“What if writers repurpose material across platforms for the same client? What if they take elements from one article and re-use it for several different clients? ” the Content Strategist asks.  “The short answer is, all of this is suspect now, given how much attention re-purposing in a post-Lehrer world is getting. Experts say writers would do well to check their clients’ fine print.”

Read on for the entire Content Strategist post.

The Back Story: Jonah Lehrer and Repurposing for ‘New Yorker’ Blogs

Lehrer, author and staff writer for The New Yorker, found himself in hot water last week with Jim Romenesko’s initial discoverythat he was repurposing his writing all over the place.

That is, Lehrer was repurposing his own material from magazines to books, from print to Web, and all of this in various combinations. He was perhaps plagiarizing from other writers, too.

The weightiest element of the journalism-ethics argument, regarding what Lehrer did or did not do, is of course about potential plagiarism. (Not self-plagiarism, as it has been described by some — such a thing cannot exist.) But whether Lehrer took content from others will have to play out over time.

But the other, less-weighty, can of worms of to what degree it might be OK for writers and publishers to reuse their own already published material poses more complicated and perhaps far-reaching implications for media professionals. As Mark Horowitz, former editor of Wired puts it: Is repurposing magazine articles for books the norm? (Matthew May rounds up his comment in his blog.) Is this an OK thing for a journalist to do?

For contentwriters and publishers, however, the conversation is different. The material that they produce is of a different sort.

Let’s look at how the Lehrer situation suggests a kind of content–journalism pressure to which we all can pay some fresh attention.

Thanksgiving Turkey: Content Writing is Meant to Be Repurposed (But Not Always)

“The Jonah Lehrer situation is all but irrelevant to content marketing,” suggests Rebecca Lieb, analyst for Altimeter Group. “I regularly exhort marketers to think about how they can repurpose content. Like journalists, they have to feed the beast. Unlike most journalists, they must do so in multiple channels and often with a much narrower, vertical field of information.”

In Lieb’s model of how content-writers can work — and this is confined to the realm of a single-client scenario — the material is something akin to a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. You have the big meal, and then you carve away at what’s left for a dozen other suppers.

“Say an executive speaks at an event, that’s the main content event,” Lieb said. “A content-marketer’s job may be to repurpose that speech into multiple pieces, often in a wide variety of channels: a YouTube video; a SlideShare deck; multiple blog posts; an article; a column; images; info-graphics; newsletter articles, etc.

“This squeezes more value out of the content,” she continued, “and incorporates it into formats and channels more likely to reach specific audience segments.”

But what if the content-writer starts repurposing across clients? That’s what Lehrer did when he grafted his earlier writings into more recent blogs for The New Yorker. Well, for the content-writer, it all depends on details: whatever specifics have been agreed upon for the job.

“Virtually any publication I’ve written for, or run, has a contractual clause specifying that material submitted for publication must be original and not published elsewhere,” Lieb said. “Usually with a statement of how long exclusive rights last.”

“The rule,” she added, referring to both writers and their clients: “Spell it out up front. Don’t rely on ‘expectations’.”

The Derivative Effect: Content Writing and Its Impact Upon Journalism

If content-writers are expected to repurpose their material, but they’re also working for multiple clients — and maybe experiencing the temptation to bring their best bits right along — doesn’t this suggest a repurposing-as-the-norm pressure that they (and also journalists) should concretely address?

“I believe words matter,” said Joe Chernov, vice president of content marketing for Eloqua. “To that end, ‘brand journalism’ is not synonymous with ‘journalism’. The former is a derivative of the latter.

“While tactics like repurposing and remixing copy might be effective on the brand side of content creation,” he continued, “there is a sanctity to true journalism that needs to be upheld, particularly as the sands beneath both worlds shift.”

One way to think about what seems to have been Lehrer’s mindset — at least, his mindset when it comes to the repurposing part of what he did — is to consider that the Internet, and content-writing in particular, may be softening some of journalism’s previously taken-for-granted boundaries.

Pointing this out isn’t to excuse Lehrer’s mistakes. (He has acknowledged that some of what he did was dumb.) But acknowledging that the Web is still for many a faster, looser publishing environment is to remind ourselves that we must be mindful of the specific requirements and demands of each context of how we create and publish content.

