Robert McGuire, currently publisher and editor of Nation1099.com, and owner of McGuire Editorial & Consulting, once worked as a reporter at weekly newspaper publisher, Community Newspapers, Inc. One thing that’s stuck with McGuire from his tenure at the paper, was the authority of the staff’s junior-level fact checker.

“She could pull the brake on the train in ways nobody else could,” McGuire recalled. “Even the desk editors were afraid of her. They had worked on and approved stories that now someone less senior had the power to shove right back at them and say, ‘We can’t print this.’” Ouch.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

So what does a fact checker, or researcher, do exactly? They check facts, sure. But what’s that really mean? Like, what facts? What are we talking here, Reese Witherspoon’s government name or how many times 50 Cent got shot? Gigi Hadid’s diet? Or the stats and statements candidates make during a presidential debate? The short answer: all the above. Fact checkers verify it all, even the seemingly obvious.

Fact checkers help a source of news or information maintain credibility and integrity, says Jake Tully, editor in chief and de facto fact checker of a popular trade website. “They ensure that writing isn’t just good, but that it is also factual.”

To that end, McGuire tells his team not to take anything for granted. “If the source says [his] name is Bob, ask how it’s spelled”—a lesson McGuire learned the hard way, as an obituary writer. “The first time it’s your fault that a misspelling of the deceased or of their bereaved shows up in print, you learn how important it is to check everything,” he added.

The Devil’s in the Details

In fact (pun intended), sometimes the lighter stuff is tougher to verify than hard news. “Because all of the material can seem less significant, the story lies in the small details,” says Sharmila Venkatasubban, BuzzFeed copy editor . “And in pieces that involve celebrities, the most minute details can be really important.” In pop-culture writing, misidentifying the type of shampoo a celebrity uses or the car she drives is big, as those particulars could be the result of contractual brand obligations.

Fact checkers verify all the facts and claims in a story are accurate and represented fairly, says Venkatasubban, who splits her time between copy editing and fact checking. This involves reading through a reporter’s notes, audio, and transcripts. Checking court records, video footage, research documents, any materials that the reporter used (or didn’t) in researching and reporting on a piece is imperative.

“Fact-checkers also look for holes in stories. They research sources to make sure they don’t have their own conflicts of interest and what they’re providing can be relied upon. And they read very closely on a sentence level to make sure the research and reporting [haven’t] been framed in a way that makes for good copy but doesn’t represent what exactly the reporter found. This involves what is often described as reporting in reverse,” adds Venkatasubban.

Learn what facts to check and where to check them by enrolling in our upcoming Fact Checking course. Sign up to be notified when the course launches and get our early-bird discount.

Attribution is Everything
Publications rely on fact checkers to help them maintain their credibility. Of course, writers and reporters bear responsibility too. If they write it, they better be able to attribute it. Submitting notes accumulated while writing a piece, a list of credible sources (sorry, Wikipedia doesn’t count), and source contact information may be required. But not every publication uses fact checkers.

“Many magazines, particularly those that publish longer reporting, employ fact checkers,” says Venkatasubban. “News desks that publish breaking news and shorter stories—that are responding quickly to the news cycle often don’t.” This may explain why many newspapers don’t use fact checkers, though some have a research department that may assist with investigative pieces with longer turnaround times.

“For many industry-specific sites, specifically those that are not entertainment-related, I think the reporters themselves are policing their own articles,” offers Tully. “Certainly, the larger news sources have a department or team dedicated solely to fact checking, but I suspect that many other writers are doubling up on their duties. I don’t predominantly consider myself a fact checker, per se; it’s more of an inherited duty.”
Politically Correct
But mags aren’t the only game in town for fact checkers. There’s plenty work for those committed to verifying the veracity of political claims at outfits such as Politifact, a Tampa Bay Times offshoot. The process at Politifact is a bit different, but the mission is the same: truth telling.
A typical day for a fact checker at Politifact begins with reviewing the news and checking out a list of factual claims, usually gathered by interns who comb transcripts of TV interviews, explains Bill Adair, Politifact’s founder and former editor. Reporters reach out to the person who made the statement, or that person’s press secretary, and request background to verify any claims made.

