Video Game Journalism: What About News Writing?

Earlier this week we took a look at how to come up with ideas for feature articles. Today we’ll be taking a little look at news articles and why you as a freelance journalist should avoid them.

News articles need to be written and published quickly to match the speed of incoming news. If your news articles are late then your viewers will most likely go somewhere else. This isn’t always the case but for larger websites, it certainly is. This is why you don’t see any video game news magazines. By the time the magazine is published, the news is no longer relevant.

Now, this isn’t always true. There are some cases where you might be brought on as a news writer and in that case you should aim to report the most current news possible. In addition to this, you may find some news that hasn’t been reported yet. For example, you could find a story on Reddit or another social website which is important and needs to be reported. In that case, you should approach the website with a quick pitch and explain that you can get the story done quickly. There’s no guarantee they’ll take you to write the story but hey. at least they’ll consider it.

News writing is something that all types of freelance journalists should avoid unless you’re being brought on as a long-term news writing contact. Compared to feature writing, there’s very little money involved and the articles are considerably shorter. News articles are difficult to sell and most places will have their in-house writers work on the news pieces instead. So you’ll just be pushed to the side unless they’re especially desperate. Busy periods such as E3 week may be good for news articles especially if they’re about non-E3 releated news. Just don’t expect to make a living from pitching news articles to websites.

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This post was provided by Clare from Lunawolf Gaming