A Leading Pioneer (The New York Times) – There’s a reason the New York Times is one of the country’s best news organizations. They consistently come up with stories like this one, on Julia Brand-Chase, who 50 years ago defied the Amateur Athletic Union to run in a prestigious road race in Connecticut, paving the way for women to compete as long-distance runners. The story is a matter-of-fact retelling of the event and what it meant. But it has all the elements a great story should have, including a strong lead, great photos and a killer first quote from Brand-Chase: “Finishing that race was a defining moment for me. If I could handle that pressure, I realized I could go ahead and live my life as I wanted. I could do anything.”

Walter Isaacson Talks Steve Jobs, Apple’s Future (HuffingtonPost) – Former Newsweek editor Isaacson talks about writing Jobs’ biography, Steve Jobs, which debuted this week. Jobs was a fascinating storyteller, “I just listened,” Issacson says. Good advice.

The 10 Blog Posts You Should Write NOW (Hubspot) – The advice is geared toward businesses, but don’t let it fool you. Freelancers can easily adapt many of the ideas for their own blogs, including The Big List, The Breaking News Angle and The Unexpected Connection.

Other media news:

StreetFight – Laura Rich, a friend and former colleague at the now-defunct Industry Standard, launched a news site to track the hyperlocal news business last spring. Her first hyperlocal conference this week in New York attracted heavyweights of the industry. For more on who showed up and who said what, check out coverage on their website, including this video of Jeff Jarvis interviewing Foursquare general manager Evan Cohen.

SABEW Freelance Poll – The Society of American Business Editors and Writers is surveying freelance journalists on what they do and how much they make. Results of the anonymous survey will be tallied and presented by the end of 2011 on the SABEW website. Take the survey at this website.

WAE Network - This not-yet-launched social network promises writers the opportunity “to interact with agents and editors like never before!” We’ll see. The first 1,000 people who sign up for the launch get free lifetime access – whatever that means.

That’s one of the takeaways from a new survey of business journalists’ annual earnings by The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State.

According to results culled from 773 randomly selected business journalists polled in mid-July, median salaries for 2010-2011 were:

* Print: $50,100
* Freelance: $54,091
* Broadcast: $55,588
* Online: $57,308
* Wire services: $78,438

As these results show, the risks of working for yourself can ultimately have a higher payoff than sticking with the relative security of a staff position. According to the Reynolds Center survey, freelancers’ median annual income is 8 percent higher than staff business reporters. My own experience bears that out: I’ve been a full-time freelance business reporter for nine out of the last 16 years and even in my worst year, my income was higher than in my last year as a staff business reporter, even figuring for inflation-based cost of living increases.

Results of the Reynolds Center study also show the relatively greater rewards of working in a media other than print, another reason why regardless of where you are in your career, it pays – literally – to know how to work in more than one medium. According to the survey, business reporters working in TV make about 11 percent more than their compatriots in print, and online reporters make 14 percent more.

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers, another group that tracks business journalism, also conducts annual business journalism salary surveys. According to SABEW’s 2010 survey, the median annual salary for business journalists, including freelancers, is $65,000 to $70,000. The group is wrapping up work on its 2011 survey now.

As far as incomes go, the real money is in editing. Both the Reynolds Center survey and the 2010 SABEW study report higher annual salaries for editors of business sections of daily newspapers, websites or other publications. According to the Reynolds Center survey, editors and other supervisors had a median annual salary of $57,308, or about 3 percent more than business reporters’ overall median annual salary of $55,714. But it could be even higher. SABEW’s 2010 survey found the editor of a business print publication’s median annual salary to be $95,000 to $100,000. That also jibes with anecdotal evidence I’ve picked up through freelance editor friends and acquaintances.

Read the complete results of the Reynolds Center’s new study here: Business Journalists Study 2011

They want to work with writers – be they on staff or freelance – who routinely come up with interesting ideas for stories that are perfect for their readership and then deliver on said stories with minimum drama, maximum efficiency, on deadline and free of factual, grammatical and spelling errors.

That’s the gist of what three leading business editors had to say when they talked during a recent teleconference hosted by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW).

