My First Byline: Rachel Brodsky
My First Byline: Rachel Brodsky
Freelance journalist
What is your current job?
Currently, I'm a freelance music, entertainment, and culture writer. I split my time working with a handful of clients and editors. I do content marketing / copywriting for a B2B SaaS company called DISCO, a file-sharing and playlisting platform used by the majority of the music industry. I also work with various PR companies and record labels to help write bios for their artists (basically just a document describing the artist's new project / EP/ album). I also contribute on a weekly basis to the long-running music blog Stereogum.
I also regularly write for outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, TIME, and Rolling Stone. And finally, I launched a podcast a couple of years ago -- *IN SYNC -- that talks about great music moments (needle-drops) in TV and film. Right now we're in the very early planning phases for Season 3.
What was your first byline?
I remember back in high school I wrote album reviews for a music blog based in Scottsdale, Arizona. If memory serves, it was called Alalom.com or something like that. I definitely didn't make any money doing it, but I was psyched to have a byline -- any byline — at just 17, especially outside of my high school paper, which I also wrote album reviews and opinion pieces for.
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What was your first real job in journalism?
First, I freelanced a LOT. In my early 20s, I collected various music bylines at now-defunct websites like Prefix Magazine and Tiny Mix Tapes (RIP). I looooved writing for TMT because its editor Marvin Lin (who also wrote the 33 1/3 book for Radiohead’s Kid A) was just so knowledgable and kind. TMT was in the same league as Pitchfork in the late 2000s but much voicier, weirder, and more obscure. I felt honored to ever have had a byline there.
But my first job-job had nothing to do with music or entertainment. My first REAL journo job was at a small company called Davler Media, which published a series of NY/CT city guides for parents and families. Basically I helped oversee the biweekly Queens Parent magazine, which had calendars of stuff to do around Queens with your kids as well as real reported articles about parenting topics. I had no interest in parenting, but I DID have some city guide / event listings experience. I also really admired my hiring manager, Dawn Roode, who had previously worked for places like Vogue and Vanity Fair. She'd recently become a new mom and had pivoted to the parenting side of magazine journalism. Ultimately, I just wanted to work with her. Entertainment / music journalism was just a hobby at that point in my life. Working at a parenting magazine was how I paid rent.
How did you get it?
As I mentioned above, I'd had some experience already via internships and hourly gigs working on city guides! After college, I took an internship at a company called Flavorpill that published city guides around the US (they were like a younger, hipper Time Out NY). I also did some gig work for my cousin Dan Pulcrano, who still runs the San Jose alt weekly Metro Silicon Valley.
Anyway, I had graduated in 2008 but it took me literally two years to secure a full-time job in journalism. By August 2010, I applied to an Assistant Editor job at Davler Media on a lark (I remember seeing the listing on MediaBistro) not thinking anything would come of it. But lo and behold, Dawn was on the other side of that application, and she and I met for an interview a couple of weeks later. I think Dawn and I just really hit it off. I'm quite sure she vouched for me after I met with the company's CEO, who took an instant DISLIKE to me because I had a tiny stud in my nose and mistook my enthusiasm at finally getting a post-college job for "hubris" (as he put it). *shrugs*
I lasted for about a year at Davler Media. I mostly left because that CEO never stopped being a jerk. But everyone needs a first job, and this one served its purpose, I guess!
What advice do you have for people looking to break into journalism?
I never imagined breaking into journalism would be trickier today than it was in 2008/2009. Back then, in the Great Recession, magazines were shuttering everywhere, budgets were being slashed, staffs were being let go... Sounds like 2023/2024, right?
So, my advice. I think you have to be driven by a force greater than you in order to pursue this. I thought I already lived through the great End Of Journalism panic back in ~2009 or so, but hey, look, here we are, and it's arguably worse, because even applying to available jobs is a racket between AI and ghost listings. In order to break into journalism, you have to be very, very, very sure that you couldn't be happy doing literally anything else. (Trust me, I've tried doing other things, lol.)
Once you know that this is the only thing you could see yourself doing, then I think a little old-fashioned networking never hurt. Like, if you live in LA and there's a local journalist you admire, find a way to get in touch and ask them out for a Zoom coffee. People love talking about themselves, never forget that! But don't blast out like a form letter to a bunch of established writers -- personalize each outreach. Tell them specifically why you admire their work.
And finally, if you do land a job that happens to fall outside of your immediate interests — it doesn't even have to be in journalism; it can be in an adjacent field — realize that life is long, you have time, and there is something valuable to learn (and someone to learn from) anywhere you go.