This evidence is usually government data or a report from a think tank, explains Adair, also a Knight professor of the practice of journalism and public policy at Duke University and director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, the school’s journalism program. Next, the fact checkers find their own sources—independent experts whenever possible—and start their check.

The process is similar at Verbatim, the fact-checking arm of nonprofit, nonpartisan collaborative political encyclopedia, Ballotpedia. First, freelance researcher Kent Klein gets assigned a claim made by an elected official or other public figure. He researches the claim and then assembles an outline in which he answers a series of questions posed by editors, including whether the claim can be proven or disproven and who’d be interested in the outcome.

Truth Seeking
Klein is quick to point out that fact checkers—at least at Verbatim and other such projects—aren’t on a witch hunt. They’re not conspiring to take someone down. “Contrary to what some may believe, reputable fact checkers do not have a partisan agenda, but are simply interested in finding the truth.”

As is any fact checker worth his or her salt. Because the fact of the matter is (yep, another pun intended) good journalism can’t exist without stone-cold facts.

For more in-depth lessons on fact checking, and an exclusive discount for being first in line, click here to be notified when our Fact Checking course launches.

These days you’d be hard pressed to find a job in media that doesn’t list “analytics” as a required skill. You may be applying for a copywriting gig, a job as a social content producer or even a reporting role, yet your creativity and ability to communicate a message are no longer enough.

You probably won’t be asked to develop complex models and forecasts in these roles, but at the very least you’ll be expected to analyze the performance of your work across major channels.

Considering the important role that social media plays in driving traffic and engaging your audience, being able to analyze your social performance is enough to confidently show that you know “analytics.”

While the term sounds very official and math-y, there’s no need to be intimidated. If you know how to read numbers, ask the right questions—and make a plan of action based on the answers to those questions—you can learn to analyze social media data.

However, before you can create actionable social analytics reports you need to recognize and understand the difference between metrics and analytics. Here, we’re breaking it down so you can turn your social metrics into insights that will help you focus your efforts and improve your social marketing success.

What are social metrics?

Metrics can be thought of as The What—What did this social post do for the business? How many people saw it or engaged with it?

There are a number of social analytics tools that can provide you with metrics. Each social platform has its own built-in analytics tool. The terminology used and metrics provided differs from channel to channel, but for the most part they can all fall into one of three categories:

1. Reach (impressions, # of people who saw your post, # of times your brand was mentioned, # of followers)
2. Engagement (likes, shares/retweets, comments/replies, clicks, video plays)
3. Conversions (downloads, sign ups, sales, new followers)

Social Reporting Tools

Not all of these metrics are native to the various social platforms. However, there are third-party tools like the web analytics system you use on your website, or tools that consolidate reporting from various channels. Regardless of where you get your metrics, it’s important to understand that these numbers are just that, numbers. They are simply data points.

They are useful for letting you know what is happening and what is changing over a period of time. These numbers and trends are fairly easy to access and it’s also quite simple to put them into a clean report with a bunch of official looking graphs.

The built-in tools on the most popular platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, provide these reports out-of-the-box, which you can easily export. While these built-in tools are given names like “Insights” or “Analytics” they aren’t actually analytics reports or insightful at all. They are just social metrics reports. And the problem is that there isn’t much value in tracking or reporting on these numbers if you’re not going to analyze them or act on them.

What is analytics?

If metrics are The What, analytics is the So What? Knowing if a number is high or low, or if it went up or down since the last time you reported on it is not enough. You need to be able to answer: why? So what if more people clicked on your content than last month? So what if you got fewer likes on your tweets? Why did this happen?

The true value in collecting social media metrics is knowing what you can do with the numbers. It’s less about pulling the numbers together and more about making sense of those numbers and how you’ll use them to make more decisions. This is social media analytics.

