B&TB&TB&T
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Search
Trending topics:
  • Cairns Crocodiles
  • Nine
  • Seven
  • Cannes Lions
  • NRL
  • WPP
  • B&T Women in Media
  • AFL
  • Thinkerbell
  • Pinterest
  • State of Origin
  • Anthony Albanese
  • imaa
  • Meta
  • ARN
  • AI
  • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • TV Ratings
  • Radio Ratings
  • Sports Marketing

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
Reading: Fire Your Copywriter (and Hire a Journalist Instead)
Share
B&TB&T
Subscribe
Search
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
B&T > Fire Your Copywriter (and Hire a Journalist Instead)
FeaturedMedia

Fire Your Copywriter (and Hire a Journalist Instead)

Lauren Quaintance
Published on: 10th October 2014 at 9:30 AM
Lauren Quaintance
Share
5 Min Read
SHARE

Copywriters and journalists have a lot in common but only journalists know how to write stories that audiences want to hear, says Lauren Quaintance.

One of the things I am sometimes told by marketing managers is that they have a copywriter who writes the company’s content. In the past that person might just have been putting out press releases or doing direct mail, but now they also write blog posts or stories for their website as well. Fair enough. But here’s the thing about copywriters: they’re great at writing copy but they’re not great at writing stories.

Journalists and copywriters have a lot in common (I should know – I am a journalist married to a creative who is technically a copywriter) but they are actually an entirely different species.

Journalists ask annoying questions

When I was a journalist and editor one of the most effective insults you could deliver was to suggest that a colleague had “interviewed their typewriter”. Which is to say that they hadn’t interviewed anyone at all. Journalists use reporting to inform their writing – it’s what gives their stories the telling details that make them authentic – while copywriters rarely need to leave their desk.

Journalists are subject matter experts

One of the most important jobs a magazine or newspaper editor does is assigning the right writer to the right story. For my own agency Storyation I rarely use writers who don’t have a specialization. If you’re a writer, it’s not enough to say that you specialize in “travel”. I want to know if your deep and abiding passion is family travel, luxury travel, wine travel, solo travel or something else besides. Because if I need to commission a story on the best dumpling houses in Shanghai I need to find the person who has been to every back alley joint in search of the most perfect dumpling.

Journalists know how to sniff out a story

A magazine editor of my acquaintance used to say “There are no new ideas in the world”. Think about just about any topic and it’s been done by someone; somewhere. But journalists and editors know how to mine a topic for a new story or angle. An example: career women in their late 30s face a “ticking biological clock”. There’s a topic that’s been covered a lot. Yawn. But get a man in his late 30s to write about how he is clucky and struggling to persuade his partner to have children and you have an original angle on well-traversed topic.

Journalists are born skeptics

This might seem like the last thing you want when you have a product to sell, but putting the needs of your audience first is an inviolate principle of content marketing. If you want to reach an audience that is skipping TV ads, ignoring banner ads and binning direct mail then you need to create content that audiences will find compelling and credible and journalists have an innate sense of what that is (and won’t be afraid to tell you). A healthy dose of skepticism coupled with an ability to see story ideas through an audience lens can be invaluable. Copywriters, on the other hand, are hired guns schooled in the art of selling and their copy is more like shiny, polished marketing-speak.

Which is not to say that every marketing manager should rush out and hire a journalist. Left to their own devices journalists will not necessarily write content that is in keeping with brand values or business objectives. But guided by a good content strategist, a journalist is much more likely to find stories that audiences actually want to hear.

Lauren Quaintance is co-founder and head of content for Sydney content agency Storyation. 

Join more than 30,000 advertising industry experts
Get all the latest advertising and media news direct to your inbox from B&T.

No related posts.

TAGGED: Arty Labs, Burlington socks, Eleven PR, glass
Share
By Lauren Quaintance
* Co-founder of boutique content marketing firm with a high profile in the industry as a commentator, keynote speaker and awards judge. * Highly strategic thinker with a proven ability to develop successful content-led campaigns for clients that resonate with large-scale audiences. * More than 15 years media experience in Australia, NZ and UK including editing high-circulation magazines Good Weekend, the(sydney)magazine, Metro and Sunday magazine. * Experience as an award-winning journalist who was twice named New Zealand's Magazine Feature Writer of the Year and has won prizes for travel, historical and investigative journalism. * Significant expertise in managing launches and relaunches of digital, newsstand, newspaper products including magazines, sections, websites and tablet apps. * High-level academic qualifications and prestigious fellowships from international universities including Columbia University (USA) and Oxford University (UK).

Latest News

NSW Blues & Adidas Kick-Off Game III With ‘House Of Blue’
04/07/2025
TV Ratings (03/07/2025): Nearly 800K Tune In For Joanna Lumley’s ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ Danube Tour
04/07/2025
Google’s Veo 3 Being Used To Create Racist Videos For Social
04/07/2025
Enrichd Group & Greg Inglis Launch ‘Stick With It’ Mental Health Movement
04/07/2025
//

B&T is Australia’s leading news publication magazine for the advertising, marketing, media and PR industries.

 

B&T is owned by parent company The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.

About B&T

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise

Top Categories

  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Opinion
  • Technology
  • TV Ratings

Sign Up for Our Newsletter



B&TB&T
Follow US
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Register Lost your password?