Clients also need to show professionalism

As a freelance journalist, you should always be on the lookout for fresh work. Of course, you should never overburden yourself and enter a situation in which you cannot fulfill clients' deadlines.

But the need to maintain a number of irons in the fire is to ensure you always have work. It allows for multiple streams of income and, in an ideal situation, you are slave to no one. As I say, "I need all of them but I can afford to lose any one them".

Anyway, in my pursuit of fresh clientele, I responded to an ad for copywriters that appeared to promise quite a lucrative gig. The person asked me to provide Skype details and get in contact. This I did. The employer seemed a bit abrupt when I called but I felt that was okay because he was hiring and he was not obliged to impress anyone, least of all me.

He was busy at the time I pinged him so he asked me to call him again the next day, seven hours earlier than the time we were speaking. This was 7am my time. So I got up early, prepared previous work that I could show him and was ready to answer any question.

At the stated time, I logged on to Skype and sent him a message asking him to alert me when he was ready. He replied with an "ok". Now, I didn't know if meant "ok, I'll call when I'm ready" or "ok, I'm ready now".

So, after a few minutes, I sent another message asking if he was free now. He replied "yeah". So, I called him. He answered and I introduced myself as the hopeful from the previous night. He was quite angry and said I should give him warning before I call and that he was not available to talk.

I apologised and said I would call when he was ready. However, at this point, I realised that this was not going to work. Even if the pay was going to be good, the relationship is also important.

He told me he was ready for the interview and then blasted me for calling at an impromptu time. Serious red flag. So I decided against calling again and removed him from my Skype list. There will be other work, at least I hope so.

It is not only freelancers who must fulfill certain qualifications but employers as well. I'm blessed to have had some great employers and clients and I hope to keep it that way.

How to write: the consensus is to kill the general

In our continuing series on annoying journalism word blunders, we come to one of my favourites ... or should that be most despised. This is a primary school error that I still read or hear from written and broadcast journalists on a regular basis. Even experienced writers continue to perpetuate this irritating piece of tautology.

I'm talking about the phrase "general consensus". Amateur writers or rookie journalists can, if they ask nicely, be forgiven. However, there should be no excuse for seasoned journalists who insist on using phrase in sentences such as "the general consensus is that there will be elections next month". Grrrrr!

Stop! This is a numbing piece of redundancy because we all know that the word "consensus" itself implies that it is general. You do not need to put "general" in front of it.

I am sure that the same people who pepper us with general consensus are also responsible for the equally reprehensible "general public". As opposed to what other public?

Anyway, now you know. Let us draw a line under our past follies involving general consensus and general public and, from now on, writers and journalists all over the English-speaking world will restrict their use of the word "general" to military issues or other general matters.

News writing for developing stories

Lex  and students in the background.

A news article can only be written based on the information available. Theoretically, because there is no opinion involved, all you have to go on is the hard facts on the table.

As a story develops, new information comes to light and the article must change to reflect fresh scenarios, updated figures or changing viewpoints of the players, among other factors.

When teaching how to write a news story, sometimes I use information of a story that is at an highly developed stage. So, the other day in my Media Writing Class, I asked students to identify potential angles from a single set of notes.

They did a fine job of extracting angles, some of which were relevant to when the story was at an early stage. However, they struggled when I asked them to tell me what the difference is between two angles, one involving immediate information and the other containing updated material.

All I was looking for was an answer related to time and it was Lex (that's her email  name) who finally managed to get it right after about 15 minutes of probing.

Lex's correct answer helped her to win this week's Cadbury's Fruit & Nut chocolate bar prize. This, by the way, is the best chocolate in the world.

When facts breed opinions

News writing, ideally, involves reporting the facts as they happen, focusing on nouns and verbs and allowing the readers to form considered opinions based on the information in the article.

Of course, writers are able to influence opinion by focusing on certain facts and data while ignoring others. However, a hard news story would never include an opinion from the writer itself.

This is something I like about news articles because offering views is difficult. It is much easier to simply lay the facts on the table and let the reader wonder off into opinion-land.

