There are many different online publishers for the freelance writer. Many, but not all, accept news content. Some ask the writer to stay within a specific category, others hand out specific assignments, and some allow the writer a free hand to craft whatever content they wish.
Online freelance writers generally write for more than one publisher. If not, then it's likely that they've at least tried a number of others and settled on the one or ones, they like best. That means that any group of online writers represents a wealth of first hand experience about many different sites which accept and pay for content submitted by freelancers.
For what it's worth, then, here is my experience with and analysis of Examiner.com as an publisher.
I've been writing with Examiner for over two years. Examiner.com assigns each writer a specific category or topic in addition to a region. The writer can select the topic from a lengthy list on the Examiner application form, or even suggest a new topic. When I applied, I asked to write about Forests and submitted a sample article about listening to woodland bird songs. My region was the nearest listed city to my home, Manchester, New Hampshire. Examiner accepted my application, but asked me instead to write about bird watching within the recreation category.
I was initially attracted to Examiner by the page view bonus rate which, at the time, was about $9.50 per 1000 page views. (Currently, it's tracking about $6.65 per 1000 page views for me, but it varies depending upon a number of factors). Of course, higher page view rates only matter if their are enough page views to matter. Examiner has also announced a pay rate change beginning in May. The new rate will be tiered based upon quality of the articles, amount of promotion done by the author, and a handful of other criteria designed says Examiner to reward higher quality writers with higher payments. We'll see how that goes... I am cautiously optimistic.
One of the good things about Examiner, for me, is that it allows slide shows and videos to be directly appended to articles. If I am talking about a particular birdwatching location, I can include up to 20 photos of that location to add depth to the reader experience., for example. Bird watching, in particular lends itself to pictures and video.
As with Associated Content, it took a little while for my articles to start getting significant page views. Examiner does not currently track page views by article, so it is difficult to say how popular any particular article may be. New articles can be judged by the relative increase in daily page views when it is published, but it is difficult to judge the quality of specific evergreen articles.
I found that after a brief learning curve, I began getting decent page views. I'm sure much of it is built on the performance of my library of articles and photos. How much do I earn there? That's the bottom line question that everyone asks. Here's the answer:
For calendar year 2011, I am averaging $17.47 for every article that I have submitted this year in my local bird-watching topic. I also regularly receive free bird-related books for review from several publishers, and last year, I was invited by the Jamaica Tourist Board to spend a week bird-watching in Jamaica and staying at several eco-lodges on the island in order to allow me to write about the many bird-watching opportunities of Jamaica. That included free air travel, food, in country travel, and all expenses. I've also been contacted by local bird watching event organizers who have invited me to attend birding cruises and other outings in my official capacity to report on the events. While these extras don't put money in my pocket, they definitely merit entries on the plus side of the ledger when I tally the benefits of writing for Examiner. Theses extras also help provide me with a rich assortment of contacts and experiences to write about, making the job easier.
The fact that Examiner writers focus solely on a specific topic makes the writers more visible to event organizers and groups involved in that topic than sites that allow writers to be generalists, writing about a variety of topics, in my experience.
I have added two more categories to my Examiner account. I asked to write about Oceans at the national level and they invented the National Maritime Headlines Examiner title for me. national titles at Examiner focus more on news and are exposed to the national audience rather than a regional audience. Both appear on search engines with seemingly equal rankings, though. national titles seem to have a higher upside potential. I can hit more than 10,000-20,000 page views in a day with a good national topic, whereas local topics generally do not pull those kinds of quick numbers unless they happen to be of national interest on a popular news topic. However, the local articles detailing local birding venues, species profiles, and the like, have longer shelf-lives and will pull viewers over a much longer period of time than flash in the pan national news articles. The result is that for my Maritime Headlines Examiner position, I am averaging $10.71 for each article published in calendar 2011.
I also have a Manchester Green Living Examiner title that is relatively new and has little content thus far. For that title, I am only earning a non-viable $1.45 per article this year as an overall average (with only three articles submitted, year to date). That does not compare at all favorably to my Environmental Issues News beat at the Yahoo! Contributor Network which offers $15 guaranteed per article upfront, plus $1.15 per 1000 page views published at Yahoo! News. If it is a newsworthy topic, or fits within the Y!CN beat guidelines for allowable environmental issues evergreen content, I publish it there, instead of Examiner. If, however, I were to visit a wind farm and take a few dozen good photos, I might be more inclined to publish at Examiner, because of the, in my opinion, superior rich media options. I remain confident, however, that as I increase my library and following for this Examiner title, my earnings per article will grow.
