Wanted: TV Opportunity- NYC-area Freelance journalists who want to Move up the Media Food Chain.

The Daily National www.dailynational.com is a new national news site featuring original news, commentary and opinion in Video and Text formats.
We are looking for a new generation of journalists and writers who are looking for opportunities to break into TV and to promote their written work in a video format.

Specifically, we are looking for freelance journalists who own the rights to their stories and can re-post their stories to the Daily National. These can be stories that have originally appeared in other forums such as Huffington Post or The Daily Beast. Your stories do not have to be original or exclusive to the Daily National.
Our editorial focus is national affairs, politics, public policy and the sorts of storied that make their way onto MSNBC, CNN and Fox. We are looking for intelligent, well-thought out, researched stories, not navel-gazing blog posts. Our general editorial focus is liberal/progressive, but we are open to independent, moderate, and non-ideological viewpoints.
What we are offering: We would like to do a brief 3-5 minute TV interview with you that fleshes out the main ideas from your story that you post on our site. (The way top Washington Post or Salon writers are featured in Primetime on MSNBC or Time Magazine writers are featured on CNN) So if you write a story for the Huffington Post on income inequality that is published on Tuesday, ideally you could then re-post it Wednesday morning on the Daily National. You would then call or email the Daily National TV studio and schedule a time, at your convenience, to drop by our studio (34 West 38th street) for a quick 3-5 minute TV interview on the research presented in your story.

Advantages to you, the freelance journalist:
1. You develop your multimedia skills.
2. You develop your own brand and reputation.
3. Your comfort with TV will grow.
4. You can now mention to any media outlet that you can get them additional TV coverage on any story you write.
5. You will build a TV demo real.
6. You will have same-day video of yourself commenting on breaking news that can be used to pitch yourself on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc.
7. Your publisher, editor, agent, and mother will be impressed that they can watch you on TV on a regular basis.
8. You will have the official credential of “Daily National Contributor” on your resume.
Television and Video are the future. This is your chance as journalist to get in now, if you aren’t already being invited on CNN, MSNBC or Fox on a regular basis.
At some point, every freelance journalist has to ask him/herself, “Do I want to be 50 year-old freelance Freddie making $29,000 a year with no health insurance? Or do I want to be Tom Wolfe or Anderson Cooper, making millions?”
Let’s face it, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer may have had great writing careers, but what put them over the top was their ability to be captivating TV guests. We can’t promise we can make you as successful as these guys, but if you can write good stories, we can put you on internet TV on a regular basis.

Frequently asked questions
1. How often do I have to appear on TV? As often as you like. If you write long-form journalism and you only publish once every two months, then you might appear just once every two months. If you write breaking news every day, then you might pop by our studios once a day for a quick hit.
2. What is the compensation for appearing as an interview guest? We don’t compensate our contributors financially. Just as you don’t get paid to appear on the Today Show to promote your latest book, we don’t pay you to be interviewed to promote your writings.
3. You don’t charge contributors do you? This isn’t some sort of sleazy pay-for-play scheme is it? No. No contributor is ever charged.
4. Then why should I use my valuable time to do a TV interview? You can chalk it up to PR, brand building, fun or having a big ego. There are numerous reasons you might want to appear on TV regularly.
5. I am afraid to do TV; I’ve never done it before. How can you help me? We have a comprehensive, interactive media training program for all of our commentators. We will send you to this school at no cost to you if you are accepted as one of our contributors.
6. Do I have to commit to doing an appearance once a week if I start off with that frequency? No. You can stop and start as you wish. We ask for no long-term commitments.
7. I am a blogger. Can I participate? Yes if you do original reporting. Otherwise, you need to have at least 10,000 unique visitors to your page each month as independently verified at compete.com in order to qualify as one of our contributors. Reporters and non-pundit journalists do not have to have any set number of blog hits.
8. Can I participate if I’m not based in New York City? Yes, but it’s more difficult. All of our TV interviews happen in our Midtown Manhattan TV studios, so you need to be here at some point for the interviews to occur.
How to apply: Please send a brief pitch letter that includes the names of publications you have been published in before. Please send 4 articles you have written that are representative of your work. Please make 2 of those articles that you hold the copyright to so that we could publish them on the Daily National, if we choose to. Please send to Jennifer@dailynational.com