However, my newest gig involves offering views and opinions on financial instruments. I have to write about certain companies and then tell the reader what I think about its prospects.

I have to admit, it wasn't easy for my first assignment. It took me a long time to write just one article because I was totally untrained on making judgments based on data. All I did before was report the facts. I was also worried that I would make a fool of myself.

However, after looking at similar articles, I realised that many other writers offer diverse and opposing views on the same piece of information. So anyone following what I say has an equal chance of being right or wrong.

In any case, it is a decent gig and I'm confident the more I do the more proficient I'll get at writing nonsense ...er, I mean eye-opening analyses that could change lives.

How to write: the enormity of an evolving language

Teaching people how to write a news story, or any other kind of article, often requires upholding a purist stance. This is especially so when it involves words that have been bastardised.

Some words have been skewed to such an extent that it is impossible to convince those who utter such heresy that they are part of a linguistic conspiracy that would drastically change the way we communicate. Dramatic? Definitely, but someone has to stand up for tradition.

The focus of our irritation today is the word "emormity". How often are we bombarded by phrases such as "he has not really appreciated the enormity of his achievement" for a person who may have won a sporting title for the umpteenth time.

However, enormity, in its original meaning, does NOT mean huge. It is not the noun for enormous, which is actually "enormousness". Enormity means the quality of being outrageous, or wickedness. A phrase such as "we don't understand the enormity of war until we experience it ourselves" would be more appropriate.

Still, as mentioned before, English is an evolving language and enormity has been so ingrained into the lingo as the noun for enormous that even dictionaries appear to have given up the fight. Indeed, I have seen some dictionaries using both definitions for the word enormity.

A big kick in the guts for the traditionalists. But we continue the protest.

News carrier still going strong in Hong Kong at 86

Newspapers and the people they employ change over time. The folks who deliver newspapers, however, sometimes remain the same. I was recently in the city I grew up in, Hong Kong, and was delighted to see that the man who used to deliver our papers was still plying the corner of Hankow Road and Peking Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.

Mr Tam (pictured), who says he is 86 years old, is of small size but always muscular. He was often seen hauling huge piles of newspapers that would have a man twice his size wobbling at the knees. He still looks as fit as a fiddle even though he leaves some of the heavy lifting to his assistants.

The English newspapers he has carried for the past 40 years, in my memory at least, have changed quite a bit. The Hong Kong Standard is now a free tabloid, having once been a paid-for broadsheet and a strong rival to the former British colony's leading daily, the South China Morning Post.

The SCMP remains a broadsheet but its news agenda has changed significantly since Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997. The news is heavily political and the design has veered towards allowing for more white space. I'm not sure if I like the new look.

As late as the 90s, there was heavy and healthy competition between the two newspapers but, from my brief reading of one edition, I think the Standard can no longer offer any real threat.

Whatever the case, there is room in Hong Kong for two English-language dailies and, hopefully, Mr Tam will be around for many more years to carry the news.

What writing fee denotes a 'Money-scavenger'?

Greetings Fellow Freelance Journalists

Surely there needs to be solidarity among us to prevent these kinds of job ads. At $1 an article, who is the scavenger?

(Seen in online ad)

Hello Freelancers!
Here is a project for all of you.
I am going to make a team of writers and I have a perfect plan in My Mind to do that.
This project is for all those who wanna join my team.
But You "MUST AGREE" to the following terms before bidding.

I need Quality writers not Money-scavengers.
You Should be able to produce 8-10 articles of 500 words daily.
You Should be able to follow the rules and regulations and be strict to them.
You have to prove your ability for joining my team.
Payments will be made via MoneyBookers, PayPal or Freelancer.com as best suits.
Payments are $1/500 words at the start and I will increase the rates according to the good quality of the articles.
No Milestone or Escrow Payments.
These Rates will continue for 2 weeks and In that Period, I will select the best of the writers from those.


If you are agree to the above terms then you are welcome to bid otherwise please don't BID here and go somewhere else.
Happy Bidding!