This page provides resources to help you:
• …identify freelance reporting opportunities
• …understand contracts & money
• …develop and follow up on pitches (with examples)
• …discover internships
• …get to know recruiters
• …optimize your LinkedIn profile
• …launch your own website and optimize your SEO
• …be smart and professional about your social media presence
• …find freelance and other work
• …professionalize your resume

You can also check out the Chicago Headline Club’s own JobFile for openings and internships in:
NEWSPAPER
TELEVISION
RADIO
ONLINE
OTHER (PR, INTERNSHIPS, ETC)

Many thanks to Taylor G. Moore, who was recently honored as a finalist in the 2019 Peter Lisagor Awards, for sharing this comprehensive list:

Freelance Reporting Resources

Study Hall: Community of 3,500+ freelance journalists; membership comes with access to listserv, Slack, weekly newsletters with media news and pitch calls
- Publications That Have Cut Freelance Budgets During COVID
Freelance Solidarity Project: A division of the National Writers Union aimed at pushing for better working conditions for freelancers
IWW Freelance Journalist Union: Associated with Industrial Workers of the World, this union advocates for better labor standards for freelance journalists, bloggers, and writers
Opportunities of the Week Newsletter: Weekly email from writer Sonia Weiser with curated pitch calls, $3 per month on Patreon
Writers of Color Twitter: Jobs and pitch calls geared toward writers of color (if someone is asking for POC voices and you’re white…think twice about emailing)
Journalists of Color: Slack channel for journalists of color
GLAAD Media Reference Guide: How you should and shouldn’t be covering LGBTQ+ people and issues, including HIV/AIDS and conversion therapy
Diversity Style Guide: How to cover 700+ topics with both accuracy and sensitivity
Why Should I Tell You? A Guide to Less Extractive Reporting: Advice on how to cover vulnerable communities, and why they don’t owe you their stories
Global Investigative Journalism Network: Resources on the reporting process and reporting on different beats
Investigative Reporters and Editors resource center: Includes 5,000 guides and presentations — seems you have to be an IRE member to access
Bellingcat’s Online Investigation Toolkit: Huge list of online tools for reporting
Media news: Mediagazer, Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, Columbia Journalism Review
Blogs & Newsletters: Tatiana Walk-Morris’s The Freelance Beat blog, Jenny G. Zhang’s Annotations newsletter, Ines Bellina’s Cranky Guide to Writing newsletter
Podcasts: The Writers Co-op, Longform, The View from Somewhere, On the Media
Books: The View from Somewhere by Lewis Raven Wallace, Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum, Street Journalist by Lisa Loving
Writing and journalism courses: Catapult, Sackett Street Writers, CRIT, StoryStudio Chicago, Poynter

Contracts & Money

Who Pays Writers?: Anonymous crowdfunded database with info on paying outlets
Contently rates database: Database, plus a freelance rate calculator generated from that data
Three clauses freelancers should know (and negotiate), according to lawyers (CJR)
- Adding to this, you can also negotiate for a kill fee (what you’ll be paid if the story doesn’t publish, for whatever reason) or for a higher kill fee. 50% is considered industry standard, but if you want to shoot for 100%, go for it.
The Author’s Guild and National Writers Union offer contract advice and handle contract disputes for their members
The Freelance Isn’t Free law mandates payment within 30 days of work completion, among other freelancer protections, for people living in New York state, even if the publication is not based in New York
Should Freelancers Form a Company to Save at Tax Time? (VICE)
Estimated taxes: How and when to pay them to the IRS (Bankrate)
Brass Taxes: Freelance-friendly tax preparers based in NYC. Have never used them, but I’ve seen them recommended. The earlier you see an accountant during tax season, the better!

Pitching

Pitching advice from writers:
- Ann Friedman on how and where to pitch (Medium post)
- Deena Shanker on how to be a freelance reporter (Google doc)
- Ella Cerón on how to make your pitches more amenable to editors (Tumblr post)
- Jamie Lauren Keiles on how to write pitches that editors accept and reporting skills for anxious people (hour-long webinars on Vimeo, $5 to watch, worth it)
- Sam Dylan Finch on common pitch mistakes that writers make (Twitter thread)
- Nieman Lab’s Annotation Tuesday series, which interviews writers about their stories
The Open Notebook Pitch Database: Crowdsourced database of science pitches that have worked
Freedom with Writing: Newsletter that goes out a few times a week with open calls for pitches and lit journal submissions (also tells you if an opportunity is $$$ or not)
Dream of Travel Writing: Dream of travel writing?
72 Places to Find Solutions Story Ideas
Pitch guides from publications: Artsy, Atlas Obscura (and Gastro Obscura), Belt magazine, Bitch magazine, The Baffler, BuzzFeed Reader, Chicago Reader, Civil Eats, DAME magazine, Eater, The Forge (Medium), Grist, Hyperallergic, JSTOR Daily, Literary Hub, Mother Jones, Narratively (Lily Dancyger’s advice), The Nation, Next City, NPR, NPR Goats and Soda, NYT Styles, Politico magazine, Polygon, Scientific American, Slate, Southwest Magazine, Thrillist, Truthout, The Verge, VICE Life
- RIP to Deadspin and The Outline, both of whom had examples of pitches that worked. Pacific Standard also offered a clear sense of what stories they wanted and didn’t want.

