What my day looks like...
As a freelance health journalist and TV producer
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In the FFJ newsletter we have done a couple of snapshots about what our freelance day looks like and the feedback from our readers was they love to hear how fellow journalists organise their working lives.
So over to Helen Quinn, who is our research assistant and also has an eclectic career as a freelance health journalist and TV producer. You can find Helen on Twitter @helen1_quinn.
6am
My day usually starts early as I have seven-year-old twins who seem unable to sleep past this time. But I’m an early bird, so although an extra half hour in bed would be lovely, I’m ok with our early starts. If I’m heading out on the school run, I’ll always be in my running kit to sneak in a short run on the way back before I start work.Â
But today is a Wednesday, so it means I always have two news stories to write before I start my other work. I split my time between health journalism and writing for TV documentaries. I also have a little to do for Freelancing for Journalists as I help out Lily and Emma with podcast admin and social media when needed.Â
6:30- 9am
I write up two news stories for a specialist health publication. The stories are not usually confirmed until around 6pm on Tuesday night, and if I don’t get a chance to write them on Tuesday evening, I often end up getting up early to write the two 400-500-word pieces. I enjoy writing them and it’s a good way to keep up with health news every week.Â
9am
My TV job starts for the day. If I finish before 9 am, I will have a quick walk around the block before returning to my desk, a fresh cup of tea in hand ready to go.
My day usually starts with a quick chat with the executive producer of the documentary. Before becoming a freelance journalist, I worked for over a decade in TV production, working on science shows for the BBC. It is nice to be able to split my week between freelance TV work and journalism. At the moment, it’s about three days a week in TV and about two and half days in journalism.
I love working as part of a team on TV days, but it also makes me really appreciate my time working mostly alone the rest of the week. Â
10am
I have a list of everything we are focusing on for the day/rest of the week. I am co-writing five scripts with another freelance producer/director, and we will often have a quick catch-up and divvy up the writing for the day at this point. The whole series tells the story of life on Earth through geological catastrophes. Today, we are working on script two of five, it’s a great narrative, but it is proving tricky to fit 4.6 billion of history into five scripts!
10:30am
Each script has around six or seven sequences for an hour of TV, and today I am writing the opening sequence. It has to be punchy being the start of the programme, with great visuals, a straightforward story of around nine minutes and an enthusiastic contributor.
At the moment, we have most of these elements, but I need to work on the scientific details. It’s just like journalism in that we are telling a story and often condensing complex scientific ideas into understandable narratives. But unlike journalism, we need to write the visuals too, and at the minute, these details are proving tricky. The excitement and mystery are not quite there yet, and I need to find out exactly what we can do with our scientist in the field whilst we film.
I set up a call with her to find out more. Every shot of every sequence is scripted and visualised, it may not play out like this exactly on the shoot, but what we are writing today will be the plan the team will head out with and the narrative needs to be really tight.Â
1:30pm
I try to remember to take a lunch break, but I rarely do, which is not a good thing. This is something I must get better at. But at the moment, I have a feature looming, and I am desperately trying to set up interviewees for the next couple of days as my deadline approaches. I end up grabbing some leftover dinner at my desk and switch into journalism mode. I fire off a few emails and search for my third interviewee. On other days I often use these moments to catch up on FFJ admin.
2pm
I’m back on the TV doc and have a call with the scientist who is opening episode two. The pandemic has really changed how we interact with interviewees, and I have found this across both TV work and journalism; all my calls are now on Zoom or Teams. Although I was initially a bit resistant to this, I think it definitely helps develop a better rapport. It’s good to chat, and I get a much more detailed idea of what we will see in the field. I end the call and spend the next hour writing in the details of the sequence and how it will pan out adding in the graphics and animation as the sequence comes together.Â
3pm
I have a research call set up with another scientist for part of the script we will be tackling tomorrow. I’ve not finished my opening sequence yet, so I’m hoping it will be a quick call. It isn’t, but I’ve got some fascinating extra insights which I can add to tomorrow’s script. But right now, I have about half an hour to finish the first sequence. We work in Google docs, so my script is live for the rest of the team to see which is helpful when we are all working remotely. We have a researcher inputting data and fact-checking, and my co-writer is working on another part of the script below me.Â
4.30pm
I run down to the school gates to pick up my kids, and between half four and seven, I try to focus on them and leave work to one side.
7.30pm
When my children are in bed, I tend to finish off anything that didn’t get done and sometimes end up writing until late if I am running out of days to fit in the journalism. I started in journalism a few months before the pandemic, and so I am still working to build my contacts.
Today I continue with the feature and make sure I’m ready for my interviews. I sometimes have other TV work to catch up on as I freelance for a number of companies working on the development of new programmes and pitch documents. My ideal day involves everything being finished by 4.30pm and relaxing after the kids go to bed, but this doesn’t always happen!
New podcast episode
We have another fantastic Summer Reads podcast episode out today! In this episode we speak to Polly Morland, a documentary maker turned writer, about her new book which she wrote during lockdown. The book documents the life of a GP working in a rural practice. Polly chats about the benefits of long research chats and how to maintain the anonymity of contributors when needed.Â
Polly is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines and also teaches part-time at Cardiff School of Journalism.
Triumph of the week
Having lovely editors who go out of their way to make sure they don’t have to interrupt you on holiday.
That feeling when
You get asked to do an investigation that you had already started looking into on your own to get ready to pitch. Great minds eh!
We love to hear your feedback on everything we do, so feel free to drop us an email anytime at freelancingforjournalists@gmail.com
Bye for now!
