Good books for journalists?

there are loads of style books by w y nford h i cks et al, with preposterous names like "how to write journalists' english". can't say i've ever bothered with 'em, mind.

not sure about books on interview technique ... to be honest, though, i'm not sure book-learnin' is a great way to go about this. you might be best contacting your local NUJ branch (you have joined, haven't you?) and asking them about short training courses. the website's here although it'll be so full of dreadful stories of woe and misery about the state of newspapers today that it'll probably put you off for life.

honestly, ronan, it's a fucking awful career right now and if i'd known 10 years ago how miserable it was going to become, i'd have done something very different with my life.

this looks good.

I have ordered a copy of the New Journalism by Tom Wolfe, I read parts of it in college but not all...surely I can't be the only person to have done journalism in college and spent the entire time drinking/going out, and then end up reading all the things the lecturers you respected suggested 2 years after finishing...

I know most of these things can't be learnt from a book, but at the same time I'm sure a book can't hurt...and may help.

My big problem with writing is that I burn out too quickly -- for every few weeks of writing I'm happy with, there's two months where it feels like torture finishing a single paragraph. I think getting out of town for the weekend probably helps my writing more than reading a textbook would.

For me, reading James Wood or Orwell makes me feel smarter than I am, and that works as a sort of writing-improving placebo.

I moved to Canada a couple of years ago, and there's a lot less whingy fucking miserable awfulness over here. Also the editors tend to be nicer and not oxbridge twats.

Have a new enthusiasm for it tho these days...

is there actually some investment in the products? that's what's killing us.

I'm, not being awkward, it's just that if I have to stop envying journalists, it will be quite a big change in my life.

revivalist OTM, basically. will post more later but am busy toiling on a desk that's two men down because replacing people who've either resigned or are off on long-term sick isn't possible any more. apparently.

Newspapers make money from classified and display ads, not from sales. Classified ads are going online, because it's much easier to search a site for a house than to crawl over pages of texts; display ads are going online because thats where the readers are.

The first time I read it, I felt like there was something totally hilarious about his whole triumphalist "the age of the novel is over, we journalists have won!" -- except that at this point people really do seem more enamored of the extended-thinkpiece non-fiction book, or the history-of-common-object book, or the radical-science-in-200-pages book, than the novel.

1. "Get a copy of Strunk & White (The Elements of Style) and actually read it. The chapters are short...keep it in the bathroom and make the most of your downtime."

2. "Every year the Poynter Institute publishes The Best Newspaper Writing, which not only reprints great work, but also interviews with the reporters about how they covered and wrote the stories. It's always great." The Poynter website is full of good stuff. Letters to Romenesko is an interesting behind the scenes look at what journalists think about the stories they're covering, what they think about each other, etc.

3. Other recommended books: The Elements of Journalism (Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel), The Reporter's Handbook (Steve Weinberg; good for investigative journalism), AP Stylebook of course, Writing for Magazines (Cheryl Sloan Wray), On Writing Well (William Zinsser).

i'm sorry that i don't have a book to recommend, but i do have something that might be useful to you - notes from a Michael Gandon lecture on radio interview technique. i'm going to write them down here for you - and others - to look at.

* ask "open" questions - what, why, how - not yes or no questions. harder than it sounds.

* only ask "closed" questions when you really mean to, i.e. "are you going to raise taxes?"

* actually listen to the answers. also harder than it sounds. you will be guided by the person answering and may discover new angles to pursue you hadn't thought of.

* don't ask multiple questions. i.e. "when did you hear about the accident? i mean, were you scared?"

* provide an outline to your interviewee if you feel like you want to - not a list of actual questions, but what areas you'd like to cover. warn your interviewee if there's something dicey.

* don't ask leading questions. i.e. "isn't it true that..."

* the more honest you are about what you want out of the interview, and what you're driving at, the better.

* don't rephrase the question before they've answered (or during/after), i.e. "who else did you have in mind for this album? i mean, did you have it all worked out before you went into the studio or what?"

* keep it simple.

* make eye contact. (do an in-person interview, which is always 1,000,000 times better than a phone interview, which is in turn 1,000,000 times better than a written interview, which is practically worthless.)

* check all your levels and stuff first, so you can focus.

* don't have a list of questions.

* BUT be clear about the focus - why does this interviewee have something important to say?

* don't allow someone to read their answers.

* don't over-report. for a 3-minute interview (edited), talk to them ideally for 5 minutes, or at most 10 minutes. otherwise it will be unfocused.

* go straight in - don't work around the questions or the issue.

* don't be afraid, at the END of the interview, to ask for a more succinct version of an answer.

* in a live on-air interview, let them know your parameters in advance, remind them to be to-the-point.

* don't be afraid to re-record your QUESTION if you've botched it. just tell them what you're doing.

* NEVER LEAVE until you're SURE you've recorded something. check that it's there!

* before the interview make sure you get down their info correctly and the pronunciation of their name.

* don't say "Finally," before your last question, cause what if you've got a follow-up.

* be sensitive to acoustics - try to make it a decent smallish room with carpets at least.

* try not to get interrupted. make sure your telephones are switched off.

* when you criticize or dispute an answer, try to attribute it to someone. if you say "critics say [x]" and your interviewee says "which critics?" you'd better have an answer.

there are three kinds of lunch.

#1: press conference lunch. these are shit. you sit around tables eating bad food with lots of other journalists and listening to boring speeches.

#2: the "briefing lunch": w/someone important that you want to meet. 1-on-1, or 2 (them)-on-1, or whatever. this is to establish a relationship. it is a buttering up. can also be an opportunity for them to propagandize you, but you can learn a lot. have a good memory. LULL them - you're going to get get the germ of an idea from this lunch. are they showing off? what are they after?

#3: the "get to know you" lunch: w/someone less important, who may introduce you to somebody in the #2 category.

the following applies to both of the latter lunches.

the person who INVITES, PAYS. well, their company pays. you ARE the company you work for.

PR people will invite you round and out for lunch, but it's not because they want to get to know you as a person.

lunch is hard work. before you go, you should know a) who they are b) what articles they've appeared in and what shows they've been on c) what questions you'd like to ask. the nice meal is incidental.

ALWAYS DRINK. but never get drunk. what, they're going to say "would you like a drink?" and you're going to say "no!"?? get things off on the right foot. you don't have to drink it. someone else is paying for it, anyway. but the drink establishes rapport, and they may even get tipsy and share things they might not have otherwise.

if you invite, arrive five minutes early. if they invite, arrive five minutes late.

STOCK QUESTIONS: before you say "so, outline your strategy for me" hold on! start off with a good "where's your office?" they answer and you say "oh ho! indeed" etc. sports. hobbies.

don't turn it into a forum for YOUR VIEWS. you've got your newspaper column for that.

people are often dropping hints about things that they don't quite say. you have to have a finely tuned ear for that. these hints can prompt a followup question, and/or an avenue to investigate later.