Speaking With A Professional

This week, my Specialized Reporting class had the chance to gather some knowledge for a professional in the Journalism world. Lauren Steele, a successful freelance journalist, spoke to use via Skype for almost 45 minutes. Ms. Steele has written for numerous magazines from Rolling Stone, Men's Fitness, Men's Journal, and numerous other magazines.

She's also had the luxury of writing travel blogs for numerous travel agencies. When we can't pay with cash, we'll pay with words, right?

The best part about her speaking to us, wasn't the things she told us, but rather how she talked to the class. She spoke to each one of us like friends, trying to be supportive and understanding of any question we might have. You could tell she wanted to help us make sure we knew what we were getting into. She laughed, she joked, and even blushed a little when trying to answer a question to the best of her ability.

It was awesome watching her get fired up and energetic when talking about her career. You could tell she really loves what she's doing, and wanted to share with us her enjoyment.

One of the best pieces of advice I took from her was related to pitching a story. It's not necessarily pitching a story that a magazine wants to tell, but telling something YOU want to share. She gave the example of for one Super Bowl, rather than focusing on what everyone knows, she wanted to share a story about the people that get it all together. Rolling Stone liked the idea, and the rest is history.

It definitely shined a light on the idea of freelance journalism. You're not working for that one specific magazine, newspaper, or medium. You are working for you. You go out and find the story. You find out the best way to cover it. You find out who to sell it to.

Just make sure you know who will take the story before you spend the time (and money) to cover it. Lauren called that a, "rookie mistake", something she learned the hard way.

All-in-all it was great listening to her give us advice, on things we haven't heard repeatedly, or can recall from memory. No offense to professors at ASU, but I generally like hearing from those who are currently, living the life to get advice on what to do (and not), for when it's our time to join the side. Many of us are just a couple months away from joining her in the working world.

While I feel like she gave us a lot of good information, it just brings up more questions. Some of those, we'll only learn when we get out there. It's an exciting time.