are traditional journalists an endangered species?
on the hybrid nature of influencer-journalism with teen vogue's p. claire dodson
The year I spent only freelancing on editorial writing, I was also doing brand deals. I wrote over 200+ stories that year for legacy publications and had a semi-permanent gig for Cosmopolitan as their political reporter. But without the occasional one-off sponsored post, I would not have made enough to cover living expenses. I share this not to dissuade writers from freelancing, but to shed some light on the broken ecosystem of journalism. For those of us without staff jobs or a trust fund, it’s rare for freelance reporting alone to be sustainable.
But when you invite social media into your life—specifically, your bank account—, the more lines blur between writing and Being A Writer. While amassing an online following does give certain advantages in freelance work, there are also the added work of being a brand.
In this week’s Gut Feelings, I talked with Teen Vogue’s Senior Entertainment Editor P. Claire Dodson about the increasingly unsustainable landscape for freelance writers. She gave this interview to Music Journalism Insider about her career trajectory (would highly recommend!), which led me to ask her: is everything hybrid now? Is it tenable to be influencer-journalists in a shaky industry? Do we even have a choice?
Most writers I know, myself included, have complicated and at times, contradictory feelings about this. Thank you so much to
for taking the time and diving into this with me! If you haven’t already, please subscribe to her Substack and read her work in Teen Vogue.Interview Transcript with P. Claire Dodson:
(Note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Sara Jin Li: In your interview that you did for Music Journalism Insider, you talked about how in your early 20s, you were very obsessed with this idea of the New York Writer™️. I love that you reference The Clique, because while I feel It Girl group of New York journalists still exists, but maybe the illusion has died somewhat now that we've gone through a pandemic and we've seen the state of journalism unravel. We can kind of lean back and say,” Okay, [being a writer] is not as shiny as it might have been five years ago.”
But how much would you say that influenced your career early on? How much of that was centered towards “I want to be one of those writers” versus “I want to be myself?”
P. Claire Dodson: I would say it influenced me an extreme amount. I was obsessed with looking at people's LinkedIns. I was very into observing media Twitter of that time. I wanted to be like them. It's interesting now to look back on it because I'm sure they were not as connected to each other as the internet made it seem.
Sara: What was the idea of yourself, as a writer, that you envisioned for yourself then?
Claire: This is not who I thought I was, but who I wanted to become is like a combination of Patti Smith and Ann Powers, a music writer on the ground, talking to bands, a Peyton Sawyer, One Tree Hill fantasy of a person.
Sara: You talked about stepping away from in order to actually grow as a writer. What did you mean by that?
Claire: I got lucky and I had a staff job as my first job, so I was being edited all the time. During that time, I was trying to just do as much varied freelancing as possible. Any idea I thought could work for anything, I would just pitch and see who would pick it up. It was a lot half baked ideas and being really open to editing. At that first job at Fast Company, I found myself surrounded by all of these really talented people who I had not been following on Twitter. I mean, I think of my old co-worker and friend Nikita Richardson—who's at the New York Times now, she was an editorial assistant with me at Fast Company then. We would talk a lot about in-crowds and the Twitter famous journalists. I was seeing her work, which was so good, and it took her years to get to the point where she was a bigger name.
Sara: This might be the pessimist in me, but I think a lot about freelance writers who don't have the institutional backing of a staff writing job, and this expectation not to only be good at writing, but also good at branding and self-promotion. I just think it's very hard to build a career as a writer without having marketing skills. Which, on one hand, whatever gives you an advantage in a notoriously cutthroat industry, right? But there's also a fear that we're not prioritizing the craft of writing as much because we're trying to juggle all these skills needed to even become a journalist.
Claire: Totally. I recognize that from my vantage point—I've never had to freelance for my life— I’ve never had the pressure to build a brand in order to support my writing career. It's hard out there for freelancers, especially seeing friends who are really talented, but maybe less public facing. It’s hard to find someone who is a spectacular writer and spectacular at promotion.
