Want Good Content? Hire a Journalist

As companies work to tell better stories on their site, social feeds and video, they rarely look in the most obvious place to help them do that: the newsroom. I hate to say it, but as traditional media outlets continue to sink, there’s a deep bench of experienced writers, editors, and filmmakers ready to jump in.

I’m a perfect example.

When Anglers Journal folded, I kicked off CatchFire Communications and created a simple program to offer boat builders, fishing companies, travel resorts and outdoor retailers content solutions to build audience, drive public relations, engage media coverage, write engaging copy, and provide digital marketing that moves the needle.

My background as a journalist helped my clients tell their story in an authentic way that drove traffic and increased engagement.

Finding The Story

Telling your own story is daunting. Where do you start? In my writing, I always aim to uncover the “why.” Why is this story special, why is it different, and why does it matter?

A press release packed with A.I. fluff, technical jargon, and self-congratulation means nothing to a reporter or a potential customer. I have a built-in filter that separates what a company wants to say from what an audience actually wants to know. Writers instinctively reframe “we launched a new feature” into “here’s the problem this solves and why it matters.”

Skeptical by Training

One of the most underrated skills a former journalist brings to a corporate role is healthy skepticism. When you’ve spent years fact-checking claims, pushing back on vague language, and asking “is that really true?” you bring an inherent skepticism that serves your client well. Messaging holds up to scrutiny with accurate stats, defensible claims, and language that won’t embarrass the company if a customer or competitor pushes back. Content built by people trained to question everything is more credible.

Know Your Audience

Reporters don’t write for their editors, they write for readers, viewers, or listeners, and they’ve spent years learning what makes those people stop scrolling, keep reading, or share something with a friend. That audience-first mindset is exactly what brand journalism and content marketing claim to want, but rarely achieve.

Building Narrative

Modern journalists rarely do just one thing. I’m the perfect example. I’ve hosted podcasts, written a book, managed social media accounts, launched newsletters, built sales decks, shot photos and video, and directed staffs. That cross-format fluency is enormously valuable to a corporate content team that needs to turn one announcement into a blog post, a LinkedIn thread, a short video, and an executive talking points memo, all telling a consistent story without sounding like four different documents stitched together.

Relationships Matter

I still write for several magazines in the boating and fishing space and I’ve built strong relationships with editors. I understand how editors think and what assets they need to publish a fully baked article. This helps me construct a pitch that lands versus one that gets deleted. I know the difference between a real story and a thinly disguised ad, and I can help boatbuilders and fishing tackle companies create solid story pitches that result in published content and improve a company’s media relations, not just its owned content.

Just Write

Content marketing has spent the last decade trying to teach marketers to write like journalists — to find the story, cut the fluff, and respect the reader’s time. Meanwhile, an entire generation of people who already know how to do exactly that are leaving newsrooms in large numbers. Companies that recognize this skillset and hire an agency like CatchFire Communications to tell their story will end up with content that doesn’t just promote the brand — it actually gets read.