With great journalism comes great responsibility. Of course, you've scrupulously revised every media law in existence, and you damn well know this. No matter how respectable and law-abiding your story is, not everybody is going to like what you say. If you're an investigative journalist, then BOY you're eating lawsuits for breakfast. It's simply the nature of the beast, and you must tread very carefully. Avoid rumour, be fair, and when you do finally pin down the facts, feel free to manically jazz-dance around the office.
8. When Your Computer Crashes And You Haven't Saved Your Story
The moment your stomach suddenly drops out your backside. A good 40 minutes worth of meticulous sentence structuring, clever quips and solid fact-finding...GONE forever. Sod's Law is it'll happen on a mundane story you've been told to cover about snow-ploughing or bluebell spotting, and you have to go through the agony of writing it all again. Deep breaths, now.
7. "Writer's Block"
Every journalist has been struck down with this insurmountable condition: a fearsome plague on the brain which turns every potential thought you may have into a potato. According to science, the writer's brain becomes so clogged with these potatoes they can no longer produce coherent words. That's right, science. Before you turn into Jack from The Shining, remember, it's probably NOT writer's block. There's no such thing. As a professional journalist, you must produce the same quality content when you're not inspired as when you are. If you sit down at your desk and tell yourself you're there to write, the words will come out. Even if they're a string of random words like triangle, lampshade and....beef... well at least it's a start. The concept of writer's block is all in the mind, but it can be a string of things. Personal distractions, not understanding a topic, not exercising, or quite frankly, you might just not feel like writing. If one simply cannot overcome the block, hit the absinthe. If your boss objects, tell him Oscar Wilde did it.
