faqs
How did you get your start?
INTERVIEW WITH JASON PETTIGREW, EDITOR IN CHIEFHello, Jason. You know, one of the greatest things about reading AP reader email is when they tell us how much we’ve influenced them to want to get into journalism. I think that’s just the best thing we could possibly do. God knows this industry needs quality journalists. So, I thought I would sit down with you and ask you a few questions with the hopes that maybe you could give some insight into this business that we do and give some advice and tips to AP readers who are interested in possibly making journalism a career choice. You up for it?
It’s slightly better than a root canal, but a root canal has better audio. Fire away.
Okay, cool. So let’s start with a little bit about you. Tell me how you got started in this business? What was it that attracted you to journalism? Were you always a critic by nature? What were your first few assignments?
My childhood and adolescence were totally wrapped up in music magazines: Rock Scene, Creem, Circus, Rolling Stone... never cared much for Hit Parader, though. I always wanted to hear the new music before everyone else, and I knew that there were cooler bands than the ones the big rock station in Pittsburgh played. I’ve had a head start in despising commercial radio.
I went to college and became the features editor for the campus newspaper. Through that, I got an internship at the local über-conservative right-wing newspaper, somehow being able to get in stories about Gang Of Four, Psychedelic Furs and Gary Numan. They wanted me to write about crap like Chicago and Scandal. I protested. I got booted.
I discovered AP when some buddies of mine and I came to Cleveland for a show. I thought it was something cool and necessary at the time. I called up Mike Shea to congratulate him on what he was doing, but gave him some shit about a review he wrote. He called me out on it, asking me if I could do better. For the most part, I’ve been involved with AP ever since.
So one of the big questions we get asked is what sort of courses readers should take if they’re interested in getting into journalism?
A command of the Queen’s English is necessary. I hated most of my high-school English teachers, but they are there to make sure you can communicate your thoughts, opinions and concepts clearly. Take all the English and writing courses you can. Take some literature, as well, so you can expose yourself to great things-and trash. You should take some music appreciation courses which detail the various technical terms and nuances inherent in certain musical styles. Granted, 90 percent of an audience who reads about music doesn’t know what a middle-third or a press-roll is, but you can take those concepts and articulate them into a vocabulary that Joe RockFan can understand.
If you didn’t do well in those courses in general, does it mean you’re doomed to failure as a journalist? Can you succeed in journalism if you’ve been doing pizza delivery for 5 years of your life and then you decided to do a career change?
You’re not doomed if you can express yourself with clarity and great articulation. In other words, you’re going to have to be 167 percent smarter than those who post in an AOL chatroom.
Does it take a special type of person to be a journalist? Does it take a special skill?
I think you should be passionate, confident and willing to put yourself out there far enough to be smacked down. If you’re doing investigative things, you have to be fearless. Don’t see that too much anymore...
What about age requirements?
Age ain’t nothin’ but a number. If you have a special point of view, with a flair for articulating it, people will take notice. If you’re covering bands, you should be old enough to get into the bars some of them are playing in. I will guarantee you this, though: things you feel passionate about when you are 17 don’t necessarily translate into continued greatness when you’re 25. Although I still swear that Missing Persons were a great pop band with excellent musicianship.
So what are a few things about this career of music journalism that are myths? You know, behind the glamour of it all?
If you think it’s glamorous, you’re either a shill for the industry or your writing is boring. I would wager that most people who get flown around in style are merely lapdogs for spin-masters.
What’s the most difficult part of a music journalist’s job?
Deadlines. Access. Trying to capture the entire picture. Getting to the essence of the subject and trying to do it within a proscribed word count.
What’s the most fun part of a music journalist’s job?
The discourse. (“What was Pettigrew thinking? That prick!”) Discovering a piece of great, yet obscure music that you want to share with the world, because you know any Clear Channel-owned outlet won’t do it. I’d be lying if I told you I was bored with getting free CDs.
What are the biggest mistakes music journalists make today?
They are misinformed or not informed at all. They approach the craft like plumbers and not as reporters or artists. They think people in bands will be their friends, so they write fluffy things about them. God bless Trent Reznor: he never asked me for story approval, and he once wished death on me onstage at a gig in Detroit because of something I once wrote about him. Yet he’ll still talk to me. I’m proud of that.
