Music Journalism Techniques Week 2: Essential Skills

The Skills I Have.

Personality traits I have as ab ESFJ;

• Organized - keeping deadlines and information about projects clear and in a safe space.
• Can be depended on to follow things through to completion-finishing projects on time and to a good standard.
• Enjoy creating order, structure and schedules-managing time well, being able to carry more than one project at a time.
• Enjoy interacting with people-working with a range of people without having barriers between us
• Warm-hearted and sympathetic
• Very cooperative, good team members
• Practical and down-to-earth
• Enjoy variety, but work well with routine tasks-being flexible to follow a story wherever it ends up, but also likes knowing what I will be doing from day to day so can struggle with the constant change.
• Need approval from others-can add pressure while writing making you write as someone you're not. Always could just mean you try harder at what you're good at to impress people.
• Live in the here and now - dislike theorizing about the future-focusing on the task at hand. Does also mean I get comfortable doing one thing and may not try that hard to progress into higher fields.

The Skills I need.

Hard Skills

Research skills are important so you know what you are talking about. If you go into an article with no context or information on the topic you can't write a genuine article and relate with the reader.  Research is particularly important when interviewing musicians to make it interesting, to ask questions no one else has asked. Not only does this make the artist respect you a but more, it gives the reader something they didn't already know. You don't want to write an article full of information the reader can find anywhere, they need to want to read something by you because you know something exclusive or interessting that they don't already know. 

Being accurate is also vital as it builds your brand to be trustworthy. If you constantly print wrong information, people won't take you seriously and you won't get hired. Getting small things wrong like the name of a song, or a song lyric will anger a musicians fans and pin you under their criticism. 

Having extensive subject knowledge makes you harder to attack, if you can back up your statements with good facts or references people will be able to understand your logic better and it'll be harder to question what you say. Having subject knowledge helps yo in every part of writing as you always need to put proof behind your words. 

Having good organising skills helps you to keep on top of everything you have done, are currently doing and will do. When working as a freelancer you are your own boss, so you have to keep yourself working efficiently. Writing down deadlines and important information about projects you have will make sure all your work is done on time and correctly. Keeping track of everything you do also makes sure you don't get confused and waste time trying to remember what you should be doing. 

Communicating well with people in all situations is important, it means you can get on with your job without having problems with anyone. Being polite to anyone you encounter will give you a good reputation and possibly lead to more opportunities. During interviews you can't be shy, you need to make sure you get as much information as you can so you can write the best article you can. 

Soft Skills

Being able to write with a sense of humour or being able to portray your sense of humour through your writing is important to create an interest piece of work. You don't want to fill an article with dry humour, being yourself makes your writing different and makes more people want to read your work over someone else. You also need to be able to know when to write with a sense of seriousness, when writing about a serious topic you don't want to put anything disrespectful into the article. When you need to write about a serious issue, you need to show you're diverse. If you get given a serious topic sometimes making jokes can work, like if you're writing about Trump because its easy to make jokes about him, but serious subjects do need to be written about with a serious tone to show respect.

You need to have a purpose, a sense of why you are a journalist. You need to know what you have to offer, what you want to tell the world. Are you just wanting to meet famous people? Or do you love music and want to tell everyone about music you love? If you don't have a purpose as a journalist, your writing won't have any meaning behind it and people won't connect with you as the writer or the articles you write.

Having an obsession with music in general will help you through out your career, you need to enjoy and be passionate about your work otherwise you won't be able to write effectively. If you have an obsession with music and you're always finding new music to listen to, you'll always have something exciting to write and share with the world. If you don't particularly enjoy music, you can't relate to the music fans who'll be reading your work.

As a music journalist you need to be flexible, you're circumstances can change at anytime and your schedule will never be set in stone. This means you need to be adaptable to change and be easy going, you can't stress about your schedule or let it affect your work. Sometimes you may change your schedule on the spot to follow where a story might be leading you.