Overall, page views at Examiner were lower than at Y!CN or Y! before the Google algorithm change. I haven't noticed a significant drop-off at Examiner since the change, but we all know what's happened to Y!CN and Y! page view numbers (although this differs for each individual).
Examiner requires writers to publish one new article each month in order to keep their accounts fully active and to continue earning page view royalties on existing content. Examiner also pays a generous bounty for referring new writers through a referral link. Here's my referral link if anyone is interested in signing up and giving it a try; Apply to write at Examiner.com.
Showing posts with label health news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health news. Show all posts
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Establishing credibility part II: Commentary
Even commentary pieces must be built on a firm foundation of unassailable facts. To convince a reader that your opinion has merit, you must have a higher amount of stored credibility because you are risking drawing down on it with every subjective or opinionated statement you make. Your credibility is taxed in direct proportion to the degree of outlandishness that each such statement contains.
For example, each of the following statements puts more of a strain on the author's credibility because of the increasing deviation from mainstream opinion. 1) We should subject anyone coming into the United States from a country of special concern to a more thorough search when boarding an airplane. 2) We should apply a more thorough search to anyone who fits the physical and behavioral profile of previously identified members of a terrorist group. 3) We should subject anyone of Arabian descent to an extended search. 4) We should deny U.S. entry to all foreigners. 5) We should nuke 'em all.
Each of those statements requires the writer to make a much stronger case built on a foundation of facts strong enough to support the authors' opinion, until you get to a statement like the fifth one that is entirely unsupportable and transforms the commentary article into a rant regardless of how much credibility the author has banked with the rest of the article. Carl Sagan may have said it best when he said "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." That applies not only to scientific endeavors, but also to news commentary.
Readers understand that news commentary contains subjective statements based on the author's opinion. Good commentary leads a reader down a logical path. At first, the path should seem like familiar territory to the reader. They should feel as if they are walking on a firm grounding of familiar facts. The author can place plausible opinions in among the facts, like a will-o-wisp drawing the unwary reader deeper and deeper into the writer's forest of logic. The best commentary will take a reader to an unfamiliar destination, sympathizing with the commentary writer's opinion, without them ever realizing they left their old familiar path.
For example, each of the following statements puts more of a strain on the author's credibility because of the increasing deviation from mainstream opinion. 1) We should subject anyone coming into the United States from a country of special concern to a more thorough search when boarding an airplane. 2) We should apply a more thorough search to anyone who fits the physical and behavioral profile of previously identified members of a terrorist group. 3) We should subject anyone of Arabian descent to an extended search. 4) We should deny U.S. entry to all foreigners. 5) We should nuke 'em all.
Each of those statements requires the writer to make a much stronger case built on a foundation of facts strong enough to support the authors' opinion, until you get to a statement like the fifth one that is entirely unsupportable and transforms the commentary article into a rant regardless of how much credibility the author has banked with the rest of the article. Carl Sagan may have said it best when he said "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." That applies not only to scientific endeavors, but also to news commentary.
Readers understand that news commentary contains subjective statements based on the author's opinion. Good commentary leads a reader down a logical path. At first, the path should seem like familiar territory to the reader. They should feel as if they are walking on a firm grounding of familiar facts. The author can place plausible opinions in among the facts, like a will-o-wisp drawing the unwary reader deeper and deeper into the writer's forest of logic. The best commentary will take a reader to an unfamiliar destination, sympathizing with the commentary writer's opinion, without them ever realizing they left their old familiar path.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Finding news topics and sources
There are many ways to find original sources for news stories. often, these sources will also provide breaking news tips that let you get information at the same time as it becomes available to newspaper and television news reporters.
If you have a particular news niche in which you write regularly, think about the organizations that generate news in that area. For example, if you like to write about the latest medical breakthroughs, epidemics, food poisoning outbreaks, and other health news, there are a variety of very authoritative original sources available to you as a reporter.
You can start with the Centers for Disease Control's Press Room page. This page provides in-depth and authoritative information on current outbreaks of things like salmonella, bird flu, measles, and other public health concerns. You can find symptoms, statistics, prevention, and loads of other relevant information. Perhaps, just as important for some publishers is the availability of high quality, public domain images for use by journalists. These images fall into the category of an online press kit and include pictures not only specific to individual news stories, but images suitable for general medical news use. Don't forget that each one must be properly credited. The image below is an example of a CDC microbiologist inoculating an embryonic chicken egg against the bird flu.