Related articles

• What the Jonah Lehrer Conversation Means for Content Marketing(contently.com)

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• How Many Words Has Jonah Lehrer Repurposed, Exactly?(slog.thestranger.com)

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• The New Yorker’s Newest Writer Is a Big Self-Plagiarist [Journalismism](gawker.com)

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• Jonah Lehrer’s ‘Self-Plagiarism’ Scandal Rocks The New Yorker – Daily Beast(thedailybeast.com)

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• Jonah Lehrer’s male arrogance(salon.com)

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The Freelance Strategist is a daily publication for and by freelance creative workers navigating today's changing employment landscape. Brought to you by Contently.

So my suggestion to freelancers is this: Try to work for the editors that you respect that will pay you the most per word.  In the long run, this will make you the most money.

In order to do that, you need to know how much work is involved in creating the kind of article that you will be asked to write. This means understanding how much research and reporting is needed; and for that you need to be careful about your own limitations and understand the process of how a story gets constructed.

These days research almost always means looking stuff up online and spending time clicking and reading various websites. That isn’t too hard, but it can get time consuming. The good news is that this research isn’t limited by anything other than your own curiosity and time. Sometimes you don’t understand something and really could talk to a live person to clear things up and you need to do some reporting.

Reporting is where the time can get away from you. I recently wrote a story where my editor asked me to get a quote from a source at IBM. I was working with the right PR person (which for a big company like IBM can be a challenge in and of itself) and she was doing a great job hooking me up with the right expert. Except it was taking too long. I couldn’t file my story until I had this quote: weeks went by before the stars were in alignment and I could do my interview. So, be prepared that,in some instances, research can take far longer than expected, and you should account for this when you decide to accept an assignment.

Image Courtesy of Flickr, theilr

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The Freelance Strategist is a daily publication for and by freelance creative workers navigating today's changing employment landscape. Brought to you by Contently.

For freelance writers like Rachael Berkey, who writes for multiple blogs including CulturShock, DailyBLAM, and Huffington Post Books, being able to recycle article ideas is essential to her success as a writer.

“The more my writing is out there being read by more eyeballs, the better,” Berkey said. “For the most part, any byline is great. If I can duplicate a topic without the content, I preserve a little of my own creativity for my other writing goals—like fiction—and still get my name and voice out there regularly.”

Stretch your research

When interviewing someone on a specific topic writers should ask a variety of questions, covering multiple angles so they can use those answers to write articles for several publications. Author Michelle Ruberg suggested in Writer’s Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing that writers organize their research into topic files. Fill these files with potential leads and clips about the topics that will be expanded into different article assignments.

“Central to being an expert scribe on a topic is knowing what the trends are and having plenty of story ideas to pursue,” Ruberg said. “Every few months browse through the folders, both those online and in your files to refresh your memory and keep your research up to date.”

More money and exposure

Writers can legally resell their articles if the publication doesn’t own all rights. When sending out queries to other publications, the writer must inform them of where the article was previously published.

If writers don’t have time to send out query emails, they should consider a syndication service that will do the work for them. According to Get a Freelance Life from MediaBistro.com, “In most cases, you hand over in their entirety the articles you wish to resell and the syndicate uses its resources to sell your articles to publications all across the United States and abroad. You’re paid either a percentage of what the syndicate makes from selling your piece or a set fee that the syndicate gives you for the rights to sell your work for a certain amount of time.”

Recycle ideas

If reselling articles isn’t an option, a writer can still retool an idea to make a new article. The publication or blog will appreciate the fresh take on the topic.

“When I recycle ideas, I always start with a blank document,” Berkey said. “I have seen duplicated topics from other writers where it looks like they only changed a few phrases here and there or a paragraph. That’s not really recycling an idea to me. That’s recycling your whole piece. If you’re going to recycle for different publications and sites, make sure you’re giving that client unique content, not just something you’ve done a find-replace command on to make it different ‘enough.’”

Change your tone

Every magazine or blog has a set voice and agenda. Writers should read both current and back issues of publications they’re pitching to  get a feel for the readership. If it’s a blog, read every post and pay close attention to the readers’ comments to get an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

“The nice thing about the sites I write for is that they have very different audiences so I can shift my tone significantly and reuse topics simply based on that,” Berkey said. “For instance, I write about books for HelloGiggles and aspects of geek culture, but the audience is primarily young, female, and usually looking for something more tongue-in-cheek. For Huffington Post Books, I write about books obviously, and DailyBLAM, I review books and movies, but I try to write with a more journalistic voice rather than from the personal narrative.”

Image courtesy of Flickr, Fernando de Sousa

The Freelance Strategist is a daily publication for and by freelance creative workers navigating today's changing employment landscape. Brought to you by Contently.