Journalism is often described as a trade, but freelancing is more like an art. Or at least the process of pitching to editors is an art form.

Adam Maguire talks about the it here, following up on the boards.ie News & Media thread on the same subject here. While below are letters from the NUJ’s magazine,  the Journalist, shows a few different views on the issue…

SO NICK INMAN (Gripe, last issue) is fed up with
editors who don’t reply to his emails. Has he ever considered that his
emails are just another form of unsolicited junk mail that busy editors
don’t have the time to respond to?
 
Perhaps Nick should wake up and smell the 21st Century. These days
we’re bombarded with spam, badly targeted emails from PRs and offers of
work from freelancers, many of whom have clearly not read the
publication. If editors responded to all of these, half the day would
be gone.
 
And as for following up with a conventional letter, doesn’t he think
that wasting paper is just adding unenvironmental insult to injury? If
someone hasn’t bothered replying to an email, there’s little chance
they’ll reply to snail mail. Nick is obviously living in the 1950s if
he thinks letters have any impact in 2008.
 
And just to emphasise how out of touch he is, Nick signed off with a
comment about how staff journalists have “generous salaries”. Laugh? I
almost choked on my gruel.
 
No, Nick, you’re clearly too sensitive for this line of work if silent
rejection bothers you. Have you considered a career in non-competitive
flower arranging?
 
Craig Thomas
Managing Editor, 4Car
London W14
 
WHEN IT COMES to dealing with email pitches, managing editor Craig
Thomas (Letters, last issue) prefers a technique called “silent
rejection” to a civil and speedy “no thank you”.

This fascinating idea needs some more explanation. How long after
sending their pitches, for example, should freelances consider
themselves silently rejected? Minutes? Days? Months?

How is the freelance to know the difference between being silently rejected and silently ignored? The feeling is very similar, yet freelances who have given up hope
for an idea frequently find themselves commissioned by an editor who
hadn’t bothered to tell them they liked it.

The uncertainty this produces amounts to a restraint of trade. You
can’t pitch the same idea to a rival publication because you don’t know
if you’ve been rejected.

It is also bad for the publication. Just because an editor doesn’t
like one idea doesn’t mean they won’t like the next one. But there
won’t be a next one if they’ve treated the freelance with such contempt.

Yes, editors are busy — I know, I used to be one — but the thing that makes them busy is dealing with writers. That’s the job.

And there was I thinking journalism had something to do with communication.
 
Mark Fisher
Edinburgh Freelance Branch

I AGREE with Nick Inman (Gripe, March issue) that
communication with editors has changed thanks (or no thanks) to modern
communication methods.

So now I promise to reply to all and sundry who email
me, no matter how useless or random. I’ll do that from the day I get,
as Nick presumes I already have, a “generous salary and index-linked
pension scheme” — and perhaps an ivory tower where I can bask in the
unremitting glory of being an editor.
 
Is this the “all-pervading pessimism of the media” which Nick’s ignored
book concerned, or is it just me being an underpaid, overworked, grumpy
old editor who has had to get a second job to support his family?
 
Gary O’Keeffe
Editor, North London and Herts Newspapers, Enfield