How has music journalism changed over the past 20 years?
The worst thing about music journalism is that everybody wants control of the final product. I remember the Guns N’ Roses “interview release form” from the late ’80s that said the band owns the right to a writer’s interview, and the band must approve everything. Nobody wants to ask any hard questions for fear of ruffling artists, mangers and publicity people. Back in the ’70s, there was a classic exchange with Lou Reed and the late Lester Bangs that took place at 3 a.m. where they are just calling each other out. It’s very candid, and some of it is downright nasty. To do something like that with any big star today is inconceivable, because everybody wants to make friends, secure McCelebrities for their covers to keep selling issues. It’s really sad. And very boring.
If one of our readers wants to get a start in music journalism, what are some ways you would suggest they try?
Start your own print or Webzine. If you are in high school or college, take an interest in the school’s newspaper, yearly writing review or whatever kind of outlet those organizations have. Send some reviews on spec to local alternative newsweeklies or established fanzines in your area. You won’t get paid, but you will (hopefully) get printed. And keep writing, constantly. Walk away from it, and return to your work after a few days. You might want to buy a shredder, because if you get hit by a bus, somebody might discover your rough drafts and have a good laugh at your expense. That was gruesome. Sorry. You know, I own a shredder...
What is the state of music journalism today?
It’s pretty vacuous. The indie-rock contingent will go on for 700 words describing a fricking 7-inch just so they can hear themselves speak. The Entertainment Weekly-ization of American culture-50-word record reviews and a letter grade-doesn’t allow for any kind of real discourse. The thing is, there are people who like music, and people who buy compact discs. Personally, I like music. The latter camp put those really bad radio bands on the sales charts. Geddit?
Is there much money to be made in music journalism? Can you survive on just writing about music?
You could, but you’d have to write a lot of puff-pieces about flavor-of-the-second celebrities for $3.00 a word. And most major corporate-owned magazines won’t let you write about how people like Mick Jagger, Fred Durst or Chad Kroeger need to be taken out back with rabid dogs and have a bullet put in their cerebellums. You will not make that kind of money writing about, oh, Combat Wounded Veteran. My advice is the same thing anybody who has been involved in the underground-rock scene has ever preached: love what you do. If you didn’t make a dime doing it, hey, at least you had fun. What’s the difference between RS contributor Neil Strauss and a fanzine writer? One gets a check, the other is in love.
If an AP reader wanted to write for AP, how would he or she go about doing that?
Send me some of your work at 1305 W. 80th St. Ste. 2F, Cleveland, OH 44102-1996. Send Web links of your stuff to editorial@altpress.com. If we’re into it, we’ll be in touch. I get a kick out of cover letters filled with vicious self-deprecation, BTW.
Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?
Keep your knee-jerk reactions to a minimum, whether it’s about bands or world affairs. Only make sweeping generalizations about things in which you are an expert. Keep an open mind, but not at both ends. Feel sorry for people who like Matchbox 20 and Nickelback, because you know a part of them has died.
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How can I get my CD reviewed in AP?
First off, tell us about yourself and how you ended up in music journalism.My name is Scott Heisel, I'm 25, and up until a few years ago, I had no idea you could actually make a living telling people what bands suck and what bands rule. What a nice surprise! I started writing record reviews and columns for my older brother's zine (like, actual paper zine) back in the late '90s, and trust me, 99.782% of it was awful. But the more I wrote, the better I got, and as I went onto college (Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois-go Vikings!), I found myself involved with a website community called Punknews.org. I became an active contributor, submitting many of the reviews I had written previously to the website's reviews archive (which at the time was virtually nonexistent). The owner of the website invited me to join their editorial staff in 2001, and I spent the next three years of my life helping to build Punknews.org into the juggernaut that it is today. When it was graduation time, I started looking around for places that might actually pay me to wear T-shirts and jeans to work and listen to music all day; somehow, I convinced AP I'd be a good part of their staff and I've been here ever since.
What made you want to be a journalist?