How to analyze social media data

The first and most essential step to measuring social media success is to determine the goals of your social marketing strategy. Are you trying to drive traffic to your website? Increase brand exposure? Drive sales? If you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, it doesn’t make sense to measure anything.

Once you know what you’re trying to achieve, you’ll know what metrics matter for your goals. This is important because some of the platforms, like Facebook, give you so many data points that you can waste a lot of time examining and reporting on numbers that have nothing to do with your goals.

It is a waste of time to report on metrics that don’t support your goals. The ones that do matter are called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). If you know what you’re trying achieve, you’ll know what KPIs to pay attention to. For example, if you’re trying to drive more people to your website, reporting on your follower growth is pointless. Your number of followers may not translate to website visitors, so you’ll want to consider if this number is necessary to track.

Ask the right questions

Now that you know what KPIs to pay attention to, you can start to ask the questions that will help you make sense of (and take action on) the data in your social metrics reports. Here are a few questions you might want to ask (and answer) when reviewing each report:

• Did my plan work?
• If it worked, why?
• If it didn’t work, why not?
• What should I do differently?
• What should I do more of?
• How can I do better?

The answers to these questions are not in the numbers. The numbers can help lead you to the right answers. But you’re going to have to put a bit of thought into it.

If your numbers went up from the previous period you need to try to answer why this happened. Did you do something differently this period vs. last period? Is there a common thread amongst the posts that did well vs. the ones that didn’t?

There’s no guarantee that you’ll answer correctly, but the answer will lead you to a plan of action and that’s what you really want out of social media analytics. There’s no sense in tracking metrics, or reporting on them if you’re not going to try to influence them with future actions.

For more in-depth lessons on this topic, check out this 4-part Social Media Analytics course.

You’ve been sending pitch after pitch to no avail.
While the editors you’re reaching out to may very well have overstuffed inboxes, there also could be something wrong with your pitches.
To help you make the necessary changes for future pitches, here are top reasons why editors aren’t responding to—or passing on—your pitches.

You Follow Up Too Soon

Sure, it can be tempting to check up on that pitch you sent, but it’s usually better to wait.
“I’ve worked as a freelancer too,” says Desiree Cole, digital senior editor at Star Magazine, “I remember the urge to repeatedly check for new messages until your finger hurts. But I can’t tell you how much the act of patience means to editors.”
Because an editor’s inbox is almost always overflowing with pitches and other emails, the act of sorting through it all can take time. “Most of the time, your pitch was flagged and I have every intention of writing you back before the end of the day,” says Cole.
Get inside information on what to pitch niche publications, up-to-date contacts for magazine editors and more. Join AvantGuild, our exclusive membership program for freelance writers and other media professionals.

It’s Not a Good Fit For the Readers

One of the most important things you can do as a writer is to make sure the pitch you’re sending is targeted towards the audience of the publication.
Judy Penz Sheluk, senior editor of New England Antiques Journal and editor of Home BUILDER Magazine Canada, says she’ll pass on a pitch if, “[i]t’s not a good fit for our reader, demographic and/or if the person clearly has never read a single issue and is just sending out mass emails to anyone and everyone.”
Sheluk says one quick way to assess the publication’s audience is by taking a look at their ads. “If all the ads are for anti-aging cream, don’t pitch an article on how to get rid of teenage acne,” says Sheluk.
So before pitching to any publication, you should really do your homework as far as the type of content it creates, how the content works in the different sections and how the publication speaks to its audience.

Your Pitch is Too Casual…

While we seem to be moving towards a more relaxed way of communicating in some areas of business, a pitch is not the place to leave out formalities.
“This isn’t a text message or email to your friends,” Sheluk says. “It’s a business communication and should be treated as such.”
Sheluk recalls a couple times too-casual pitches made it straight to her no pile. “I’ve received pitches addressed as ‘Hey there’ without using my name—if you are going to take the time to pitch an article, you should know who the editor is and you should spell their name correctly—and I’ve had them addressed as ‘Hey Jude’—only my mother gets away with Jude.”