The editors, Al Scott, managing editor of the Puget Sound Business Journal; Dave Kansas, chief markets commentator and former European markets editor at The Wall Street Journal; Derek DeCloet, a business reporter and editor at the (Toronto) Globe and Mail, and Bernie Kohn, a business editor at Bloomberg News, conducted the hour-long teleconference to help editors of newspaper business sections, business weeklies and other business news publications do their jobs better.

But it was easy to flip what they were saying on its head and use it as an instruction manual for how reporters and freelancers could do their jobs better too.

Based on their advice, as well as some of my own, here are 10 things you can do to make editors fall in love with your work, regardless what you write about:

1. Craft story ideas with a publication’s readers in mind. Make sure story pitches answer the question: why would the readers of this publication care? You can be sure editors read your pitches with that question in the back of their minds, so take the guesswork out of the process, and build the answer into your query. If you play your cards right, you might be able to use it as the nut graph in your story (more on that below). “If budget lines get (editors) excited that’s a good sign,” Scott says.

2. Don’t be afraid to talk. Some editors prefer to talk over ideas or completed manuscripts by phone, others prefer email and yet others like to keep an IM channel open on days they’re doing line edits so they can quickly ask questions and get answers on your story without having to check email. No matter what method they prefer, don’t be afraid to talk to an editor. One five-minute phone call can mean the difference between being frustrated by an assignment (or editor) or not.

3. Include a nut graph. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing 250 words or 2,500, include a explainer paragraph fairly high up that describes what a piece is about and how it fits into the overall context of a topic. Both help explain why readers should care, and as a result, read what you’ve written. For short stories, the nut graph can also serve as the lead. If you can’t explain in one concise paragraph what the story is about and why readers should care then chances are the premise of your article isn’t fully baked. If that’s the case, the editors suggested trying to explain what the story is about in 25 words or less to a friend or family member. And if all else fails, ask for help. “The challenge for nut graphs is the biggest in stories that writers are very close to, or on subjects that are moving very quickly,” DeCloet says.

4. Stick to simple story structures. To a person, editors on the SABEW teleconference call said they preferred longer stories written in chronological order v. structured in any other way. They’re easier for readers to comprehend.

5. Don’t skimp on details. Besides a strong lead and simple story structure, one of the most important elements of good storytelling is detail, and that comes from good reporting. The A1 stories that the Wall Street Journal is famous for depend on it, Kansas says. “The internal joke is that we want to know what they ate for dinner and the color of the clothes they were wearing….to show the thesis unfolding v. just telling it,” he says. “That’s very challenging for organizations to have enough time to do that kind of reporting. But at the end of the day, you need strong reporting.”

6. Submit stories with headlines and decks. By including a headline, even if you don’t have to, you show an editor you know what the story’s about and that you’re creative and helpful. Many news organizations have eliminated copy desks and now rely on editors and writers to come up with headlines and decks. By writing your own, you’re making your editor’s job that much easier, which will give them that much more time to spend on other things, like giving you more assignments.

7. De-”was-ify” copy before turning it in. That’s the term one editor on the call created to describe how he regularly goes through his reporters’ stories to remove  instances of passive voice. Once your story’s finished, read it through one more time to make sure everything’s in active voice, and to check on grammar and spellings.

8. File stories in a publication’s preferred format. Some publications don’t care whether you write in 12 point Times New Roman or 14 point Arial or if your paragraphs are indented or separated by a line of white space as long as your story is in on time and free of errors. Others need stories to fit into a specific format because it makes it easier for them to load into their content management system. Find out what your editor prefers. If you’re filing directly into a content management system – which is becoming more common – make sure you follow any rules about character counts for headlines or decks or for adding links, meta tags and other SEO elements.

9. Don’t get defensive about rewrites. To a person, editors on the SABEW teleconference said they go out of their way to handle requests for rewrites so as do to the least amount of damage to the writer’s work or ego as possible. Some use the sandwich method – praising what they can before and after pointing out what needs to be reworked. “It’s a tricky thing if you’re dealing with something the reporter has a strong emotional investment in,” Kansas says. If you know you have to have a difficult conversation with a writer, “steel yourself by reminding yourself that you’re the reader’s agent,” he says. “They may be your writer, but in that conversation you represent the person who’s picking up the paper, magazine, or reading the wire service and if you put yourself in that mindset and ask questions that start with why, how and what, you’ll extract some answers that will help (the writer) focus.”

