Types of Journalism

Journalism is no longer restricted to the ‘breaking news’ varieties. Get an in-depth look on different types of journalism that form a part of our daily life through various media.

Each journalistic form and style uses different techniques and writes for different purposes and audiences and helps to explain the events that impact our lives and is developed in a number of forms and styles.

What is journalism?

Journalism is a form of writing in which a journalist researches and brings information to readers. The main purpose of a journalist is to report news with accurate facts. However, throughout the years, there have been different types of journalism developed that have given different dimensions to the field of mass media.

Types of journalism

Investigative. Investigative journalism aims to uncover the truth about a particular subject, person, or event. While investigative journalism is based on the basic principle underlying all journalism-verification and accurate presentation of facts-investigative reporters must often work with uncooperative or recalcitrant sources who do not wish to divulge information.

News. News journalism is straightforward. Facts are relayed without flourishes or interpretation. News stories lack the depth of the questioning approach of an investigative story. Rather, they relay facts, events and information to society in a straightforward, accurate and unbiased manner.

Reviews. Reviews are partly opinion and partly fact based. The review needs to accomplish two things: one, accurately describe or identify the subject being reviewed, and two, provide an intelligent and informed opinion of the subject, based on research and experience.

Columns. Columns are based primarily on the personality of the author, allowing him or her to write about subjects in a personal style. Column writers can take a humorous approach, or specialise in a particular subject area or topic.

Feature Writing. Feature writing provides scope, depth, and interpretation of trends, events, topics or people. Features aim not only to thoroughly explore a topic by conducting interviews with numerous experts or the key people involved, but to offer a previously unseen perspective on an event, issue, or person.

These types of journalism are not limited to print journalists. The internet has provided a medium for people to voice their opinions online. News written for the web is updated minute-by-minute which is referred to as online journalism, but usually takes the form of one of the above topics.

The great thing about certain types of journalism is that they don’t require you to have a degree in journalism to be considered a credentialed journalist. As a writer or reporter without formal education in journalism and mass communications, you can be considered a citizen journalist.

Tax Information for Freelance Writers

To all independent freelance writers, tax time may strike fear, or certainly dread, in their hearts.

Last year was the first year I filed as a self-employed 1099 employee as a freelance writer. Here are some tips and strategies for thinking about your taxes.

When you have a job with a W-2, you have a steady income, your taxes are taken out, and you know when that income is coming in. When you’re a freelancer, whether you’re an artist, a designer, or a writer, you may know when a project is going to actually happen but then again you may not and you may hope you know when you’re going to be paid but that’s often not sure either these days.

As a freelancer, you’re responsible for running a business, your business. As a self-employed person, you’re not only responsible for paying your own income taxes but you’re responsible for paying your own self-employment taxes. On top of that, you have to keep all the records for your business including your freelance income and your freelance expenses. Many freelancers encounter a cash flow issue when your bills come in before the payments for your work.

The IRS is undeniably suspicious of self-employed persons. The IRS routinely audits freelancers, often looking for unreported income or overstated deductions. The IRS seems to be particularly on the lookout for individuals who (1) have high wages, and a correspondingly high business loss, or (2) have business losses year after year, or (3) self-employed persons whose income seems low in comparison to similar professionals. If you are in one of these situations, you need to start thinking about how to protect yourself in case the IRS audits your tax return.

The first step to getting organized is to separate your freelance income from other types of income. Keep a record of all your business-related income. Your clients may send you a Form 1099-MISC in January or February to report total payments for the previous year. Form 1099-MISC is used to report income you received. The IRS also gets a copy of any 1099s. Your total business income on Schedule C Line 1 should be greater than or equal to the total amount of income reported on your 1099-MISC forms. If you report less income on your Schedule C than reported on your 1099s, you will get a computer-generated audit notice from the IRS asking you to explain the discrepancy.