Another useful source for medical news stories is the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). By registering for media access, you can get a weekly email summary of available news releases, including many that are embargoed to the general public. Here you'll find the latest medical studies, research, and other breaking medical news. Whereas you might use CDC for background information or general statistics, the JAMA releases might be the focus of your news article.
For example, on this page there's a summary and link to a full article which might lend itself to this title: "Study lists controlling behaviors linked to domestic violence." That's hard news which is of interest to a large segment of the population and which has some evergreen potential depending upon your specific angle and title. This story could be written up in a variety of ways to match the preferences of your intended publisher. If you have first hand experience with domestic violence, can call and interview a staff member at a local women's shelter, or add a brief list of domestic violence resources in your area, the story can be very effectively personalized and/or localized. It can even be written as a non-news article with an angle like "Controlling behaviors linked to spousal abuse, what to watch for." (That's not a great title, but I wanted to communicate the angle for the purposes of this example.)
By adding statistics on domestic violence from the CDC and other sources, you can strengthen your story and make it more than a simple recap of the JAMA release. Furthermore, because this story was embargoed when first made available, you have time to get all that background information in order, write and proofread your article and still be among the very first to get the story online as soon as the embargo is lifted.
Embargoed means that the organization is releasing information only to authorized journalists so that they can write their story in advance and be ready to publish the instant the embargo is lifted. Be careful to always follow the terms of the embargo and do not submit your story for publication before the time and date stated in the embargo. These kinds of restricted access sources can put the online news writer on an equal footing with any news agency in the world in terms of being first to print.
Government agencies with many different areas of interest make information available to the public and reporters regularly. The Department of Health and Human Services covers a wide range of health issues. A partial list of the web sites on which they make information available is found here. Most government agencies will also allow members of the media to subscribe for email alerts for timely press releases. Often you can sign up very selectively by region or specific topic, depending upon the agency involved. Many have public domain photos available for journalistic use, too. Just be sure to check and follow the terms of use outlined at each site.
More general information sources like PR Newswire or Newswise have sections dedicated to medical topics and registered journalists can received daily email updates of breaking news from those sources as well. It is up to you as a working journalist to separate PR hype from objective news and to treat each accordingly. That's not to say you can't report on Best Pharmaceutical's high expectations for a new drug undergoing preliminary clinical trials, but examine in-depth their claims and make clear the source of the information. If possible, call up a third party expert and get an objective and knowledgeable opinion on the specific claims.
Other sources might be the press pages of major research hospitals and medical schools. These are primary sources which often include contact information for the actual researcher who wrote and conducted the study who may be available for a telephone interview or to answer a few emailed questions. When you can get original quotes directly from a source, you are further separating your article from the pack and adding a higher layer of quality.
A reporter may or may not be an expert in the field about which they write. It certainly helps. For example, a doctor writing about breaking medical news can use their own expertise to dissect claims, talk about risks, and provide other detailed analysis. On the other hand, a good journalist investigates the topics about which they write. They report facts and rely on qualified third party opinions to verify those facts or provide explanations, implications, and other pertinent expert analysis. In cases where the reporter is not an expert in the field, they rely on some other source to make sure they fully understand what they are writing about.
In general, if you don't understand a press release and can't find someone to explain it fully, you shouldn't write about it. Some publishers require the writer to be an expert in certain fields before allowing them to publish on specific topics. Medical news is often one such category. To be a Yahoo! Contributor Network (Y!CN) Featured Contributor, for example, writers are expected to either be a qualified health professional or have some other quantifiable expertise on the topic and must undergo an exacting approval process before excepted in that category.
If you start using these types of sources for your online news articles, and especially if you use several of them for each story to provide richer background detail and demonstrate a thorough understanding of the issue at hand, you'll be among the top tier of news writers. Try it and then compare your articles to those of traditional, respected news outlets. You'll find yourself noticing the deficiencies in many standard news articles which are little more than restatements of publicly available press releases. You'll also start to notice when the reporter didn't understand the nature of the topic. The difference between and association and causation in medical studies, for example, is often misreported by mainstream reporters and can be another angle for your news comparison article.
By using multiple primary sources, online news writers can write with a level of quality that is competitive with, and in some cases, better than any other breaking news publication.
If you have a particular news niche in which you write regularly, think about the organizations that generate news in that area. For example, if you like to write about the latest medical breakthroughs, epidemics, food poisoning outbreaks, and other health news, there are a variety of very authoritative original sources available to you as a reporter.