Sources

Help a Reporter Out: Request expert sources via newsletter sent multiple times a day; must have an outlet lined up to post

Some universities offer portals of all faculty and experts by specialty (e.g., University of Illinois at Chicago)
Science: Diverse Sources (science, health and environment), Request a Woman in STEM, SciLine (request scientist sources)
Women: Women’s Media Center SheSource, Women in Tech Policy
POC: People of Color Also Know Stuff, AAPI experts (AAJA)
People with Disabilities: National Center on Disability and Journalism (list of disability organizations), Disabled Writers
Expertise Finder (academia and think tanks)
Expertfile (database of more than 25,000 experts)
Global Experts (database of academics, analysts, former officials, faith leaders, civil society activists, private sector/business and media experts around the world)
NPR Source of the Week

Jobs

Tools

Muckrack, Contently, Journo Portfolio: Portfolio sites that can archive your work automatically or by uploading links; no design skills required
Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Google Sites, Weebly: Customize your own portfolio site
WordPress, Tumblr, Medium: Make your own blog
Evernote, OneNote, Scrivener: Organize your drafts, manuscripts, and notes
Asana, Trello: Project management tools that some people like to use for keeping record of story ideas, pitches, etc.
Wave: Free software for invoicing, expense tracking, and accounting. I don’t use this, but others really like it
Freshbooks invoice templates: Free downloadable documents in Word, Excel, PDF, Google Doc, and Google Sheets formats
PrintFriendly chrome extension: Save your stories as PDFs or images so that your clips don’t disappear if a site shuts down
Study Hall transcriptionist database: Journalists who will transcribe your audio accurately for fair pay (looking at you, Rev)
Otter: AI transcription service that lets you transcribe up to 600 minutes of audio per month for free
Temi: AI transcription service, more accurate than Otter in my experience, costs $0.25 per minute
oTranscribe: Secure, offline platform that lets you play back audio and type your own transcript in one window
Feedly: Aggregates news by topic so you don’t have to get your news from Twitter, spiritual successor to Google Reader
Pocket: Save articles for future reading (also allows you to bypass some paywalls…)
DocHub: Fill out and sign forms (e.g., contracts, W-9s) without dealing with a scanner or Adobe Acrobat
Pomodoro: Timer that makes you work in 25-minute increments
Ommwrites: Minimalist word processing software that blocks distractions (minimum price is ~$6)
Signal: Encrypted messaging app
Protonmail: Encrypted email service
Best VPN for journalists (VPN Guru)
LastPass: Password manager, can generate long complicated passwords
Recorders I have: Sony digital recorder (built-in USB drive, 57 hours of battery life, audio playback options), telephone pick-up microphone (plug headphone jack into recorder mic input, put earpiece in your ear, records both sides of the phone conversation)

How I Work

I track every pitch I send, every story that’s published, and every invoice that’s sent. Here’s a Google Sheets template of what this looks like. Feel free to copy and make your own.
I also save every published story as a bookmark in Chrome, save as a PDF with the PrintFriendly chrome extension, and save the link to the document mentioned above
Taxes (I’m not an accountant!!!!)
- I pay quarterly estimated taxes to the IRS every quarter. What I do is save 25% of every freelance check and put it into a separate savings account. By each quarter deadline, I empty the account by transferring the funds to the IRS. I track what amount I send to the IRS each quarter and report the year’s income each time I file federal and state taxes.
- I write off news subscriptions, professional memberships, books and materials I have to buy as part of reporting, web hosting and domain costs, office supplies, and internet expenses
  - Note on internet: I only count working hours. Since I work from home full time, that’s 40 hours a week. To calculate my deduction, I multiply the month’s internet cost by [160 approximate working hours in a month / 720 total approximate hours in a month]) then deduct that amount from my taxes. I did this for 2019 tax year and *knock on wood* did not get audited. P.S. You do not need to take the federal itemized deduction to write these off your taxes. You can take the standard deduction and write off freelance/small business expenses.
Like other freelancers in Study Hall, I tweeted about the rates I was paid and how much I made freelancing in 2019. My offer is still open: if you are a freelancer (especially if you’re a woman, POC, and/or LGTBQ+), please contact me at taylorgm27@gmail.com or on Twitter if you want to know what I was paid for a story or my experience with a publication.

