't people who raise bats in their homes fascinating? My boyfriend, John X, for example, has been going to caves and bringing bats home and feeding them with eye droppers since 1992. When he isn't brushing their coats with small toothbrushes, he tries to recruit others into his unofficial 'save the bats movement.' Professor Y at Screw U says this can be a good thing to save bats from extinction and to prevent human beings from being afraid of them. However Julie Z from ABC conservation group sees it differently. Raising baby bats is not without its challenges. X's neighbors live in fear that these bats will turn into a fleet of vampires and suck them dry of blood. I had the same fear when we first started dating but now after 6 months there is nothing I like more than the caress of bat wings on my cheek at the end of a long, hard day." |
| writesonwater | Posted – 2/5/2008 8:51:26 AM | show profile Joyeux, I agree with you about talking with the editor. Your example works if she's writing a column, but if she's doing a straight-up story there's no "My boyfriend" or "my sister" or "My (anything.) Which is what makes me say disclose it to the editor; if he's integral to the story for the story's sake, it may be fine. The point others make about objectivity is worth noting. As a small town writer/editor I have had to downplay my family's role in something when otherwise they would have been a great source just because my belief about community journalism is not that it's all about ME but that it's all about YOU. I have actually told my child to get out of a picture he would have belonged in because although he was one of the most active people in the community, I was self-conscious about putting him in every paper. If he was some other person's kid, I would have been like, 'Well, he's just the most active kid in town. He stays in the pic.' |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 2/5/2008 10:55:41 AM | show profile source diversity matters Do editors and writers in small towns and large cities -- especially those reporting for national publications -- play by different rules? One of the issues the NYT demands its freelancers explicitly acknowledge and avoid is interviewing people they/we know...you can use them as a starting point to get to other sources, but I think interviewing only within your own circle is lazy and, given the dominance of white voices in the mass media, ignorant of a larger need for diversity of voices and views. If the only people you ever interview/photograph are people who are just like you, how does that serve readers who aren't? |
| HisGirlFriday | Posted – 2/5/2008 11:03:51 AM | show profile Ok this has nothing to do with macy's post but - joyeux - I would SO read your story about raising bats. :) That frickin' cracked me up ... little eyedroppers and toothbrushers ..... .... hoo-wee .... *wipes little tears from eyes from laughing so hard* |
| seeattleme | Posted – 2/5/2008 1:14:28 PM | show profile I don't think there is anything wrong with what you wrote, joyeaux. You identified your relationship TO THE READER and that's what you need to do. There are editors who will tell you to go ahead and do things that are unethical, you know (or even just unwise). Not all editors are, uh, professionally trained. Some will tell women at magazines to have their friends write letters, or make up anecdotes and pose as readers. If the editor says it's okay, it isn't necessarily. But writesonwater, what are you talking about? The poster specifically says she wants to write a profile about her boyfriend and his interesting hobby...where in that sentence do you see that she's NOT writing about her boyfriend? (Fiance, technically): "My boyfriend (fiance, technically) has a very interesting hobby that I think would make him a great profile for a specific magazine." Pitch the guy and ask the editor to give it to another writer, or acknowlege that he;s your fiance in the piece. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 2/5/2008 1:16:06 PM | show profile sorry, that was joyeaux who said the poster wasn't writing about her boyfriend, not WOW. |
