Each month we have been reaching out to journalists and media professionals to chat with them about their experiences in the industry. For 2015’s final edition of ‘Questions for Journalists,’ we spoke with Jes Fralick, editor of Calgary’s newest lifestyle blog 25th Avenue.
Jes Fralick
Editor, 25th Avenue
@xojesxo and @25aveonline
What skills do you believe differentiate a blogger from a journalist?
I would say as far as skills are concerned, the journalist would have more necessary ones – what you must be able to do and how you do it are very defined – journalism school doesn’t exist for kicks. My favourite part about running and writing my own blog is that I get to define what it is I do myself, instead of having to follow guidelines set out by an outlet or the schools as a journalist. What you write, how you write and how often are up to you as the blogger. How skilled you are at writing and storytelling is really in the hands of the individual blogger, and each one is different.
If you could only write about one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I find that most topics go through cycles and I end up writing a lot of the same things over and over again about different people or things. I wrote about entertainment for six years and found myself writing the same post about several different songs, movies, artists etc. I wouldn’t be satisfied writing about one topic forever, I would go crazy. I would have to cheat and choose writing about myself, because my stories, interests and things that I do are always changing, plus I get myself into enough disastrous situations that people could be entertained by me until the end of my time.
What inspired you to start your own lifestyle blog?
I’ve had an online presence since the late 90s when Google had those terrible GeoCities websites (my background was black with grey stars and all of the writing was light blue – the epitome of bad web design). I would post stories and funny articles that I had written and my blogging life, if you call it that, evolved from there. I’ve had several different blogs, most notably XOXO Jes and my current site 25th Avenue, that have all been driven by my love of writing.
Thank you, Jes!
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Header Image Credit: Niclas / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
