Music Journalism: Why We Write

My friend Sandra became obsessed with a rising starlet by the name of La Roux last year. She made a cute little fan page on Tumblr in which she aggregated every interview, review, what have you on La Roux and updated it daily. Every picture of La Roux, each single as it was released, and even contests for the fans – it was a very solid, thorough and professional effort. An email soon showed up in her inbox from La Roux’s manager, offering Sandra the position of “official social networker.”

Of course, she readily accepted the offer and her website was given official endorsement. She was also charged with making and maintaining an official Twitter account for the singer. A box full of stickers, posters and even an autographed CD and too-large T-shirt soon arrived at her door. Sandra even got to hang out with her backstage after she played a concert in Seattle – an event she described as “feeling very uncute next to her and really awkward as I didn’t have anything to say beyond ‘I liked your show.” Sandra still updates the social networking sites frequently, but she’s never gotten paid for it and is under the obligation to devote a lot of time.

This seems to be the common first step in making moves towards being a music journalist – cutting your teeth anyway you can to get exposed and validated for your efforts.
 Music journalism is a popular and therefore tough business to get into. More and more people are vying for a job that is shrinking in opportunities. Writers who want to break into the world of music journalism and journalism at large need to compete against thousands of other people who are in the same position they are. “If you want to write about music, you should be deconstructing music in-depth, trying to describe sound in as many ways as you can, and really thinking about what attracts you to different sounds,” says Casey Jarman, the music editor of the Willamette Week via email. “Crafting your own style and writing in long-form is the best way to get used to the stuff you'd be doing at a full-time writing gig.”

His point is clear – you’ve got to make yourself stand out. Everybody with a blog (and everybody has one these days) might just be parroting others or simply rewriting press releases, and so finding your niche is incredibly important if you want to make the jump from freelance to steady paycheck. “You can't throw a Pitchfork without hitting literate writers who can wax ecstatically about !!!, Mastodon and Lupe Fiasco, but finding somebody who can write a worthwhile review of these ‘un-hipster’ genres can often fill a niche at a magazine or Internet content provider,” says one Metafilter.com user.

While kind of disappointing, they have a point. Music journalism has an incredible amount of due-paying, and burgeoning writers should expect to write a lot about music they don’t like and go to shows of bands they hate. This can pay off well if they can differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack and deliver on bands and events that would otherwise had gone unnoticed by those writers who would want only to write about their current favorite stuff that they know people already like. A lot of great events and worthwhile bands slip through the cracks just because nobody wants to write about them. Eventually, however, you are going to be handed the kind of assignments you want, but will most likely still have to deal with the others.

You definitely need to prove yourself to an editor that you’re the kind of person they need on staff, and a good way to do that is by having a lot of skills other than writing that your editor needs. People skills become evident when dealing with bands for interviews, and being in the position to attain said interviews in the first place. You need to have PR people on your side. Going further on the point of people skills, as a writer knowing how to communicate with others is essential. Casey Jarman continued, “You need to be able to communicate with people to do a job like this, and it's best to learn how to express yourself. The job is a lot of fun, but the criticism is absolutely brutal, and if you can't learn to deal with it constructively and talk to your critics, you're going to go completely insane.”

Having people on your side is the most important part of a music journalist’s job. You need to either get the press kits from the band’s PR personnel or go out and get it yourself by contacting bands through various social networking means – bands are really just people so they do have and use email, Facebook and Twitter and can be contacted through those means with a simple plea for an interview. There are exceptions to this, as my friend Sandra is in charge of La Roux’s stuff, which in some cases might be just as worthwhile because then you get to talk with an equally energetic fan who would be glad to help you out. Being able to build friendly relationships with bands and the people who work for them is good – everybody loves good press and bands are just as eager to get written about as you are to write about them. If you have an interesting interview with a band posted on your blog, the band could remember you and be willing to work with you in the future. Or they could even want to hang out with you!

Deadlines have to be met – new writers often only need to miss one and then the editor gives their byline to the next anxious writer waiting in the wings. Word limits are always imposed, and those can be anywhere from a sixty word blurb or Tweet to a 750+ word concert review. Figure out how to do your own HTML on your blog, and you can offer that up. Blogs have been mentioned before, and is highly recommended that you start one. In the event that it becomes super popular, traffic numbers can be used to show that people like what you’re writing, and every editor wants to see that in their publication.

A common passion runs throughout this field of journalism. Everybody who is in it needs to want to do it because they love writing about music, not to get rich. With the advent of music-centered blogs such as Pitchfork and Stereogum, interest in the field has skyrocketed. Why would publications, print or otherwise, pay a person with a college degree and extensive work experience when there are about a thousand kids willing to do it for free just to get their foot in the door? Jarman noted that the median income for his line of work was around $45,000 a year, and that’s only if you’re working steadily. “If you work for some conglomerate you might make $35,000, but at independently run papers it's a lot lower than that,” he quipped. “My girlfriend makes more money working at a pizzeria then I make. I do get benefits, though, which is nice. And I don't have to make pizzas.”

A journalism degree definitely does help, but isn’t essential. Neither Jarman nor the music editor of the Portland Mercury, Ezra Caeraff, have them, Caeraff having attained his experience writing for countless zines, various online sites and print publications on every regional scale such as Fader, ESPN.com, the Onion’s AV club, and the Stranger, to name several. Jarman’s experience is a rarity in that he’s written almost exclusively for Willamette Week.

Music journalism comes down to a problem that writers face their entire lives from colleagues and family alike: why not just get a real job? Certainly the money to be had in it is dwindling, and Jarman thinks that the opportunities to even break in like he did won’t exist in five to ten years, but that shouldn’t discourage anyone from trying. “My mom is only somewhat proud of me,” jokes Caeraff. Music journalism will change just like music will, and while it might seem unrecognizable to somebody who was in the business fifty or even fifteen years ago, the writers who really want it and who have what it takes can get themselves to the top and make a solid go of it.

Sandra got more concert tickets when La Roux’s most recent tour came through Portland, and seeing the look on her face as she danced on stage made the career make sense. It might be a lot of hard work, and it could be a long time before you’re recognized and get a steady paycheck, but that’s not the point. You do it because it’s fun. Also, you hold a pen a lot better than a guitar.