The most relevant categories of expenses for freelance writers include:

• Advertising – this includes business cards and web-marketing
• Insurance – for life, property & casualty, or business insurance. Do not include health insurance under this category.
• Other interest – credit card or loan interest, such as interest paid on your computer loan.
• Legal and professional services – such as fees your accountant will charge
• Office expense – anything other than routine supplies.
• Rent or lease other business property – rent paid on a writer’s studio, for example
• Repairs and maintenance – repairing your computer, for example
• Supplies – routine office supplies like paper, toner, pens, pencils, notepads, etc.
• Travel – the cost of traveling to a convention, meeting, or business trip
• Meals and entertainment – the cost of business meals, but be careful not to go overboard here as this is a common target in an IRS audit.
• Utilities –electricity, gas
• Other expenses – such as Dues & Subscriptions, Web development, and Business telephone expenses.

Keep track of computer equipment, software, furniture and other fixed assets in a separate expense category. When it comes time to work on depreciation expenses, you’ll need to know when a particular piece of equipment was purchased as well as its cost and the type of equipment that was purchased.

Estimated tax payments. Be sure to keep track of estimated tax payments to federal and state governments.

Taking a deduction for a home office is one of the best things about being self-employed. You get to convert a portion of your personal expenses into a tax-deductible business expense. Do be aware that the home office deduction has limitations: you cannot deduct more than your net business profit. Home office expenses include rent, mortgage interest, property tax, renters or homeowners insurance, utilities, and repairs. Homeowners can also depreciate a portion of the cost of their house. But be aware, that any depreciation taken on the house will produce taxable gains when the house is sold through depreciation recapture.

The best advice there is, is to get an accountant and work closely with a tax specialist. If you have any questions, you can ask them and they will help you get on the right track.

 

How to Promote Your Online Content

It’s one thing to write your articles on the web, but it’s a whole new thing learning how to promote your content where it will attract readers. There are endless ways to promote yourself on the web without selling out, so we’re going to take a look at the easiest ways to get traffic to your blog, website or article.

Your Social Media

If you have Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, StumbleUpon, and other social networking sites, use them as a way to promote your articles. Use keywords, hashtags and professionalism to build your credit. Create a Facebook page for writing, and invite your readers to join you so they can stay updated on your activity. Digg is a great link sharing social network, You can ‘thumbs up’ articles, and the more popular the links the higher they will be on digg.

You can use a sharing platform that many article websites, such as Examiner.com already have. You register, get the code for your website and use Addthis to share the page on the social networking sites that you already use.

Use Links and Backlinks

Links are already important for an article or any kind of online content, but linking to your other stuff helps guide readers from one topic on to another related topic. Using back links helps to promote your articles because it creates more of your content online, easy to find.

Blog

If you are a blogger, share extracts of your articles in your blog. That way, they will be indexed twice and potential readers will be able to find you more easily. Also allow visitors to subscribe to your blog with a service like Feedburner: Every time you update your blog with new content, subscribers will receive a notice.

Finally, if you use WordPress, install Old Post Promoter. This plugin chooses old posts randomly and repost them as new content, pushing them to the first page of your blog.

Ask for help in spreading the word.

If you have written an important article, one that you think will be quite popular, don’t be afraid to ask some of your peers to share it with their followers. For example, send an email or direct message to people that you know well enough to ask a for a favor, asking them to share your article on their social networks and also promote on StumbleUpon or similar services that they use. Make it easy by including the exact text you want the person to share, including a shortned link to the article. Be sure to offer to promote one of their articles in return.

Motivational Monday: Writing Prompts

I have never been a huge fan of writing prompts. Every time I think of the term “writing prompt” automatically standardized testing comes to mind. Thank you, public education!

Seriously though, writing prompts strengthen and refine our talents, as well as help us develop as a writer. For someone who doesn’t do much with a poetry, a poetry prompt may help a writer create a piece of work worth pride. Writing prompts force us to get out of our comfort zone and just like with improvisation in theatrics, don’t allow yourself to say “no”. Just go with flow, and if you give yourself 15 minutes with a writing prompt, you may find yourself at the end after 45 minutes.

Start a writing prompt by telling a story of this little girl.

Keep your writing prompts in a special folder or notebook. Don’t ever get rid of them, no matter how bad you think the piece is. When you suffer from writer’s block, refer back to a writing prompt that could use more work or elaboration, and fix it up. Keep the original so you can see the differences.