…Or Too Rambling…

So you’ve made a dent on the industry with your articles and think you need to mention that in your opening graf. Cole’s advice? Get to the punch line.
“I definitely don’t need a two-paragraph introduction about your experience in the industry before your money-maker line,” says Cole. “By the time I get to your pitch, my eyes have already glazed over.”
So rather than run the risk of losing the editor’s attention, Cole has a better idea: “Put your idea in the first sentence or two, then maybe a line or so about yourself can’t hurt, but don’t go crazy.”

…Or Too Vague

Another reason pitches get passed is when the story idea is just too general, and lacks that all-important angle.
“Media outlets are hungry for content that’s not already out there,” says Cole. “That being said, don’t pitch too broad of an idea—like new haircuts—nor ideas that feel cheesy—like how to do this like a pro. Find an angle that you think hasn’t been reported much and explain why it would benefit the readers right now.”

You Made One—or a Few—Typos

Think about it, how well did you proof your last pitch? Did you give it a full proofread, or a quick once-over? While spelling errors happen to the best of us, you should try your absolute best to keep them out of your pitch.
“Spelling and/or grammatical errors in the pitch guarantee a rejection, “says Sheluk, “if you can’t get the query right, what will the article look like?”

Interviews can be nerve-racking—especially when the recruiter or hiring manager tosses you curve balls that can throw you off your game. Tough questions can seem unfair, but they’re your potential future boss’s way of getting a taste of your work ethic, career goals and personality.
Take our quiz to find out if you know how to answer the tricky questions you can bet will be asked during your next interview.

We’ve written before about what it takes to become a full-time blogger. But if you’re looking to get some of the benefits of writing blog posts—without committing to it full time—by being a guest blogger on established sites.
Why would you want to write for someone else—and most likely for free? Guest blogging has undeniable benefits to writers and non-writers alike. Here are ways guest blogging can amp up your career—and your job search.

You’ll Become an Authority

Write a lot about a given topic—whether it’s your passion for crochet or your take on a given issue in your industry—helps establish you as an expert on it.
If you want to write more about the subject or get editors to think of you when making assignments on it, you’ll have a proven track record of published work on the matter.

You’ll Get Exposure

That old expression—it’s not what you know, it’s who you know—has never been truer.
Guest blogging exposes your work to readers who may have never seen it before—and gives you more chances to know more people. And you’ll be more likely to come to mind when someone in your newly expanded network is looking to fill a job.

You’ll Add to Your Portfolio

Getting clips can be a challenge when you’re first starting out, or when you’ve been working a while in a non-writing role.
A guest blog post is a valuable clip to add to your portfolio, and a great addition to your work for future editors or employers to discover when they do a Google search on you.

You’ll Drive Traffic to Your Site or Social Channels

OK, here’s a dirty little not-so-secret secret about guest blogging: Most guest bloggers don’t do the usually unpaid work for charity. They do it for the traffic their post will drive back to their site, thanks to backlinks to their website.
If you don’t have your own site—or you’re between jobs and don’t have an employer with a site—don’t worry. You can often have your writer bio link back to your Twitter or LinkedIn profile.

You’ll Get an Edge at Work

Here’s another guest blogging secret: Although your boss and other higher-ups at work probably know they should be doing guest blogging too for all the reasons mentioned above, if they hate to write, they’re probably dreading the prospect of having to start.
If you have guest blog posts that have already been published and offer to work with your boss to help her craft some of her own under her own byline, she’ll love you for it. And voila: You’ve just made yourself be even more indispensable as your company’s very own guest blog post ghostwriter.

You’ll Get an Edge in Your Job Search

Authority, exposure, online portfolio, an added skill that hiring managers love—all of the points we’ve discussed above will not only help you slay it at your current job, but they’re also factors that will help you land your next one.

Ready to Get Started?

There are plenty of opportunities for guest bloggers around the web; a simple Google search for your topic and “guest blog” is a completely valid stepping off point.
And if you can speak with authority about working in media, marketing or public relations, there’s a chance you can guest blog for Mediabistro.