Growing up in Los Angeles, Libby Slate established herself as an entertainment reporter at a young age.
“When I was a little girl, my family shared a duplex with an actress who had a lot of famous friends who visited,” says the writer, who has done freelance work for publications ranging from TV Guide to the Los Angeles Times. “We would all sit on the front porch and talk. I guess you could say those were my first celebrity interviews! At a very young age, I got to know some pretty big celebrities as people, not as stars, and though I didn’t realize it then, that paved the way for being very comfortable around celebrities.”
Slate, who currently writes for the Television Academy’s Emmy Magazine, is one of the working entertainment reporters who have the opportunity to write about the arts, interview famous individuals, and attend performances, all in the name of their careers.
We spoke to Slate, as well as a few other entertainment reporters, about what their day-to-day is like, how they got to where they are, and what advice they have for those aspiring to have the same job title. Here’s what they had to say.
Prepare for the unexpected
Entertainment is a quick-moving industry, so you must be able to keep up the pace. Reporters must be willing to cover anything at any time, and change or drop an article if needed.
“My days are unpredictable, as every reporter knows the life of having no clock in/clock out time,” says Jackie Moe, an arts and entertainment reporter for the Orange County Register. “You can be working on one story and a more urgent story will pop up, so you always have to be prepared to turn off one story’s voice and switch on the other.”
When Annika Michelle, a Los Angeles-based entertainment reporter, is doing interviews for AfterBuzzTV, Hollyscoop, or StarPulse, she knows she may have to change her strategy in the moment to get a good sound bite.
“Red carpets are so competitive and so fast-paced,” she says. “You might be in the middle of an interview with someone, and then the person you need starts walking the carpet. You need to figure out a creative nice way to end the current interview to get the one you want.”
Avoid writing for free
Since entertainment and writing are competitive fields, some people are willing to write for free to break into them. But according to Jethro Nededog, senior entertainment reporter at Business Insider, that may not be the wisest idea.
“I never wrote for free,” he says. “I know that’s something that other people do, and it works for them, but not for me personally. I think it’s a bad precedent.”
As a writer specializing in television, Nededog says that it takes a lot of time and effort, and isn’t worth it if there isn’t a paycheck at the end.
“It’s the kind of field that a lot of people want to get into because it feels glamorous. It’s a high-impact section of journalism. A lot of people will recap television shows for free, but recapping is hours of your life.”
Expect difficult celebrity interviews
Some celebrities are notorious for being hard to interview or reach. Others won’t give you accurate information, either intentionally or unintentionally, which is what Slate deals with often.
“If you do get an interview with someone, do your research, because there’s loads of information available online,” she says. “When it comes time to write the story, don’t accept everything you’ve been told as being the truth. Not necessarily in a bad way—people can forget what year they did something, or the correct name of someone they’ve mentioned. And some people exaggerate. They might say they won an award, when the show or movie they were in really won it, not they themselves. That’s happened more than a few times.”
Diedre Johnson, who’s been published in Star magazine and LA Weekly, says that when she does red carpet interviews, she doesn’t always get what she needs.
“Editors are hoping for a good quote from an A-list actor, but sometimes these actors or celebrities don’t want to talk. Sometimes, they don’t even stop, and when they do, there’s still no guarantee you’ll get every answer that you and/or your editor wants.”
In the arts and entertainment industry, you have to just keep trying to get what you set out for, while avoiding being rude or pushy.
“By all means, be persistent, be ambitious, and have a thick skin,” says Johnson. “Don’t allow the celebrity or someone to distract you from good interview questions.”