There are hundreds of great writing prompt websites and books. Build your bookmarks folder and library with some of these writing prompt sites and books:

• The Daily Writer: 366 Motivations to Cultivate a Productive and Meaningful Life of Writing, by Fred White. This book has every kind of writing prompt imaginable. This book is both a great idea and intimidating. Don’t let that stop you, intimidating is what makes things fun.
• 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts: Thought-provoking Springboards for Creativity, Expository and Journal Writing, by Jacqueline Sweeney. The book has so many suggestions that you”ll be certain to find what you are looking for, no matter what age you are.
• Creative Writing Prompts.com – This site has close to 350 writing prompts for you to choose from.
• Writing Prompts on Tumblr – Luke Neff comes up with some great writing ideas, and helps get you started with a picture attached to his prompts.
• Writingfix – This site has numerous prompts for journal writing.

Make it a goal to write at least one writing prompt a week for the next month. Expand your journal, and at the end of the month decide if you think it is worth it to continue, write more, or stop. All writers are different. Don’t feel like a terrible writer if you don’t get inspiration from writing prompts.

Basics of Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, commonly abbreviated as SEO, is an Internet marketing strategy that utilizes key words to obtain higher placement by the natural (aka unpaid) in search engine search results.

SEO helps improve the visibility of a website or webpage when filled with keywords that searchers looking for your kind of information or content would use. Businesses, organizations, content writers and blog/site owners use search engine optimization to help promote themselves. For freelance writers who accumulate income by revenue share, SEO is extremely important. Revenue share is a type of income that is earned typically by viewers clicking on ads by partners on a website. For example, Google Adwords can be placed on a Blogger website and the owner can gain income from their viewers clicking on relevant ads.

Without Search Engine Optimization, search engine bots can’t “crawl” a site – because they don’t know what they are looking for. There are billions of webpages, and in order for a site to be found, it must be filled with valuable, relevant and qualitative keywords that will bring viewers searching for the information to that particular webpage. Keywords are index terms that include significant words that pertain to a certain subject that are emphasized as a code to find or attain certain information. The best way to obtain this is to stay on topic. If a website is titled niftyknittycrafts.com and is about knitted and crocheted crafts, the site should stay relevant to that information and content, rather than including things about outdoor activities.

If you were going to search your information in a search engine, think about the words you would use. Write them down and use them as often as possible in your content without keyword stuffing – an unethical SEO technique that uses a load of keywords, often annoyingly, to gain a higher position on a search engine webpage. If there are too many keywords on a webpage, a search engine bot is likely to deem the content as spam and skip it when collecting sites related to keywords.

There are helpful websites that create keywords for specific topics. You can enter one word related to relevent content and these tools will create other keywords that may (or may not) be relevant to your content, but you can choose the keywords that do relate to your content. Google Adwords Keyword Tool is one of the most used and most accurate when generating relevant words.

What is Crowdsourcing?

You might have heard the term “crowdsourcing” when it comes to creating online content. Although it may be a new idea to you, the term and idea itself is actually older than you might think.

What is crowdsourcing? 

In business, definitions and terms vary, but the basic idea is to tap into the collective intelligence of the public at large to complete business-related tasks that a company would normally either perform itself or outsource to a third-party provider. So, when you are creating content that is newsworthy, you might reference, or source, several (coining the term ‘crowd’) different news stations and blogs to get facts and opinions on the subject.

Why is crowdsourcing important?

Crowdsourcing is important because the internet has a vast world of knowledge, inspiration and opinion. The more you bring more to the table, the more qualitative and quantitative your audience will be. Crowdsourcing is like collecting. You have it all in one place and no one needs to go anywhere else. Crowdsourcing can improve productivity and creativity while minimizing labor and research expenses. For me to do a story about a man in Miami, Florida, I no longer have to buy a plane ticket, hotel room, meals and my own video camera to report on it. I can use other’s information (without plagiarizing) to power my story.

Why is crowdsourcing beneficial?

The internet is a collection of linked material all over the world. I love it when I see my content linked in another article. That’s crowdsourcing, and when someone clicks on my link in that person’s article, I get page views on my article as well. It’s like sharing.

