Award-winning freelance reporter, author and creator Sophia Smith Galer makes her own content, writes books and successfully collaborates with existing media institutions. Here, she tells Charlotte Henry what it takes to make it as an independent creator, and why the industry needs to think in new ways to attract future talent.
For many young journalists, a job at the BBC would be one of their ultimate career goals. However, for Sophia Smith Galer it was a step on the road to becoming a successful content creator and freelancer, two titles that seem entirely connected for her. She worked at the BBC for four years and Vice News (RIP) for a further two years before fully stepping out on her own.
This wasn’t quite the leap into the unknown that it might seem to be. When in traditional journalism “I wasn’t necessarily in a workflow that involved a massive team,” she explains. “I almost always was the one-woman production unit.” At the same time, she was making her own content, often not about her journalism.
That is in no small part because at the BBC she was asked not to make content about her journalism. (By contrast “Vice loved it”.) There is no resentment on the part of Smith Galer. “I get it,” she says. “I do think it prevents companies from being agile, but I understand their position.” Indeed, she continues to work with the BBC on various projects.
She also saw that the content she made about language learning, something very important to her, “often went way more viral than my journalism ever did.” While she did promote her journalism during her time at Vice and later her book, being freelance “afforded me a little bit more freedom. And my audience is definitely the most activated when it comes to language.”
This doesn’t necessarily provide much solace for those hoping platforms and the creator economy can fill the gap in providing people with in-depth news coverage. However, she covered the riots in Paris and trained other Vice News journalists to produce viral TikTok content about hard-hitting news stories.
Getting outside of the media box
Smith Galer has also tried to advocate for having journalists that work like creators when at the BBC: “I argued for building out a kind of a unit, an incubator.”
Key to this “was trying to use non-journalistic language in a lot of my immediate innovation, because I think that’s how we’re going to move forward, we need to get outside of the media box.”
This is a really powerful point. As journalists, we are highly protective of our craft. And, to some extent, rightly so. But the unprecedented pressures on our industry mean that we need to think and talk in new ways if we are going to have any chance of not just surviving but thriving. That means taking inspiration from creators, business strategists and much else.
While many of us dream of that illusive national column, Smith Galer is particularly passionate about journalists honing their vertical video production skills:
“Vertical video particularly drives the most audience interaction and has done for years… what I was, and what I continue to try and innovate is encouraging more journalists into that space. I frankly think enough journalists are writing newsletters, I don’t think we have to worry about that. I think we do have to worry about how many journalists we have fronting compelling vertical video content and originating it.”
She also advocates for journalists being what she calls “multiplatform” because doing so “has been like a protective film to this day.” She adds that “I really like doing written freelance journalism, but there’s a reason it’s not my one and only revenue stream. It’s not lucrative”.
These arguments are cogent but, as I’ve written before, I have some nervousness about journalists handing all their work over to platforms that do not have journalistic integrity as their core mission. That’s doesn’t mean they cannot be used to do journalism, they clearly can, but it requires savvy to make those platforms work for us, as opposed to us straining to serve the algorithm.
Smith Galer is a bit more comfortable with things. She works across a number of platforms, meaning that if one diminishes, she still has an audience in other places. It’s “about serving audiences on more than one platform. That’s how I mitigate.” It is a lesson both individual journalists and media companies more broadly should take to heart.
A multi-hyphenate media entrepreneur
For some, the core of creator economy revenue – brand deals – might seem antithetical to journalism, but let’s not forget that almost all commercial journalism is funded by advertising. Navigating the world of brand deals does though require honing your ability to say no.
“I’m very particular with the opportunities that I accept,” Smith Galer explains. “For me, it’s pretty clear when something comes through Yes or No.” However, she does accept that “perhaps, if you are a little more inexperienced, you may find some of these decision decisions harder to make.”
In many ways Sophia Smith Galer, a journalist-author-creator, is the perfect example of our current multi-hyphenate media environment. She makes her own content, writes books and successfully collaborates with existing media institutions. It seems to be a win-win for all concerned and a route that many are likely to have to follow in the very near future.