You can start with the Centers for Disease Control's Press Room page. This page provides in-depth and authoritative information on current outbreaks of things like salmonella, bird flu, measles, and other public health concerns. You can find symptoms, statistics, prevention, and loads of other relevant information. Perhaps, just as important for some publishers is the availability of high quality, public domain images for use by journalists. These images fall into the category of an online press kit and include pictures not only specific to individual news stories, but images suitable for general medical news use. Don't forget that each one must be properly credited. The image below is an example of a CDC microbiologist inoculating an embryonic chicken egg against the bird flu.
Another useful source for medical news stories is the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). By registering for media access, you can get a weekly email summary of available news releases, including many that are embargoed to the general public. Here you'll find the latest medical studies, research, and other breaking medical news. Whereas you might use CDC for background information or general statistics, the JAMA releases might be the focus of your news article.
For example, on this page there's a summary and link to a full article which might lend itself to this title: "Study lists controlling behaviors linked to domestic violence." That's hard news which is of interest to a large segment of the population and which has some evergreen potential depending upon your specific angle and title. This story could be written up in a variety of ways to match the preferences of your intended publisher. If you have first hand experience with domestic violence, can call and interview a staff member at a local women's shelter, or add a brief list of domestic violence resources in your area, the story can be very effectively personalized and/or localized. It can even be written as a non-news article with an angle like "Controlling behaviors linked to spousal abuse, what to watch for." (That's not a great title, but I wanted to communicate the angle for the purposes of this example.)
By adding statistics on domestic violence from the CDC and other sources, you can strengthen your story and make it more than a simple recap of the JAMA release. Furthermore, because this story was embargoed when first made available, you have time to get all that background information in order, write and proofread your article and still be among the very first to get the story online as soon as the embargo is lifted.
Embargoed means that the organization is releasing information only to authorized journalists so that they can write their story in advance and be ready to publish the instant the embargo is lifted. Be careful to always follow the terms of the embargo and do not submit your story for publication before the time and date stated in the embargo. These kinds of restricted access sources can put the online news writer on an equal footing with any news agency in the world in terms of being first to print.
Government agencies with many different areas of interest make information available to the public and reporters regularly. The Department of Health and Human Services covers a wide range of health issues. A partial list of the web sites on which they make information available is found here. Most government agencies will also allow members of the media to subscribe for email alerts for timely press releases. Often you can sign up very selectively by region or specific topic, depending upon the agency involved. Many have public domain photos available for journalistic use, too. Just be sure to check and follow the terms of use outlined at each site.
More general information sources like PR Newswire or Newswise have sections dedicated to medical topics and registered journalists can received daily email updates of breaking news from those sources as well. It is up to you as a working journalist to separate PR hype from objective news and to treat each accordingly. That's not to say you can't report on Best Pharmaceutical's high expectations for a new drug undergoing preliminary clinical trials, but examine in-depth their claims and make clear the source of the information. If possible, call up a third party expert and get an objective and knowledgeable opinion on the specific claims.
Other sources might be the press pages of major research hospitals and medical schools. These are primary sources which often include contact information for the actual researcher who wrote and conducted the study who may be available for a telephone interview or to answer a few emailed questions. When you can get original quotes directly from a source, you are further separating your article from the pack and adding a higher layer of quality.
A reporter may or may not be an expert in the field about which they write. It certainly helps. For example, a doctor writing about breaking medical news can use their own expertise to dissect claims, talk about risks, and provide other detailed analysis. On the other hand, a good journalist investigates the topics about which they write. They report facts and rely on qualified third party opinions to verify those facts or provide explanations, implications, and other pertinent expert analysis. In cases where the reporter is not an expert in the field, they rely on some other source to make sure they fully understand what they are writing about.
In general, if you don't understand a press release and can't find someone to explain it fully, you shouldn't write about it. Some publishers require the writer to be an expert in certain fields before allowing them to publish on specific topics. Medical news is often one such category. To be a Yahoo! Contributor Network (Y!CN) Featured Contributor, for example, writers are expected to either be a qualified health professional or have some other quantifiable expertise on the topic and must undergo an exacting approval process before excepted in that category.
If you start using these types of sources for your online news articles, and especially if you use several of them for each story to provide richer background detail and demonstrate a thorough understanding of the issue at hand, you'll be among the top tier of news writers. Try it and then compare your articles to those of traditional, respected news outlets. You'll find yourself noticing the deficiencies in many standard news articles which are little more than restatements of publicly available press releases. You'll also start to notice when the reporter didn't understand the nature of the topic. The difference between and association and causation in medical studies, for example, is often misreported by mainstream reporters and can be another angle for your news comparison article.
By using multiple primary sources, online news writers can write with a level of quality that is competitive with, and in some cases, better than any other breaking news publication.
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