Crowdsourcing has been standard at Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms from the get-go. Now, libraries and historians have started tapping into user-generated content to help fill history “books,” which these days are more likely to be online portals.

 

 

Work at Home Scams: What You Need to Know

Everyone wants to be able to work at home and effortlessly make six figures a year. But have you ever heard that term “too good to be true?” Most online jobs that claim you can make six figures a year are. Here’s a way to know whether a job is a legitimate way to make money or a complete scam.

There are several warning signs to work at home scams:

• A job is a scam if you have to pay to start making money with them. A job is where YOU make money, you shouldn’t have to pay to buy your “get started kit” or to join a membership, especially if they’re offering the kit or membership at almost a 99% discount.
• Requirements of money for instructions or products before telling you how the plan works.
• If you receive an email from someone who says they are “hard of hearing” or don’t like to talk on the phone, they are a scam. Do not reply to these emails.
• After you respond to a job posting via email, you are asked to fill out a form on another page in order to prove that you are not spamming them. That site is typically a pitch for a work at home scheme, a site selling something, or a site trying to collect your personal information to sell or to use. There isn’t a job.
• There are several varieties of mystery shopper (secret shopper) scams. Red flags including charging shoppers for certification, charging a fee to access mystery shopping jobs, charging a fee to guarantee a job as a mystery shopper, and selling directories of companies that provide mystery shoppers. There are also scams where you’re told you’re hired as a mystery shopper to check on customer service at bank. You’re asked to cash a check and/or wire funds to a third party. The check bounces and you’re out the money.
• Believe it or not, you can be contacted through post mail for a job. These can include you sending the same letter you received to 12 different people, asking for them to send you five dollars and the cycle goes on and on and you keep getting a ton of ones and fives until you’re making a ton of money through the mail. This is a pyramid scheme, and not only is it a scam, it’s illegal. The only people who benefit from chain letters are the mysterious few at the top of the chain who constantly change names, addresses, and post office boxes. They may attempt to intimidate you by threatening bad luck, or try to impress you by describing themselves as successful professionals who know all about non-existent sections of alleged legal codes.
• Job sites try to police the listings, but, it’s hard to catch all the bad listings in a timely manner. Be careful when reviewing postings to make sure that you’re not taken advantage of by unscrupulous job posters.

Here are a few tips and reminders about working from home:

• You won’t “get rich quick”. You also won’t make $3,000 a day just by working a few hours a week. There is a reason it’s called a JOB. You have to work.
• Hang on to your money. Legitimate employers will not take money from you.
• Check references or ask about other employees.
• If it sounds too good to be true, think twice. It probably, more than likely, is.

Work at Home Jobs to Avoid:

• Ad Placement
• Putting things together or doing crafts
• Data Entry (unless you have a medical and coding degree)
• Multi-level Marketing (or MLM)
• Processing Claims
• Online Business
• Stuffing Envelopes

What to Do if You Are a Victim of a Work at Home Scam

• Ask your employer for a refund, if you paid money.
• If they refuse, threaten to take legal action.
• Keep careful records of everything you do to recover your money. Document your phone calls, keep copies of all paperwork such as letters and receipts, and record all costs involved, including the time you spend. If the company refuses to refund your investment, contact:

Your local Better Business Bureau;

Your local or state consumer affairs agency;

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service;

Your state’s attorney general’s office or the office in the state where the company;

The advertising manager of the publication that ran the ad you answered.

You can also take a look at what the Federal Trade Commission offers consumers for Work at Home jobs.

Tips on Writing Reviews

I think reviews are one of the hardest things to write. You have to stay fair and balanced ( and not the Fox News kind).

How to write an effective review post:

• Have an opinion and share it. People like to see what others really think about a movie or book before spending money on them.
• Be balanced and include pros and cons and need-to-knows. This is great information for a baby product like a swing or pack and play. Does it fold up? Has the brand been recalled before?
• Don’t be afraid to come up with a rating system, just stick to it and make it realistic. Use another rating system as a guide.
• Compare with other reviewed items. Reviewing Nooks vs. Kindles is a good example.
• Tell who will benefit from the product.
• Use personal stories and connect with your readers. Did you once have a bad experience with buying a Ford vehicle or going to a certain dealership?
• Give details such as product stats, pricing, how to buy, etc

Use humor as much as possible and the people who think you’re nuts for loving or hating whatever you’re reviewing will think you’re a little less insane. In fact, be sarcastic, but don’t be arrogant.