My Pitches That Have Worked

ZORA MAGAZINE – AUTHOR PROFILE

https://zora.medium.com/crazy-rich-asians-will-not-liberate-us-25b947f3deb8

[I introduced myself because I had not worked with this editor before.]

Hi [EDITOR],

My name is Taylor Moore, and I’m an Asian-American journalist based in Chicago. I’ve written for Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Chicago Review of Books, and other outlets. I saw your call for 2020 pitches and wanted to throw my hat in the ring.

For Zora, I’d love to feature Cathy Park Hong, who is coming out with Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning on 2/25. In this essay collection, the New Republic poetry editor dissects her Korean-American upbringing, the “vague purgatorial” place that Asian-Americans occupy in U.S. cultural consciousness, and how our experiences become flattened in service of politically driven model minority narratives.

I think that this would interest Zora readers because it reflects a moment (one of many to come, I predict) of Asian-American radicalization. There is deep economic and social stratification amongst the many communities and cultures that make up the group, and the gatekeepers of publishing and film are finally starting to see the value of our disaggregated narratives. Not only that, but I also think there is an emerging realization that our continued existence is tied up with advocating for (and with) other communities of color, rather than the American dream of assimilation into whiteness.

In terms of format, I could write this in longform, similar to this interview with Carmen Maria Machado, or as a Q&A. Let me know what you think would work best.

Here are some examples of other work I’ve done: [XYZ]

Thanks! I look forward to hearing back.

Taylor Moore

—

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY – FEATURE

Risk Is in the Air

[I already knew this editor and this was part of an existing email chain, so my pitch is less formal. This is also for a local publication, so I did not explain what these neighborhoods are like and what these organizations do.]

I’m interested in writing about how COVID-19 is exacerbating existing issues of air pollution on the South Side. Pollution breaks down your immune system, making you more susceptible to the virus, and existing breathing issues make it even more deadly. There’s also the fact that neighborhoods like Little Village, McKinley Park, and Deering are low-income communities where work-from-home jobs are scarce.

I’d like to interview environmental justice organizers from Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Southeast Environmental Task Force, and Neighbors for Environmental Justice (McKinley Park) to see how they’re engaging with coronavirus-related education, mutual aid, and activism, as well as talk to a physician about the effects of COVID-19 on an immuno-compromised community.

Additional Job and Career Resources

Professionalize your resume
(Credit: NextGroup Careers)

Craft a compelling summary statement for the top of your resume:
• Your objective statement (what you’re looking for in a job) is different from your summary statement (what you’re offering a company)

• Use a summary statement to encapsulate years of experience OR as a way to tie together disparate experiences with a set of key, transferable skills

• Remember the 7-Second rule: Recruiters spend 7.4 seconds per resume for an initial screening; grab their attention with 4-6 bullet points in your summary statement

Resume Tips

1. Summary statements include 3 basic building blocks:

• Core Strengths

• Skill Sets most relevant to the role

• Past Relevant Experience (with key functions) & Notable Accomplishments (that you intend to repeat in the next role)

2. Be specific about your skills & competencies

3. Include concrete evidence of accomplishments

4. Incorporate keywords from the job listing in your summary statement

5. Design an easy-to-digest format

6. Create impactful bullet points, beginning with a strong action verb (tied to skills) + what you did = results

7. Don’t try to say everything in just one statement. Your summary statement should not be a laundry list of skills

8. Avoid using soft or generic skills

9. Stay in the 3rd person

10. Don’t throw around jargon for jargon’s sake. LinkedIn listed the 10 most overused buzzwords to avoid:

•specialize
•experienced
•skilled
•leadership
•passionate
•expert
•motivated
•creative
•strategic
•focused

11. Always stay focused on your strengths and assets

Freelance Reporting Resources

Contracts & Money

Pitching

Sources

Jobs

Tools

How I Work

My Pitches That Have Worked

Additional Job and Career Resources

How to find internships

Get to know a recruiter

Professionalize your LinkedIn

Launch your own website and optimize your SEO

Be smart (and professional) about your social media presence

Where to find freelance work

Job pages

Professionalize your resume(Credit: NextGroup Careers)

Professionalize your resume
(Credit: NextGroup Careers)