NewsBreak Update

If You Want to Maximize Earnings on NewsBreak, Never Write Any Type of National Story No Matter How Unique Your Take Is

Even unique takes on national news stories with the local tag “Washington, D.C.” will not earn a score above 4.

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” ~Thomas Mann.

I have been writing on Newsbreak since the beginning, and like many of you have had my ups and downs with the platform. Overall, I have appreciated the earnings opportunities which will continue through June as well as the chance to write news stories which aren’t particularly lucrative on other platforms including Medium. I was honored to have been one of the winners for their first writer’s contest and was thrilled with the monetary reward and swag they sent. In many cases, I have received excellent support when needed. In other cases, not so much.

Those writing on the platform since the inception of the Creator’s Program like I have, will have adapted to several changes to what type of content is rewarded and the monetization model for earnings. Under the current model, scores are assigned to each story. Stories receiving a score of 1–4 receive a lower base pay while those assigned a score of 5 or above earn more than twice the lower rate for base pay. The same holds for earnings from page views.

The most recent change was that creators are now tasked with writing local content. While this was something that was mentioned initially as their goal, other types of content including personal essays and even fiction was accepted, and counted toward the number of articles required to earn the minimum monthly payout under a previous monetization agreement. Now however, they want creators to produce local content exclusively.

There are always local happenings of interest going on that can be written up in unique ways, and the requirement doesn’t preclude writing about other local areas. However, sometimes stories things happen on a national scale that catches my attention and calls to mind other related events or topics that can be used to create a unique presentation of the story.

When that has happened, I have worked on the story that I had conceptualized. This usually takes longer and requires more effort because a big national story will have been covered extensively. Coming up with a twist or unique aspect of it is not easy, or writing a more comprehensive article with background or history that is not presented in the national news stories isn’t easy. I have often found that whereas a simple local article may take 45 minutes to an hour to write and publish, one of these national stories can take a half a day to a full day to complete.

However, what I have found is no matter how unique the take, how much more comprehensive the story, or how many other areas have been synthesized to produce the article, even with a “Washington, D.C.” local tag (as they are almost always about national politics), it will never receive a score over a 4.

As I am like a dog with a bone, when I see a score of 4 I am never satisfied and want to improve it enough to receive a score of at least 5. While this is easy to do with local stories, I have found no matter what you do to a national story, it will not be rated higher than 4.

I have also run into another problem each time I have attempted to edit these stories. I have had several stories I edited 3 times each, tightening the text, changing the title and subheading, adding additional pictures and a video, adding new sources and links. Each time I did so I wasted an enormous amount of time.

With each of these stories, the first edits didn’t change the content at all other than tightening it, improving the titles and subtitles as evidenced by headline and SEO analyzers, and adding an appropriate and related video, Yet, after the first edit they were all disapproved with no reason given although in two cases it was after they added the function that is supposed to provide you with a reason for rejection. In those two cases, the reason box was there but it simply repeated the article was not approved and to review the content guidelines.

I wrote emails with no reply. In one case, it was over the Memorial Day weekend so I was unable to get it approved for 4 days as when I re-edited the story it said in review status for two more days. (On a related note, the idea of there being no staff to oversee AI selection of articles on weekends and holidays for a breaking news site seems problematic to me).

This has been a bit frustrating, but that is on me I suppose, as they have clearly said they want only local news from us. However, just like sometimes I want to be able to write news stories when focusing on personal essays, or to write research related articles when focusing on opinion pieces, sometimes I want to write up a national story I feel I can provide a unique take on. I think being able to write about what triggers an idea for such an article keeps my mind fresh, my interest high and my motivation constant.

But when these stories always receive low scores, are disapproved after editing, with no support for days, and no explanation for why only these stories seem to run into this snafu that prevents them from being published while still relevant, eventually even a dog with a bone gives up. As such, from here on out I will be leaving national news alone, even when it touches on local stories. I don’t like this particular aspect of the platform, but we can’t like everything about every writing platform and they have to follow their own vision of what they want the site to become. In the case of NewBreak, for creators, they want us to be local experts and provide only local content, which may eventually translate into us only writing about the area in which we live.

My advice to other writers on NewBreak who want to maximize earnings for the month is to not waste time on national stories no matter how interesting they may be to you or how distinctive your approach to the story is. From my experience, these stories will never earn the higher rate either for base pay or for page earnings. I think, in terms of maximizing income, this is going to be particularly important once they stop providing base pay, currently slated to happen at the end of June.

Of course, the goals of each writer are different, and I’m sure there are those out there for whom maximizing earnings is not their priority. For these writers, they may be more interested in national news, and may be fine receiving lower earning as high earnings aren’t their primary goal.

However, for those writers who are concerned with maximizing income, if you choose to write some national stories, just keep in mind they aren’t going to receive the higher rates, base pay or rates for page views. This can amount to quite a bit over the month depending on how many page views the story receives. Whatever you do, don’t waste time editing them to try to raise the score from a 4 to a 5 as for a national story this is unlikely to happen.

When writing becomes a business for you, you have to figure out what makes sense in terms of time, effort, and income. There is also the matter of your interaction with staff for the platform you are writing on. If you know there are times you are unlikely to be able to access support or receive a response to emails you write asking for clarification if there’s a problem then it makes sense to stay away from stories that you may need support for should there be an issue.

That’s my two cents for today. I hope everyone has a wonderful writing day and is enjoying a fabulous spring/early summer. Keep writing, keep reading, keep commenting and communicating. Writing is a solitary endeavor and we need each other.

You can find all of my NewBreak related stories here.

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You can follow me and find links to all of my articles, essays, fiction, and poetry on Medium here. Thanks for reading!