Are You A Real Journalist?

Quantity, quality and survival. Let's pretend we write a daily column for our local newspaper.

The world of web publishing is so saturated with specialized software, goofy marketing gimmicks, pulsing sales promises, fancy fads, and brand new buzz words, that it's easy for novice and veteran publishers alike to get distracted from the all important basics.

We work from home webmasters can refocus on the heart of our projects with a few minutes of brave imagination.

Let's pretend we've been hired to write a daily column for our local newspaper.

Quantity

The first thing we discover is that the imaginary editor at our local paper expects us to have a new column ready for the paper every day by the print deadline.

She's not kidding either. Every day. On time. No excuses. Non-negotiable. Period.

There is a big blank white space in the layout of the newspaper that we must faithfully fill without fail, or the editor will stuff that space with her regrets that we are no longer writing for this publication.

What a godsend such a ruthless daily deadline editor would be to most of us writing on the web.

A year after we opened our sites we'd have 365 solid articles online. We'd have a real web site, with plenty of real readers.

What do these readers want? Useful information. Lot's of it. That's their priority. It's not complicated.

If we pretend we are writing a daily column for the no excuses cigar chomping editor at our local newspaper, it might help us keep our web publishing priorities tuned to those of our readers.

The single most productive thing many of us could do for our sites is establish a publishing schedule that we worship above all else.

Quality

The next thing we learn about our imaginary editor is that she is picky. Picky, picky, picky!

In the rush to meet the deadline we forget to spell check our article, and she takes the cigar out of her mouth just long enough to bite our head off with scowling sarcastic fury. Yeow! Everybody in the office is quietly enjoying our public embarrassment.

And she keeps asking, asking, asking for truly unique, interesting, useful articles. She wants readers calling, calling, calling her on the phone, asking where they can get more.

We can tell from the first day that it would be suicidal to try to feed her bulk produced $5 articles we bought on Elance.com, or unreliable rumors we lazily copy and pasted off of Wikipedia.com.

Our imaginary editor knows we can't be true experts on every topic we cover.

But she expects us to wish we were, and to scramble like typoholic maniacs right up until the deadline translating the educated insights of the real experts in to the simpler language our readers can understand.

As if all that wasn't enough, our chronically dissatisfied imaginary editor requires us to pen charming articles that delight our readers with their cleverness and wit. She insists we develop a unique writing style that will make us a recognizable brand with the newspaper's audience.

She hired us to write after all.

Survival

Our imaginary editor is a real pain in the butt.

She insists we act like real journalists, not somebody sitting on the couch in their pajamas fooling around with their website.

She is very demanding, but for a very good reason.

Our readers are even more demanding.

They can afford to be, they live in a world swamped by a tidal wave of content.

It's our imaginary editor's job to keep our nose shoved face first in the unforgiving fact that our readers are continually asking themselves, "What's in it for me??" at the end of nearly every paragraph.

When we sweep away all the many complicated details of publishing online, the challenge before us boils down to the one simple fact that each of us writing on the Web needs a darn good answer to that question posed by our readers.

What's in it for them?

We'd better know.

It's Not Easy, But It's Simple

Quality content. And lots of it. Editors and deadlines. Generations of publishers before us have learned the simple facts of what it takes to survive.

Perhaps web publishing is neither as new, nor as complicated and confusing, as it sometimes appears.

What kind of website would you create if you had been hired to write a daily column for your local newspaper?

Can you picture yourself at your desk in a business suit, rising to this professional challenge?

If you can't afford a real editor, you'll have to do. So practice your merciless scowls in the mirror, don't give yourself much slack, and buy some cheap cigars.

And, for crying out loud, stop fooling around on this page and get to work!

The next article for your website is due at 3pm sharp, and it had better be good, no excuses!

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