How I Write (plus a Plea)

[oakenguy]

18 months ago: Get an idea. Scribble it down. Like it.

17 months ago: Write four good pages over lunch, one on the back of a napkin. Realize I know very little about the script format for this (comic book, for the record). Decide Doing Research Is Important, start getting books from library.

16 months - 3 months ago: Get distracted, occasionally Do More Research.

3 months ago: Read a publisher's profile, get excited. Revise original idea to fit their format. Begin hunting for those good pages I wrote a year ago.

3 months - 1 month ago: Storyboard the comic in very rough, stick figure fashion. Tear the apartment apart three times trying to find those good pages.

1 month ago - 1 day ago: Finally give up the search, start writing. Do pretty well.

1 day ago: Realize there's a lot about the profession of my main characters (tabloid journalists) I don't know about. Start feeling impulse to Do Research; remember what happened 17 months ago.

So, my erudite readers, at least three of whom I know have experience with journalism...anyone know anything about the shady side of the business?

Comments

[tikva.livejournal.com]

What, you mean, like all of it?

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Well...specifically how tabloid journalists work a story, how they decide something involving a celebrity's either a) not going to get them sued, or b) so good that they'll risk it. The hoops they have to jump through to make their editors happy. The 'rules of engagement' when talking with a subject or a tipster.

[devina.livejournal.com]

Across the board, celebrities have a really hard time suing for anything. They pretty much lose a lot of their legal legs to stand on once they become public figures. Just so you know. :)

in the ballpark, maybe?

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

there was a big article on the paparazzi that ran a few months ago in vanity fair. it contrasted the work of the guy who founded and runs the photography syndicate wire image with a shady character in hollywood who (if memory serves) sold topless pictures of jackie-o to hustler. it was in the past year, so if this helps, it should be readily available at the library.

[snowwand.livejournal.com]

Totally unrelated, but we have an extra ticket for the treasure hunt thingie on saturday if you still want to come. Let me know

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Oooo, I want to! But I'll be away at rehearsal. :(

[snowwand.livejournal.com]

Too bad!

We'll have to take pictures for you :)

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Many years ago I heard someone describing a courtoom scene they had--read about? Seen on TV? Heard described by someone else?--in which a tabloid journalist was called upon to explain how a particular story his paper was being sued for had come to be written, in which the journalist apparently stated that essentially there was a central table on which were placed great headlines someone had thought up. As writers finished one story they came and got another headline, took it back to their desk and started writing the new one up. Judge: So there's no actual evidence involved in the stories. Defendent: None whatsoever, your honor. Judge: They're completly fabricated. Defendent: That's correct, your honor.

Possibly an utterly apocryphal story, or one which I'm remembering wrong, or an atypical case. Also, if there's any truth in the anecdote, it may well relate more to "Elvis Sighted in Local Burger King"/"I saw Jesus's face in the sesame seeds of my hamburger bun" type of journalism rather than celebrity-torturing, but I've always remembered the imageof the trial fondly, in any case.

I do know that one favorite trick is to phrase the most outrageous suggestions as questions, since questions cannot actually be considered libel: "Is it possible that George W. Bush has actually been sleeping with Pope John Paul II?" "Will Cher finally admit to being a closet hermaphrodite?"

I've also been told that most such publications have a yearly budget allotted for libel suits, which they consider to be excellent advertising, and only get concerned if it looks like they'll have too many in any given year.

You ask for information, I give you hearsay. What could be more appropriate? :)

[opheliasphoenix.livejournal.com]

What part of it isn't shady?...
I love your writing analyzation, I am with you.

[superrob.livejournal.com]

So long as the person being written about is a public figure: ie; celeb or politician, I know they're fair game for any pub, provided the info is demonstrably true and backed up by fact.

Tabloids appear to be an exception to this rule -- often they print things that are wildly outrageous. Maybe that's their game - they're not meant to be taken seriously and are therefore often overlooked by their victims.

Another interesting point: Anything said or done in public is fair game. A naked person running down the street might not make it into the paper, even if there are great photos, but that's the paper restraining itself for the sake of their advertisers and readers.

Tabloid readers and advertisers have no such sensibilities.

On the legal side, it happened in public view, so putting it there again is not against the law.

One thing you may be sure of: every other serious journalist out there looks down on tabloid guys. Their tactics and attitude often get attributed to the lot of us.