Om Malik on daily journalism

Some good advice for journalists from Om Malik, even if it swims against the “volume over all” tide:

At Gigaom we didn’t push our reporters to do 10 posts a day. I always advised folks to write on an average 1,250 words a day. That could be a single piece, two pieces or four. More than 25 years of writing have taught me that if you keep writing more on a daily basis, you get sloppy and repetitive and lose your edge. You end up using the same words again and again. There is a blandness when you have to write 3,000 to 4,000 words a day.

I have had 6,000 days and even 10,000 days – but it’s just not sustainable. If I’m in writing mode regularly, around 1,250 to 1,500 seems right and sustainable – if you’re going to do anything than recycle the words of others.