#freelance reporting

[dchan87]

I had to cancel one of my freelance assignments and now I feel like an asshole because my editor just had the most devastated voice you could hear.

I feel like shit.

[rosat92]

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I am a freelance writer and Journalism student at Columbia College Chicago. All of my work is online and I utilize social media as a vehicle to engage with an audience. My work varies from local events to social issues to profile stories. I have a strong interest in covering local news, social issues, art and subcultural stories. I’ve interned briefly being a writer and editor for Young Chicago Authors’ literary magazine SayWhat in 2010. I have my work published on ChicagoTalks that mainly cover local events and issues. I also have work on my Tumblr blog under the username rosat92.

The majority of the posts cover technological advances in mobile applications, journalism jobs and brief reviews. I aspire to someday write for Rolling Stone magazine and create a strong enough brand for myself to where I can reach out and engage to a broader audience. Among from gaining more professional experience, I would like to improve my social media presence as well. While I do see young journalists using a laid-back approach to their social media pages, they have more of a following and are more active.

While overviewing my Twitter, my activity is around 4.9 tweets per day overall and my popularity according to twtrland.com is 27 retweets per 100 tweets. My follower demographic is 36% male and 64% female mainly aging from 18-24 years old. Something I would also change is maintaining a personal twitter account with a professional one. I think there should be a clear separation between the two so your brand as a journalist is clear.

An ideal professional twitter account would be Vice reporter’s Tim Pool with an average demographic of 47% male and 53% female, so that way there is broader spectrum of who you are reaching out to. His followers’ age range goes from between 18-34. His popularity online is impressively 2,296 retweets per 100 tweets with 68.8k followers. You can clearly see his brand as he focuses on social issues and politics and overall multimedia reporting. When creating a brand for myself, I don’t want to reduce my style of writing and reporting into something “trendy” or promotional, but in a way that I have an audience that is engaged and willing to view more. My essential goal while trying to establish my career as a journalist is to stay active—whether it is simply aggregating news on my Twitter and Tumblr or freelance reporting.