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Topic: Writing about boyfriends/girlfriends
| Author | Message |
| joyeuxnoelle | Posted – 2/5/2008 5:48:44 PM | show profile | email poster GraniteGirl, As you see in my example I acknowledged that she should divulge that the topic includes her boyfriend. What I meant by saying it's not "about" him is that it's not a profile/promotion of her boyfriend, it's more about his hobby, he just happens to be in it. |
| joyeuxnoelle | Posted – 2/5/2008 6:16:36 PM | show profile Thank you, HisGirl Friday The little bats who exercise on hamster wheels and run through mouse mazes thank you too. |
| granitegirl | Posted – 2/5/2008 7:00:12 PM | show profile she says "that would make HIM a great subject of a profile for a specific magazine." As an editor, I would read that to mean he is the subject of the profile, not the hobby. he is the subject of the profile, the story. The hobby is probably just related somehow to the magazine. And it's her fiance, not her boyfriend. |
| granitegirl | Posted – 2/5/2008 11:33:45 PM | show profile Years and years back, I believe, there was a Philadelphia magazine writer a while back who wrote about some Greek tycoon she was practically engaged to. My friend who interned there told me about it. When the competition got wind of it, they made it a big stink. It looked bad, it smelled bad. She kept insisting that they weren't dating until AFTER the story ran, though he kept asking her out. The editor was phoned, who brushed it off and made light of it. Then the editor gets fired for running a story that was supposed to be a hoax but that no one got or something like that--resulting in a "dart" from the Columbia Journalism Review. The reporter and the tycoon broke it off, I believe. I don't think she was fired but I don't think she's ever worked anywhere else. Lesson: Don't write about someone you know personally or are involved with. Lesson: Your editor may brush it off--and that may mean he/she isn't the most ethical journalist on the planet. |
| rococo | Posted – 2/9/2008 3:47:24 AM | show profile RE: Finding someone else to do the story on This definitely seems like the best option. If you can't find anyone else with such a hobby, maybe you should question why exactly you're doing the story -- who are you appealing to with this? will anyone else care? what news values are you hitting--is it just a novelty piece? Or are you just too enamored with your lovely, quirky boyfriend? :p I still stick by the old J-School mantra-- Never, NEVER write about people you know. (although the granddaughter-grandfather local news story did seem rather cute--but i doubt it would be touched my one the larger news organizations, unless as a "your turn" piece in newsweek.) |