A great thing on your blog would be to review books or other materials on what your niche is about. For example, tomorrow I’m going to be reviewing the Writer’s Digest’s Weekly Planner, and you’ll get to see a good format you can use for reviewing books on your subject.

Routines, Routines

For the first few months of my full-time writing career, I didn’t have a routine. And that’s partly why I went on a blogging hiatus in January. We all have a routine, whether it’s followed to a T or a few minor details change from day-to-day, we still have our own, work-like-clockwork days. That’s just part about being a human. But do you have a writing routine?

Even if you work from home, you need to have a set schedule for your writing. For me, because I work at home, I feel like I’m working 24/7. Everyone thinks that it’s the greatest thing to be able to work at home, and it is. But they don’t understand that working from doesn’t mean you shut your light off in your office and lock the door on your way out and you don’t have to come back until the next morning. Working from home is like always being at work. I’m always tempted to check my work email, do a little extra work to get caught up, and by the time the weekend is over, I’ve worked seven days in a row.

That’s why I need a routine. A routine that says, be on the computer at this time, be writing in a notebook or reading at this time, do house chores at this time, and so on. It’s all permeable, of course, but if you follow it as closely as you can and you modify it as you see fit, you’ll realize it’s not so hard. Beginning April 1st, I’ll be starting a series called “21 Days”. The gist of the series is that it takes 21 days, roughly 3 weeks, to obtain a habit. I’m going to challenge you all with this routine during this time, so start thinking about it.

C.S. Lewis, in his genius, once explained his ideal routine:

 

I would choose always to breakfast at exactly eight and to be at my desk by nine, there to read or write till one. If a cup of good tea or coffee could be brought me about eleven, so much the better. As step or two out of doors for a pint of beer would not do quite so well; for a man does not want to drink alone and if you meet a friend in the taproom the break is likely to be extended beyond its ten minutes. At one precisely lunch should be on the table; and by two at the latest I would be on the road. Not, except at rare intervals, with a friend. Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared. The return from the walk, and the arrival of tea, should be exactly coincident, and not later than a quarter past four. Tea should be taken in solitude, …for eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably. Of course not all books are suitable for mealtime reading. It would be a kind of blasphemy to read poetry at table. What one wants is a gossipy, formless book which can be opened anywhere… At five a man should be at work again, and at it till seven. Then, at the evening meal and after, comes the time for talk, or, failing that, for lighter reading; and unless you are making a night of it with your cronies there is no reason why you should ever be in bed later than eleven.

 

 

I wish I were C.S. Lewis. Or knew him. Or could at least watch him in his work. Such a routine will not work for all of us, but the point is to have a routine, and to know when your best writing and thinking hours are, and in the other hours, do things that both stimulate and stretch the brain in new and creative directions. As your routine takes flight, so will the money you are bringing in. If you write one or two revenue share articles a day, you will find that you don’t need to be writing as many upfront articles to pay you what you want to be earning. Remember, freelance writing isn’t a get-rich getaway. It takes a lot of time, and using your times wisely, with a routine, will help you reach your goals faster.

 

Don’t Edit, Yet!!

There are three stages in coming up with a writing piece, no matter what one is writing:

1. Accumulating Material
2. Shaping an Idea
3. Refining the details

The most critical stage in any writing process is the accumulation stage. That’s the stage that you want to keep writing and writing with minimal interruptions, stopping only to
exchange a word for a better one. When I was in high school, I was told to keep writing no matter what, and if I couldn’t think anything, to just write words, whatever came to mind, whether it was watermelon or what the person next to me was doing. You don’t want to end the best stage of your writing prematurely, so don’t edit unless absolutely necessary. A lot of people have this compulsion to edit right on the spot because we have this notion that our writing has to be perfect the first time. Keep these as reminders when writing:

• Get your idea across first.
• Put it in order the way you’re going to publish or submit it and then
• Worry about fine tuning.