Sara: I do worry that with the current state of journalism that we are now maybe a little bit more concerned with the branding more than we are with the actual journalism. Which I don’t think falls on the freelancer; it's the way that the industry has shaped to be. Is there still space for traditional journalism?
Claire: I definitely agree with you. It's not the freelancers’ fault. I feel like it's hard to be a young writer now. On a big picture level about the state of journalism, it is sad that that writers don't get the chance to to be edited consistently. I try to be the best editor I can be, but if I'm editing you like once or twice, it's not like you're getting consistent lessons over time. There's a reason why staff writers progress so fast; they're getting edited every day. It's really hard as a young writer to get the chance to be edited when it's easier to just publish on Substack
Sara: The editing is crucial. We are seeing a lot of ownership over writing nowadays—with Substack and blogs and even social media—but there's no story without editors. I really sympathize with young writers who don't have that tool because writing, especially reporting, is something that needs to be shaped. But I really want to touch on the part where you talk about celebrity journalists and how that’s “all kind of bullshit”—can you expand on what you meant?
Claire: (Side: The New York Times wrote an obituary for celebrity profiles and it goes back to the lack of access and celebrities determining how they want to be perceived.) The one thing I was thinking about was how some editors want only writers with big followings to do some of these big profiles. From their side, it multiplies the amount of people that are going to see a story. But as someone who does not have a big following, I do not want to be counted out of these conversations. It has made me more empathetic to writers who don't have any following, because it's like, why should that determine the quality of your writing? Just because you're a well known journalist, doesn't mean you're a good writer. Some of the worst copy I've ever read is from the writers with the biggest followings.
Sara: It's a really muddy ecosystem. I'll be honest: I don't enjoy doing profiles, because I find I'm performing the role of a journalist than doing actual journalism. And a lot of that is due to my own hang ups because usually, the publicist is there. And as a freelancer, there's a fear of losing access or it biting you in the ass some other way. You're someone who has always been very adamant about keeping things separate and how, as a journalist, you're not there as their friend. But how do you balance that when you’re with talent?
Claire: It’s definitely something I struggle with my people pleasing instincts. But it's also easier [for me as an editor] to push back; if someone gets mad at me over something, at the end of the day, I'm still the editor. I think about when I interviewed Olivia Rodrigo in 2021: we sat down and had lunch together and there was no publicist. It was amazing. In this climate, it feels incredible that she gave that level of access. But if you only have 20 minutes, then you don't have time to establish any trust.
It goes back to the celeb journalist of it all. If you're an editor and you have talent who is only going to give 10 minutes, then you're going to pick the writer who is either the most well known or a writer who has interviewed them before. And I would try not to do this as an editor, but I understand you’re gonna look for the ways to magnify the time that you have, which sometimes means that the same people get to do these interviews over and over again.
Sara: All the power is concentrated to a very small group of people, yeah. In that vein, I do see the advantage of having a personal platform and getting a little bit of that power. But it's such a rigged game. It's a really uneven power dynamic we have going on in journalism. And on the other side—having friends who are full-time influencers or they manage influencers or whatever—they want to see more influencers who have jobs and aren’t just influencers to be influencers. There's a big push, on both sides, to combine worlds. It's just depressing to me, this hybrid nature of journalism. It's not the fault of any of these people, it's just the way our ecosystem is. I have so much sympathy for young writers who are trying to straddle that line right now.
Claire: To freelancers reading this, there are still ways in. You can teach yourself how to do it in a way that you stand out. I can still tell when someone has really put in the time to present their thoughts clearly and they've read the site. You don't have to reinvent the wheel here, you just have to show you're responsible enough to turn something in on time. I would also tell freelancers to pitch to the big publications, but also pitch the small and local ones.
Sara: Yeah, if there's any freelancers listening to this, if you feel like it's hard right now, it's not just you and it's not personal. We're just living in a very, very shaky ecosystem right now that has a lot of blurred lines. Everyone's figuring this out too.
It’s sad that nowadays talent is less important than how you perform and who you are on social media. It’s very difficult to be authentic when you feel obligated to play the game in a way that maybe is not for you. Still figuring it out...