10. Stay in touch. If you write for a publication on a regular basis – or even if you want to – check in with your editor(s) on a regular basis to let them know the status of any stories you’re working on and any ideas that you’ve come up with since the last time you talked. Editors would prefer to know in advance if you’re having trouble lining up sources, coming up with a lead or running into other snags. And by sharing ideas, you can get their input on the angle or direction of a story you’re thinking about pursuing. Of course the latter may not work with every publication you work with – especially if you’re afraid they’ll take your ideas and assign them to other writers. But it’s the way editors operate with their in-house writers, so by copying that process you’ll be a team player.

But did Shakespeare call himself a freelance writer or a poet? A hired pen, or a playwright?

Not offense Shakespeare, but words matter. Today what writers call themselves matters more than ever because it sets the tone for how we perceive the value of what we do, and how others perceive us.

This hit home after two professional groups recently scrubbed the term “freelancer” in favor of the more business-like “entrepreneur” to describe their members who work independently.

Earlier this year, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers changed the name of its Freelance Committee to Entrepreneurial Committee, apparently to better reflect the times.

At the Online News Association annual conference earlier this month, officials of that professional group started preliminary work to offer webinars and other training for reporters who work independently, either by choice or because they’ve been laid off and are contemplating some kind of start up. The ONA’s term of choice for describing these individuals: journalist entrepreneur, or entrepreneurial journalist.

I got the chance to briefly meet ONA Executive Director Jane McDonnell at the conference. When I identified myself as a freelance writer, I told her I was confused about the right thing to call myself these days, especially in light of all the freelancers who now do work for content aggregator sites such as Demand Studios and Helium.com. My blog even carries the tagline: “Freelancing in the Digital Age”. Was it becoming detrimental to my career and my blog, I asked her, to be associated with those other freelancers, even if just by name? McDonnell agreed that today there’s a certain negative connotation attached to the term “freelancer” compared with the more positive sounding “entrepreneur.”

Today, many more people are working  freelance in all types of industries. But as McDonnell’s comments show, at least in media circles the word is getting a bad rap, and a bad rep. It would be easy to blame it entirely on those freelancers writing for content aggregators, doing work that doesn’t take the same kind of journalistic background or skill set that other types of writing require.

But there’s more to it than that. The traditional way of running a freelance business – querying print publications and waiting for them to respond – is falling by the wayside, forcing writers like me to take a more business-like approach to our jobs. We’re also exhorted to push our personal brand as a way to separate ourselves from the pack.

For 14 years, I’ve called myself a freelance writer and never had a problem with it. But given all that, maybe the time has come to throw out old terms and adopt new ones.

What do you think? Should a professional, ex-newspaper or magazine reporter or long-time independent writer adopt a different name for what they do?

Have you purposely avoided using the word “freelance” to describe yourself?

Do you believe what do you call yourself changes the way you look at what you do?

As I sort this out for myself, I’d love to hear what other writers have decided: are you a freelancer or journalist entrepreneur?

A group of reporters displaced when Denver’s Rocky Mountain News folded have started an online-only news outfit called InDenverTimes.com. The basic news service will be free, with subscriptions available for interactive features.

While community news ventures like InDenverTimes.com, newspaper companies and other online entrepreneurs continue to explore viable financial options for delivering online news, Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md) introduced a bailout bill that would allow papers to operate as nonprofits. Under the bill, papers could still sell ads and subscriptions but would be prohibited from endorsing political candidates.

For a peek at where business news is headed, look at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) Best in Business winners for 2008. In addition to print winners, SABEW recognizes excellence in online breaking news, projects, multimedia storytelling and blogs. This year’s winners include several online only news organizations: the re-vitalized Industry Standard, plus BNet, TheStreet.com and Blumsday, a daily tech blog.

As more newspapers and magazines slash freelance budgets, independent writers are scouring Craigslist and other freelance job boards for work. But not all opportunities are what they seem. Some job listings that require writers to turn in spec articles in order to be considered for work are scams, a practice veteran freelancer Erik Sherman rails against in a particularly scathing rant on his WriterBiz blog. Freelancers, consider yourselves warned.

With use of Twitter growing by tens of thousands of new users a week, freelancer Susan Johnston posted this list of 50 freelancers to follow on Twitter.

If you’re on Twitter, a new-ish tool called WeFollow.com can help you identify people in specific interest areas that you might want to connect with.