Finding a health story and pitching it
A health story starts as an idea narrower than its subject, angled to the readers of one outlet, and reaches print once an editor has been sold it and the writer has taken down what was commissioned. A story an outlet will not take as reported can sometimes run in another form.
From a subject to a story idea
An idea for an article is more specific than a subject: "the health risks of air travel" is a subject, whereas "how to reduce your risk of DVT on a long-haul flight" is an idea.
The public has an increasing appetite for science-related stories, but to be read a story first needs to be relevant, or topical, and of human interest, which a writer can test by asking who cares.
One freelance journalist who writes news and features for The BMJ usually bases a story on a piece of new research, a report or an event, and covers only something that came from a reputable peer-reviewed journal or an established body.
Health writing in magazines and newspapers falls into several categories: news items, general information and consumer awareness features, recent research roundups, debate on controversies, opinion pieces, a regular column, how-to, self-help and advice articles, question-and-answer pieces, interviews with people, and personal experience.
Where ideas come from
Staff writers on magazines and newspapers are surrounded by ideas: ideas that have often built up around the publication, ideas shared informally or in an editorial meeting, press releases, and press briefings and meetings. A freelance or occasional writer has to generate their own ideas, at least until editors know them well enough to commission them with their requirements. Such ideas can come from:
- personal experience of an illness, a disability, a frightening diagnosis, an operation or a medicine's side effects
- professional experience, such as something illuminating a patient has said, or the questions, concerns and misunderstandings clients commonly raise
- listening to people's health concerns
- radio and television documentaries, phone-in programmes and chat shows
- reading
- current articles in the publications being written for
- internet newsgroups, medical journals' contents pages, health news services and the question-and-answer sections of health sites
- local and national concerns
An article from personal experience can give an interesting insight, particularly when a health professional writes it in light of their knowledge of evidence-based practice. A patient's case is used only with all names and personal details changed, or with the patient's permission. Many national health issues can be made interesting at a local level, and a local concern can generate national interest when it is found to affect people of diverse backgrounds and places.
Embargoed news can be a useful source of ideas, although embargoes must always be respected. A bona fide journalist can sometimes obtain a password to news sites that give access to it, usually by showing a couple of recently published articles under their name, usually from within the last six months. A writer can also use technology to find stories in what is trending.
An ideas folder keeps interesting articles in clearly identified files that can be found quickly. Cuttings and ideas from newspapers, magazines and radio programmes go into their subject folder and are reviewed regularly, and a writer can carry a notebook for jotting down ideas as they occur.
Knowing the market
An idea with potential first needs a clear theme and angle, then a likely market, and then a way into that market, and at this point market research becomes crucial. Few magazines and newspapers produce guidelines for potential authors, so there is no substitute for regularly reading the publications a writer wants to target. In the UK, guides such as Willings Press Guide, The Writers' & Artists' Yearbook and The Writers' Handbook describe the content, aims and readership of newspapers and magazines, and indicate which consider freelance contributions. Some publications use only in-house staff or commission only journalists they already know, so a writer should target those that say they will consider external contributors. Useful questions about how a publication covers topics are:
- Which topics interest it?
- Do its articles have a particular slant?
- Does it cover an illness from a personal perspective, or in detached clinical terms?
- Which aspects of the topic have recent issues covered?
- Do its articles carry many facts and figures?
- Does it focus on how patients and their families cope?
- Which tone and language does it favour?
A writer should keep an eye on ideas and trends, which can change quickly. Articles should be closely tailored to a particular market, and a writer who ignores this risks many rejection slips. Previously published articles, the letters pages and the advertisements help identify the age range, interests and social and educational level of a publication's readers.
Newspapers
As of 2007, non-specialist newspapers in Britain fell into five main categories: national dailies and Sunday papers, provincial dailies and evening papers, provincial weeklies and bi-weeklies, newspapers for ethnic groups, and sectional interest papers. The national papers divided into those aimed at the well-educated reader, such as The Times and The Guardian, and popular papers targeting lower socioeconomic groups, such as The Sun and the Daily Mirror. Writing for a popular paper requires far more skill: complex ideas have to be expressed in simple language that its readers will understand. Popular papers tend to concentrate on human insight stories, in a vigorous and frequently sensationalist style. Provincial morning dailies tend to be strong on comment and background features, evening papers focus on hard news broken during the day, and provincial weeklies and bi-weeklies tend to be parochial and specialised. Any paper, sectional interest papers included, may publish health news or opinion that is newsworthy and relevant to its readers. Papers with regular health pages tend to have regular health writers, but most editors are receptive to fresh ideas. Buying copies of a paper over a month or so shows how it covers health and whether there are gaps its target audience would welcome that the writer could fill.
Magazines
Magazines divide into the business and trade press, sent to specific groups such as doctors, pharmacists, dentists and nurses, often without charge, and the consumer press, sold over the counter. Magazine articles tend to go broader and deeper than newspaper articles, because magazines generally have more space and their readers more time. Hospital food, for example, might be covered in different ways in different media:
- by a local paper, as food-borne infection and lack of food hygiene in a local hospital, with an interview with a patient or relative
- by a national paper, as the incidence of food-borne infection in UK hospitals, uneaten meals and under-nutrition, tied to a minister's speech
- by a general interest magazine, as a feature comparing meals in NHS and private hospitals, with a dietitian's opinion
- by a medical journal, as poor nutrition or food-borne infection in hospitals, discussing government policy, with recommendations to health professionals on changing their practice
Some articles can be re-angled several times. Asthma becomes the signs to watch for in a child for a parenting magazine, how travel could alter asthma control for a travel magazine, a family case study for a family magazine, and new British Thoracic Society guidelines for a medical journal. A feature on a new mobile pharmaceutical service in a rural area might not be published in a large city, but might be published in another rural area considering a similar venture, if it is still angled to that area's needs. A feature for an Asian magazine will not be published unless it has a connection with the Asian community, however well written it is.
