ESSAY

What I Learned as a Newspaper Columnist

After a year with a small-time newspaper, we went our separate ways

When I say I was a newspaper columnist, what I mean by this is that I worked for my local newspaper and they reserved space for me two days a week for my stories. I suppose you could call that a “column.” Nevertheless, it excited me to have my face appear on the Tuesday and Thursday editions of our paper.

Better yet, they pretty much let me write what I want, within reason.

As a writer, I felt I’d scaled a precipice. Reached some plateau of greatness that would open doors for me. At least, that was the goal.

The newspaper (purposely unnamed here) has been in operation for 133 years and is located in a county with less than 160,000 people. The rich history of our area peters away in a small brick building with usually not more than a half-dozen people there. I had one contact person that I worked with and which amounted to sending my stories to her via email.

The next time I heard from anyone was if there was a local incident or a local event they wanted me to cover. I had business cards printed so I could show people I really was with the paper. Otherwise, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there would be my story and my bio picture, right there on page three. My little bio picture with a headline made the cover more often than not. I wrote all kinds of stories, usually opinion and perspective pieces and well-living pieces.

How I got started

I approached the newspaper to ask them to write a story about a project I was involved in, and they did. At the time I was thrilled when the staff writer called and got all of my information about the project. She collected a few pictures from me and I patiently waited for the article to come out.

It did. And it was a hot mess. Incomplete thoughts in jumbled sentences. Misspellings. IN the NEWSPAPER. Great. I’d told everyone in my group about it and had arranged to mail out copies to members of the group and the article was an embarrassment.

I called the paper. Apparently, the staff writer was a new hire. (At $10.00 an hour, I later learned.) I complained about the article. Told them I was a writer. They asked to see my portfolio.

I sent them the link to my blog and they offered me a column.

AT NO PAY.

They let me write what I want

I was thrilled with the opportunity to get my work out there and plug my branding at the end of each article. They gave me open rein as to what I could write and we went over some topics the readers would love. I was told they’d love my poetry and this is the core of my work. I wanted the opportunity to get local people to notice my poetry and begin following me online.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

My stories began coming out once a week at first, then twice a week.

They did not take care with my work

Imagine you present a poem to the newspaper looking like this:

Green Lacewing in the Garden

The delicate smile of a green lacewing landing there, on an aster reaching towards Heaven.

A union made by chance of the breeze, nature’s own, entwined, tickled with the soft, cool dews of April.

If I could become so small as to land upon flowers! To flit about in that freedom!

If I could climb into your copper eyes, would I remember how it tickled me so?

If you could please, I’d like to visit the garden. I need to feel the whisper of your wings as we dance among the bees.

…along with a garden write-up and when it comes out in the paper you see this:

Green Lacewing in the GardenThe delicate smile of a green lacewing landing there, on an aster reaching towards Heaven.A union made by chance of the breeze, nature’s own, entwined, tickled with the soft, cool dews of April.If I could become so small as to land upon flowers! To flit about in that freedom!If I could climb into your copper eyes, would I remember how it tickled me so?If you could please, I’d like to visit the garden. I need to feel the whisper of your wings as we dance among the bees.

Um, that does not even LOOK like my poem at all. This happened repeatedly. Also, if there were any typos or editorial issues, these were never addressed. It just went straight to print, as is. I think I was expecting there to be some kind of back and forth with an editor? What I got was this:

• You email us stories and stuff
• We print and we adjust the aesthetics to fit whatever section where we have space

I felt like a fluff writer for the first time in my life — and I was doing it for free. I found the publishing process to be rushed and lackadaisical, and to be honest, I was embarrassed to have my work and my good name appear there with mistakes, and words all shoved together and printed without line or stanza breaks. It often confused the nature in which I was writing the story.

One story I did on a local author that came to speak at the local university, had paragraphs either deleted or moved around, I assume to shorten it up and make it fit. When the story came out — it didn’t make any sense. I wrote the story to cover our book club’s attendance of the event. Imagine my embarrassment when the entire book club read an article that looked like a child wrote it.

I was horrified. It was the last time I wrote for the paper.

I did not get paid…much

The stories I provided were free. No pay, no reimbursement of time or resources.

If I presented a “front page-worthy” story, I received $25.00. This usually meant a story of some kind of local interest, like a drug addict that got arrested, or some incident in a school, or a story about the local Girl Scout/Boy Scout/church events. Which meant getting out and about in the community a lot and looking for things to write about.

For 25.00.

People treat you differently

Try telling anyone in a small town that you write for the newspaper and suddenly you are treated like a celebrity.

They usher you around events in full gestures and undivided attention. They cozy up to you and hope you are their ticket to free media coverage. They offer you tours of their facility and email you repeatedly.

The workload was difficult

I first agreed to one story a week and later it was increased to two. I found it difficult to keep up with this workload given my freelance work and my online blog work, not to mention the books I am writing. The workload, if paid, would likely have been more manageable, but I found myself putting it off week after week. It didn’t take long for the excitement of my new “position” to wear off.

The “new staff person” that bungled my story for me before I started my column was fired within 4 days. I inquired about her position and was told they “weren’t hiring” any writers.

I guess when you can get the work done for free…why hire?

I have gained a new respect for media workers

Covering local events can be arduous, time-consuming, and unthankful. I have been ushered out of areas by the Police or other service workers, treated with skepticism, and had people demand to see my credentials (which were not provided to me by the paper; hence my self-purchased business cards). I was often called and asked to “go right now” to see what was going on with a wreck or something nearby.

It never failed, if the story was good and took place right across the street from me, my “advisor” would show up and cover the story herself. I felt overlooked yet “on-call” and for me, this was a needless level of stress in my life to tolerate — again, for no pay.

Story-chasing is a hustle. I began seeing news reporters and others in the media in a whole new light. I took a media class in college and learned a lot about the business of media, but this was different. Putting your own boots on the ground can teach you more than a college class sometimes.

What I took from all of this

I am a person who looks for opportunities wherever I can find them, and if I can’t find it, I make my own. I find the silver-lining of circumstances that would derail and dismantle others. I stay positive. I took this opportunity in the hopes that it would open doors for me. It did not.

What it did do was give me a better understanding of the fading role of print newspapers in small towns. They aren’t what they used to be. Often the papers did not sell out and remained in the paper boxes into the next day. People seemed to buy them when there was a juicy crime story on the front page and more often than not it was a sad story of drug addiction that led to criminal behavior and arrest. I found it hard for my inspirational, well-living stories to compete with the mugshots of the front page.

I learned more about myself and what my limits are as a writer. I also learned that for me, working for free is not my writers’ cup of tea.

Thank you for reading.

Christina M. Ward is a poet, essayist, and freelance blogger. Her work has appeared in multiple formats from print newspapers to online anthologies and journals, to her first poetry collection. She’s still working to get her first novel published.