Strictly a love of music. I didn't major in journalism in college (my college actually didn't even offer it as a major), but I couldn't deny my passion for music and got involved in every possible aspect, whether it was booking shows, working for the college radio station, playing in bands, working at an indie record store, etc. It just happened that I was better at writing about music than doing any of those other things, so I kept at it, really doing the "fake it till you make it" idea to perfection. Heck, I had never even talked to a publicist or interviewed a band on the phone until after I started at AP! Now my phone doesn't stop ringing (and I talk bands' ears off, too).
How did you get involved with AP?
As I mentioned above, I applied to be AP's copy editor when I was finishing college in 2004; after a phone interview and an in-person interview, they liked me enough to offer me a job and I uprooted myself from Illinois within a week to be there. Thankfully, the staff here recognized my talents in more than just copy editing (which, to be honest, is probably my weakest skill-don't tell them that!) and made me the associate editor, which meant I got to take over a lot of sections in the magazine and be responsible for their planning, as well as handle all web news on altpress.com along with tons of other tasks. After some editors decided to move on in 2006, I was promoted to music editor, and that's where I am now. It's an incredibly hard job but also one of the best in the biz, mainly because I get records weeks-if not months-earlier than most, and I can experience them fully before they get played to death by the rest of the world. It's selfish, yes, but if someone offered you the new Brand New record six weeks before it came out, are you going to turn it down? I thought not.
What are the hard parts about your job?
Honestly? Listening to tons and tons of horrible, awful, terrible music to try and find the needles in the big-ass haystack to expose to our readers. You'd be absolutely stunned at the volume of mail I receive in a week-everything from jazz to bluegrass to country to dance. Obviously, we don't cover every genre in the world, so I focus my listening more on punk/rock/indie/emo/hardcore, trying to find the gems (and it's not as easy as you think).
How many CDs are in your office right now?
I'd say there's a hundred or so on my desk; another 300 on my windowsill waiting to be listened to, and another few hundred on my CD shelf, which is where I keep things that could potentially be reviewed. It's horribly unorganized, but somehow it works for me.
If a band or label wants to submit a CD, what's the best way of doing it?
First off, pick up a copy of AP. If you don't see at least one band being covered somewhere in the magazine that you would compare yourselves to, don't bother sending the CD in. Like I said before, I get buckets of CDs from jazz musicians, folk artists, pop R&B singers... These people have no idea who AP is, and are just wasting postage sending me their CD. So make sure your band would fit inside the pages of AP before sending it in!
Secondly, I don't need fancy press kits, random swag or anything else (although sometimes snacks are nice); just send me your music with a brief bio/fact sheet included. If I need to know more, I'll do research on my own. I don't care about what you look like; I don't care about what other members of the press have written about you; I don't care about what shows you've played. It's always about the music.
What if I'm in an unsigned band?
Send the package to our associate editor, Tim Karan, ATTN: AP&R. If you do that, you're submitting for our unsigned bands of the month section, where we profile eight groups a month. If Tim likes what he hears, you're in!
How do I get to write reviews for AP?
If you think you have what it takes, send three reviews-each between 130-150 words-of recent albums to editorial@altpress.com with your contact information. If I think you've got talent, I'll include you on my writers list. It's that simple.
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How can I get my start in journalism?
INTERVIEW WITH AARON BURGESS, MANAGING EDITOR What first sparked your interest in journalism?Honestly, I never had any interest in "straight" journalism; however, when I started subscribing to Thrasher magazine in the mid-’80s and realized it was possible to make a living as a way more left-of-center journalist, traveling around with skaters and musicians and other weirdoes and documenting their lives, habits and creative efforts, I felt like a whole new world had opened up to me, and something clicked in my brain, telling me this was my calling.
Where did you go to college? What was your major? How many years did you attend?
I did the five-year plan at Indiana University Of Pennsylvania in Indiana, PA, graduating with a BA in journalism in May of 1996. I started there as a journalism major and English minor, loved it, but hit a major roadblock with my parents (who were footing the bill) once they learned what KIND of a journalist I planned to become.
Certain there was no money in it and their son was throwing his education away, they had me change my major to education; I would have a much better time finding work as an English teacher, seemed to be their logic. So, to teach them a lesson, I failed nearly all my classes sophomore year by not going to any of them. My parents were livid, and as soon as they saw my grades, they said they were pulling me out of school.