Health and lifestyle magazines are the most obvious outlets for health writing. Health is also a popular topic in magazines for women, and increasingly in magazines for men, and sports magazines carry health features too. Buying a selection of magazines with health articles gives a good idea of the current market and helps decide which magazines to approach.
Approaching an editor
An assignment can come from a news or features editor who asks a journalist to write on a subject and gives a brief, or from the journalist's own idea taken to the editor.
Opinions vary on whether to contact more than one editor at a time, and a writer starting out is probably best contacting one publication at a time, beginning with the one at the top of their list. With experience, a writer may send the same idea to several non-competing publications, perhaps in different areas or countries, having ideas ready for adapting the article should several accept. The initial approach is made in writing, to the appropriate editor by name, which a press guide, an issue of the publication, its switchboard or the editor's assistant can supply. In general, a writer does not phone editors with ideas until they know the writer and the writer's work has been published.
Most editors prefer a preliminary letter with a synopsis of the proposed article to the whole piece, and few will read unsolicited manuscripts. Some editors, though, are reluctant to answer query letters from beginners, because past authors have delivered something unsatisfactory or nothing at all. So a beginner can succeed by sending an exceptionally good and original article, well researched, well written, attuned to the readership and in a fresh, distinctive voice, and an editor may make room for a writer who demonstrates talent.
The query letter
The main function of a query letter is to sell an idea. It follows some preliminary research into the topic, but not for so long that the idea may have lost currency. Some magazines may work three months in advance, so a writer should find out how far ahead the publication works and consider whether the idea will still be current by then. A query letter should be concise and include:
- An introduction to the writer: a brief paragraph on qualifications, expertise and writing experience. It must show the ability to do the work. A full curriculum vitae is not generally appreciated, many editors like to see published work, and a writer with no samples may include a written introduction for the piece.
- The idea: it must be good, fresh, timely and important, and comes with a provisional title, a brief summary of the content, its proposed length and a description of any illustrations the writer can provide.
- Why the idea suits the publication and will interest its readers: the letter must show that the writer has studied the publication. The letter is fitted to the publication without losing the writer's own tone, and wastes no words on how wonderful or how bad the publication is.
- Any unique selling points: exclusive material or contacts, and why the writer is uniquely qualified to write the article.
A sample query letter to the editor of a children's health magazine introduces the writer as a practising pharmacist and lecturer in pharmacy, encloses an outline of a practical article of about 1,500 words on asthma in young children with two case studies, says how it fits the magazine's approach to childcare, names two publications that have carried the writer's articles and encloses samples, and mentions that the writer's daughter has asthma. Supplying images and video alongside a story gets a writer on an editor's good side.
Editors' responses
A reply may take weeks, but a writer should not call the editorial department in less than a month. One of three responses generally comes back:
- Acceptance: the go-ahead to write the article, which is rare unless the writer is experienced and well known to the editor.
- Interest: with suggestions for revising the proposal, often about the content and the angle. It is worth treating positively, because meeting the editor's requirements improves the chance of being published.
- Rejection: possibly not the fault of the proposal but because it is not what the editor is looking for right now. The writer tries to find out why, and if they think the idea good, takes account of the editor's comments, considers more market research and submits it to another publication.
A writer should persevere, as J.K. Rowling was turned down by numerous publishers. One freelance medical writer had long wanted to write about the stigma of disease, and the stigma of mental illness in particular, and pitched the story to a number of editors before the AARP Bulletin gave her the assignment. Her editor asked for a general approach, but she took it as an opportunity to raise awareness of the social consequences of many diseases and the heavy burden stigma places on individuals and their families.
Taking down the commission
When an idea is accepted or an article commissioned, particularly by telephone, the writer should note the instructions and the deadline carefully, and check anything uncertain, such as length, style or content, with the editor at that point. A writer can keep a desk diary that records every telephone conversation about an assignment as it happens, and appointments to speak to people. The deadline goes in the diary twice, on the day it is set and on the day itself, and a writer who keeps more than one diary transfers the information to all of them. Each new assignment gets its own file, in a different colour for each, holding letters and emails from editors, information, websites, references, possible interview contacts and notes. The file can also take questions for interviewees, a structure for the article, or even a draft if the writer knows the subject well.
Recasting a story for another form
A medical reporter at USA Today returned in 1999 from an AIDS fact-finding tour of Africa to find the paper reorganised and no place in it for his story. Because the paper put a premium on entertainment rather than tragic news, he spent weeks crafting the story as a travel piece about a journey through the heartland of AIDS in Africa. After it ran, President Clinton committed $100 million to AIDS programmes overseas, which the reporter called a pittance but a start. The following year he interviewed Nelson Mandela about South Africa's AIDS crisis, and that story never appeared in the paper, not because of any editorial decision but because Mandela spoke on a Friday and the paper did not publish at weekends. He wrote a piece for the web instead, and called it a harbinger of the future.