The Help Desk 2.10.05
Q: Let’s say I wanted to do an interview/profile of a local hip-hop group for a local publication. Which should I do first: contact the guys in the group to set up the interview, or pitch the story somewhere? I’m afraid if I pitch the story somewhere and they’re interested, I wouldn’t be able to track the group down in time, but if I get them on board first, I might waste their time if I can’t get the story accepted. Or do I just try them both at the same time and see what happens?
–Matt Wood, Chicago freelancer
A: This is an interesting question and I don’t know the answer myself. I tried to pitch an interview with Kanye West last year to our NPR affiliate but wasn’t sure who to get first. It turned out to be moot since NPR decided they were going to have somebody else interview him, plus I couldn’t get Kanye’s rep to call me back anyway. So I asked a few people I know who have done music writing. Their answers vary, but the main theme seems to be to try to get interested parties on both sides before there is any commitment.
“Especially if it’s local, it’s hard for me to imagine that a musician or group would refuse an interview once your pitch was accepted,” says Matt Lurie, Music Writer at Time Out Chicago. “I know this is possible but when does this actually happen? I think if you make clear in your pitch that you have a contact, they are available people and don’t appear to be hermits, but you haven’t conducted the interview as of yet, that that’s a perfectly legitimate pitch. But it always depends and I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule. If you’re some gonzo journalist or you enjoy conducting interviews for the hell of it, then do the interview first. If you’d rather be paid for your work, then I’d get the assignment first. I think as long as you COMMUNICATE with your editor ahead of time, if something falls through, everything should be fine. It’s the people that say they’ll do one thing, don’t do it, and then tell you after the fact that stuff went wrong that end up pissing people off.”
“If it’s an interview situation, always get the okay from the group before you pitch it to an editor. If you don’t get the interview, you got nothin’ to give the editor, seen? There’s plenty of places you can pitch it to, but not plenty of the subject. Always get the subject first; if one editor turns you down, you’ll still have the interview and can shop it elsewhere,” says Leonard Pierce, another Chicago writer who has profiled musicians for publications such as the High Hat.
“My advice would be to lay your cards out on the table to the editor and the group. Contact the group and say something to the effect of “I’m interested in writing a piece about you for a local magazine. Would U B down for that? I haven’t pitched to the publication yet (or alternately they haven’t gotten back to me) but I wanted to make sure you guys would be down and available before I approached them,” says Nathan Rabin of the Onion AV Club.
Chances are they’ll be totally down. Everybody loves free press and I’m guessing this group realizes you aren’t going to tear them down or do any character assassination on ‘em.”
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