After a lot of kicking and screaming and bawling, they agreed to give me another shot, again as a journalism major, to see if I could cut it. If I could, they'd let me follow my dream; if not, I was following theirs. I spent the rest of my college years on the dean's list, received multiple awards for excellence in student journalism, and ended up as the editor in chief of the university newspaper my senior year. I never looked back, and today my parents and I get along famously.
Was it hard for you to find a job after college? What was your first job after college?
Not really, but only because I busted my can to get the job I wanted. My first job after college was at AP -- I closed out my senior year as an AP intern; they liked me enough that they offered me an office assistant job before I'd even graduated, and by the end of 1996, I'd been promoted to assistant editor. Today, I have a much fancier title, but a lot of the work I do here hasn't changed.
How long did it take you to get where you are today?
I guess in total, around 13 years (if you start in late 1991, when I entered college); longer than that if you count the few crappy punk fanzines I edited and published in high school.
Do you find your job stressful? Do you travel a lot?
It's demanding, and the hours can be long, and there are often lots of unexpected last-minute crises, but none of it ever gets to me because I love what I'm doing, and I never forget how lucky I am to be doing it. I don't travel as often as I used to because a) I have a family here -- a wife and two small children -- and I don't like to ditch them; and b) my current job as managing editor requires me to do much of my work in the office and to be available here to put out the organizational fires that often pop up.
What rewards (besides pay, insurance, etc.) do you receive from your job, if any?
Honestly, compared to managing editors at other, bigger, corporate-owned magazines (from Spin to Revolver to Blender), my salary isn’t what you’d call staggering, but the perks -- whether it's a seemingly endless stream of free CDs, video games and DVDs, a flexible work schedule, a staff I actually consider friends, or a level of creative freedom I'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else - make up for it.
Do you think majoring in journalism is time well spent or a waste of time that wasn’t spent in another class?
It's absolutely time well spent -- you hone your research and interviewing skills (both necessities for excelling in this field), you learn objectivity, and you learn economy of language -- that is, how to say a lot with very little -- which is a vital survival skill as page counts decrease and readers' attention spans get shorter.
Are there many job openings in your field today? Is there room for promotion?
Not really, and even if they are, most of the better jobs aren't open for newcomers. It's a very incestuous industry -- like a lot of fields, I suppose -- where you work your way up the ladder mostly through networking and being in the right place at the right time.
What is your favorite part of your job? Least favorite?
My favorite part of the job is interacting with the readers through message boards, reader mail, reader panels, whatever. It constantly reminds me of the responsibility I have to the people who pay for AP every month and gives me a boost by teaching me something new about what those same readers notice, learn about and respond to when they pick up a copy of AP. Even when I'm reading their hate mail. My least favorite part of the job is the sometimes erratic work schedule -- like, when I have to be here until 3 a.m. for three nights in a row during production.
Do you find your job to be repetitive day after day or is each day a new experience?
Not at all -- I learn something new every day.
Are there any classes in high school that you find are beneficial to your career? Are there any that you find you do not need or use? (i.e. math, science, history)
Every class in high school teaches you something, even if it seems pointless at the time. English was my favorite class in high school, and anything math-related was my least favorite, but in hindsight, if I'd never taken trigonometry, I might not understand the Dillinger Escape Plan as well as I seem to now, and my life would be that much emptier because of it.
Are there any specific requirements for applying for a job?
Learn to deal with rejection, and don't take it personally when someone says you're not cut out for this position or that assignment -- remember, every "No" you absorb is a lesson in how to get them to say "Yes" next time. Do you have any advice of how to get into the field of journalism and make a name for yourself? Be prepared to work lots of long hours for little or no pay when you're starting, be prepared to look back on everything you're writing today in 10 years and be embarrassed (I still can't read anything I wrote a MONTH ago), and be prepared to have a lot of doors slammed in your face before you find one door that's open. Then, once you're through that door, be prepared for everything to get much easier -- well, maybe not "easy," but once you're inside the machine that is this industry, you'll be amazed at how little effort it really takes to work your way up.
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