Should You Create a Portfolio Website for Your Journalism?

How to get your name out there on the internet

Illustration by Midjourney

What is a portfolio website? Why should you build a writing portfolio website? How important is a journalism portfolio website? Do I need a freelance portfolio website? How do I create a portfolio website? What are some journalist portfolio examples?

If you’re an aspiring journalist, take a moment to Google your own name. Odds are there’s not much there.

For most people, that’s not a problem. (It might even be a good thing, considering how most people make the news!) But if you’re applying for jobs in journalism, you can bet that the people making hiring decisions will do that. Your first job, then, is to start getting your name out there in the search results.

Bylines on news websites are the best, of course, especially if the top results are your favorite stories. Unfortunately, you don’t have much control over which ones zoom to the top of search results and which stories get erased by short-sighted news outlets.

You can set yourself up on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram and other journalist-friendly social media sites which tend to do well in the rankings.

But you can also do something else: create a portfolio website.

What is a portfolio website?

A portfolio website is just a fancy version of your business card. At a minimum, it should include a brief biography, a handful of your best clips, a form for contacting you and links to your social media accounts.

The goal is to establish credibility by showing that you’re a published journalist, highlighting your beat or interests and funneling hiring managers or people looking to share a hot news tip in the right direction.

If you’re a freelancer, this can help persuade a new editor to take a chance on you. If you’re writing a story, it can help convince a source to talk with you. If you’re applying for jobs, it can get a few more of your clips in front of the hiring manager. Even if you’re more established, it can get your name on a recruiter’s list or allow you to give the background on complex projects that aren’t easily explained by a clip.

“If you do not have a portfolio or a professional page, the first thing I will find is your much more personal social profiles,” said journalism consultant P. Kim Bui. “That’s the first impression I will get of this person. If I'm hiring an investigative journalist and all I can find is a influencer-type Instagram, it doesn't read well.”

A portfolio website can also be a useful way of showing off any skills you have in graphics or web design, as it’s entirely under your control.

Finally, a portfolio website is a way to protect yourself against link rot, the tendency for internet content to disappear over time. Small news outlets that took a chance on you early in your career go under. Established news sites decide to put up a paywall on older articles. Publishers switch content management systems and archived articles get caught in the crossfire. In interviews, a number of journalists on Your First Byline have said their actual first byline no longer exists. (Although they aren’t always unhappy about that, either.) A portfolio website is a way to save your favorite work before it’s destroyed.

That said, it’s important to do it right.

“I find portfolio websites helpful when considering a job candidate, but I often see that they haven't been updated in years or don't give a clear picture of a person's broader expertise and experience,” says Emily Holden, founder of Floodlight. “So they're only worth it if they're good.”