The challenges of a Freelance Journalist

Jessica Noel Quinlan
3 min readMay 27, 2020

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The Challenge

Today, my day was all planned out. I had two interviews scheduled, as well as a follow up phone call about a story lead.

I was actually going to try to keep it somewhat quiet this week, because I published three articles last week and was pretty exhausted by the end of the week.

So I thought, ‘maybe I’ll just take it easy this week and have some time to myself.’ However, it seemed like I had too many ideas on my brain, so I decided to just go for it and publish two articles this week.

So this morning started out with getting lots of emails from one of my interviewees that I had a scheduled Zoom meeting with later today. These emails were filled with lots of questions from my interviewee.

Questions that I didn’t understand why I was getting.

I thought we had already established everything for our interview.

This person originally sought me out for this particular story, so I had thought that this person really wanted me to write their story.

I was actually pretty excited about writing this story, but it seems that this particular interviewee was hoping that I would be delivering this story to a big broadcast station — such as BBC, ITV, or CNN.

So the inevitable happened — the interviewee canceled our Zoom meeting — two hours before we were suppose to talk.

Probably the number one problem I encounter with people is people who don’t want to interview with me, because I don’t work for a big broadcast station.

However, this particular sitution was new for me.

To cancel an interview so last minute, because they didn’t want to interview with someone that wasn’t affiliated with a large broadcast station.

It seriously didn’t make sense that this conversation didn’t happen a lot earlier than just two hours before the interview and then cancel so last minute.

Why didn’t this conversation happen before the interview was even scheduled?

To me — I believe — behaving in that manner is unprofessional.

Professionalism is very important to me when it comes to working in the field that I do; therefore, I have chosen to hold high standards for myself as a Freelance Journalist. I would think other’s who are in the business world would do the same, but apparently not.

I realise though that this is just how some people are.

On to the next story…

So it’s best just to move on from this situation and invest my time in writing other stories.

I know since I started pouring all of my time and energy in writing Covid-19 pandemic articles, I have truly found some great connections and have really helped many people in getting their stories heard, which is what it is all about in the field of journalism.

I had one gentlemen that was over-the-moon excited about the article that I published.

“I cannot contain my excitement on how well this project turned out. I also sent a copy of it to my newly elected Member of Parliament, Zarah Sultana, and she had read with interest. ” — Coventry resident, Ian Oakley

So honestly, when I reflect on positive feedback like this — it helps me and reassures me that I am still helping people and making a positive impact as a journalist, which is why I do what I do in the first place.

I can’t allow one person make me feel less than just because I am not working at a big broadcast station — yet.

I’m not going to be a Freelance Journalist forever…

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Jessica Noel Quinlan
Jessica Noel Quinlan

Written by Jessica Noel Quinlan

I aspire to be a contracted news reporter/presenter at a well-known broadcast station: such as ITV, BBC, or CNN. I want to make a positive impact.

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