It gives the reader a response, with a confessional interview you want them to have a physical reaction. If you can crack confessional interviews, you’ll be ok in freelance journalism.
It has to be extraordinary.
Confessionals are usually ghost written rather than first person.
There are two styles of this:
- You write it in subject/victims voice (use slang, colloquial terms, pauses, etc) this is seen in more down market publications
- House style (publications such as The Guardian) no by-line
*if you are doing it in the house style, you were need to state this with the publication. If you are writing for a publication that doesn’t give you a by-line, keep the commission to prove this.
Trashier titles will give you a by-line most of the time, stating: ‘as told to ....’
- If you are doing a first person interview, it’s only right someone should look at it, not for style but in terms of libel, it’s important for someone to check. People may want to see it for accuracy.
- It’s not copy approval it’s using correct facts.
- Your responsibility is to your readers, not the person your interviewing. However you need to keep a good relationship to that person you interviewed (maybe).
- Confessional articles are very common in women’s magazines
- Not pegged to news
- When pitching to magazines you need to be sure about what magazine you are pitching too and the style they use.
- Often in weekly magazines such as Take a break but also in monthlies such as Cosmo
- My battle with ... cancer/drink/drugs/breakups
- Anne Robinson - drink
- Michael Barrymore - everything
- Jordan/Peter Andre
- ‘Guardian Weekend’ In their weekend magazine they do an intellectual experience confessional interview. Same style each week. Wrote in a modest and measured style. You are have to transform your interviewees speech etc in the style of the Guardian.
- Tim Dowling (Columnist in the Guardian. Talks about how rubbish of a husband he is.)
- William Leith
- Tanya Gold (Used to be on the guardian, now on the mail. Confessionals on weight and size.)
- Liz Jones (Before Big Brother you wouldn’t of known who she was. She is a Daily Mail fashion editor - her claim to fame was she was the Marie Clare fashion editor. She then started writing a column for the Mail on Sunday about her boyfriend and very mean stuff. Made a fortune out of being a confessional journalist.)
- Liz Jones’ husband
- Hadley Freeman is a Guardian columnist.
Newspapers
- Classic confessional journalism - headline, stand-first, then into chronologically (telling the story) then a good end - dramatic.
- Pegged to news
- You get confessionals as a part of a big package of a big news event
- Train crash: survival stories etc
- They are normally far less dramatic
- They are still needed to balance dull stuff within the title
- First person but not confessional
- Celebrities are controlled by agents
- News agencies/PR agencies
- Useful to do up and coming people
Look for ‘victims’
- Medical
- Social
- Support Groups
- Charity
- Internet
- Phone Book (use yellow pages to look up support groups etc)
- Good turn of phrase
- Great pictures/collects
- Attractive/ugly
- Happy ending
- Open, honest, realistic
If when you go to talk to someone, if they are not a good talker it won’t turn out well. The subject is so important. If that person is engaging or a good talker, it will benefit. If its a good story but they don’t say it well enough it won’t work.
- Too vulnerable
- Hoaxers, mental health problems i.e. anorexia (unless they are recovered), people with Munchaudsen syndrome by proxy (claims things have happened but they haven’t), confessing crimes.
- Always check out
- People you know - malice/vested interest
Joint confessional - story that affects them both. For example - 70% one of them in first person, 30% at the side of the other.
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