Michelle Rafter

The Future of Freelancing

Blog

By

Bad times good for new media's business news writers

It might be bad times for business, and bad times for newspaper business sections, but it appears to be a great time to be a business journalist. Last week on the same day that Wall Street tanked, Slate introduced its new business section, called The Big Money, edited by ex-deputy managing editor of CNN Money […]

By

The secret to my LinkedIn success

Today, I’m blogging over at The Renegade Writer, a Website for freelancers run by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell. The topic: The Secret to My LinkedIn Success. If you’ve been to WordCount before, you know I’m a huge LinkedIn fan, using it every day to troll for sources, manage contacts and participate in discussion groups. […]

By

Dear editor, I'm leaving you

Dear Editor: I’m leaving you. It’s been coming on for some time now, but I didn’t want to say anything that would jeopardize what we had until I was absolutely sure. Now I am. I can’t work for you anymore. I’ve held up my end of the relationship. I’ve done what I said I’d do. […]

By

Poynter offers Sept. 25 Webinar on reporting with video

Most freelancers I know have a print background and little to no training using video to tell stories, myself included. But as the media business goes online, video is showing up on more news and magazine Websites. It seems like a good idea to at least learn the basics of using video to report stories, […]

By

Doonesbury's Redfern gets laid off from the Post

Everybody in the newspaper business is getting laid off. Even Rick Redfern. Redfern, the fictional investigative reporter in Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip, is getting canned by the Washington Post after 33 years on the job, according to a story line that debuted in the strip this week. He’s one of the lucky ones, Redfern’s […]