Journalists work hard to uncover lies, speak truth to power, and keep democracy alive. Sadly, despite accomplishing these noble duties, they must also apply for jobs and gigs like the rest of us.
Like the rest of us, they, too, need an online portfolio that showcases their past publications and accomplishments. This is especially true if they are a freelance writer.
In this article, I'll introduce you to 8 excellent journalist website examples. No matter your beat (investigative, entertainment, lifestyle, tech, etc.) or writing style, you can probably find inspiration in these portfolio websites. Since freelance writing requires pitching to potential clients quite frequently, you'll need a writing portfolio that depicts you as the highly competent and inspiring journalist that you are.
I'll also introduce you to a tool that helps you create a visually appealing, easy-to-navigate, and comprehensive journalistic portfolio in literally minutes.
• Social media is one of the most profitable and effective forms of digital marketing in existence. But not every social media post will get you customers. Good content will.
• Well, what is "good" in this regard? The experts are best able to answer that. In this article, you'll see seven examples of "good" social media content. They are crafted and published by well-known market leaders: Taboola, HubSpot, Google, Moz, etc. These posts have generated desirable results, and any social media content creator can take a page (or five) out of their books.
• Good social media content is immediately relatable, brief (usually), and prioritizes the viewer/reader's perspective. In other words, it has to be something that matters to your audience. These examples will reveal how the best brands do exactly that.
• Now, once you have your excellent social media posts to your name, it's time to show them off on your social media portfolio. If you don't already have one or are planning to upgrade your existing portfolio, take a moment to look through the three social media portfolio examples in this piece. When you know what the industry standards are, you can meet and even surpass them.
• Finally, consider a portfolio-building tool that does 90% of the work for you. Check out the video on "How Authory works" — you enter the URL of the sites where your work is published, and Authory will import all your bylined work to its database. You can now look through all your pieces in a single location.
8 Journalist Portfolio Websites That Impress Potential Clients And Get Gigs
Simon Denyer
Simon Denyer is a wildlife conservation consultant, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and author. He was also a former bureau chief with The Washington Post and Reuters. Simon has written the book "Rogue Elephant: Harnessing the Power of India's Unruly Democracy."
Donald Bostrom
As the top fold of his website states, Donald Bostrom covers everything "from the Middle East conflict to the fine art of brewing coffee." His homepage also keeps changing the location at the end of "Right now, I am on my way to..." depending on where his latest projects take him. The last time I visited the site, he was headed to Ethiopia.
Donald is a veteran in the truest sense of the word. He is a writer, journalist, and photographer who has been assigned to travel and work in more than 80 countries. He has reported for newspapers, magazines, and TV. Some of his stories have even been adapted for books and film.
He has authored multiple books, pouring into them his skills as a writer, photographer, and designer. He writes books about food, blends wine for restaurants, and lectures about coffee.
To say that Donald lives an interesting life is an unforgivable understatement.
Tim Robson
Tim Robson has been an automotive journalist, photographer, and presenter since 1999. His work has appeared in publications like Wheels, MOTOR, Top Gear, GoAuto, CarsGuide, 4x4 Australia, and more.
His two-decade career has seen him test more than 1200 vehicles in more than a dozen countries, and more than 10 million people have watched video content that he has scripted, produced, and hosted. You can catch all that and more on his portfolio page.
Noran Morsi
Noran Morsi is a New York-based visual journalist and producer. Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, she pursues journalism, theater, and TV, while also engaging in illustrating as a labor of love.
She worked as a Production Intern at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, working with multiple departments. She has also worked as a Digital Content Producer at NYU Gallatin, where her work resulted in a 20% boost in social media engagement.
As a Culture Reporter & Podcast Producer at Egyptian Streets, Noran highlighted the contributions of Egyptian artists and cultural events, achieving a 50% growth in podcast subscribers within six months. She is fluent in Arabic and has a Master of Fine Arts in Journalism from NYU. She is also an Adobe Creative Suite expert.
Sheena Roetman
Sheena Roetman is a freelance journalist, writer, and the education director at the Native American Journalists Association. She has also worked as a membership director at the Atlanta Press Club and former news and investigations for Indian Country Today, so her writing skills are well-established.
Jana Cholakovska
Jana Cholakovska is a cross-border data fellow with Columbia Journalism Investigations and a grant winner with the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia University.
She has worked with The Washington Post, Grist, The Guardian, Public Health Watch, Business Insider, VICE, and more. Her reporting skills were practiced and refined at the Investigative Reporting Lab in North Macedonia, her place of origin.
Jana holds a master’s degree from Columbia University and a dual degree from New York University.
Amal AlTauqi
Amal AlTauqi is a creative and motivated journalist, editor, and publicist based in the East Midlands, United Kingdom.
With over five years of industry experience, she has worked for traditional broadcasting publications like the BBC and The Guardian Newspaper, as well as digital media outlets like Link Up TV, GRM Daily, and PAUSE Magazine.
Her writing samples cover a wide range of topics, including music, fashion, and lifestyle, as well as her ability to deliver traditional news reports, making her a candidate anyone would highly recommend for any employer.
Suleika Jaouad
Suleika Jaouad is the author of a New York Times bestselling memoir and the Emmy Award-winning New York Times column “Life, Interrupted.” Her reported features and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Vogue, and NPR, among others.
She is also a speaker whose mainstage TED Talk was one of the ten most popular of 2019 and has nearly five million views. She created Isolation Journals, a community creativity project founded during the COVID-19 pandemic to help "convert isolation into artistic solitude."
She has served on Barack Obama's Presidential Cancer Panel, the national advisory board of Family Reach and the Bone Marrow and Cancer Foundation, and the Brooklyn Public Library’s Arts & Letters Committee. She was awarded the Red Door Advocacy & Community Service Award.
She has appeared on the Today Show, NPR's Talk of the Nation, the Paris Review, the Los Angeles Times, and Glamour, among others.
Create a journalism portfolio (as good as these journalist website examples) in literal minutes with Authory
Authory doesn’t just give you the space to copy-paste links for writing portfolio sites. It literally does over half the work: finding all bylined content you’ve ever published, importing it automatically, saving it permanently (again, automatically), and enabling you to organize your pieces into different collections.
So, here's why you, dear journalist, should use Authory to create your easy-to-navigate, industry-best journalism portfolio.
A self-updating portfolio (no need to keep adding new work manually)
Authory will AUTOMATICALLY import a copy of every bylined piece from every site into its own database.
You don't have to track down links to your published work (especially older pieces). As long as you remember the URL of the site where your work exists, Authory will collate all your content for you in one dashboard.
Automated backups (never lose your content, ever)
All the content that Authory imports from different sources is saved permanently. You'll never have to worry about losing any of your published work. Even if the original website where it's published goes defunct for any reason, you'll always have a copy safely stored on Authory's server.
All backups are in the original format — text and/or media. No screenshots.
Continued importing of past and future content (less effort for a 100% updated portfolio)
Once you enter a source, Authory won't just import your existing publications. Anything you publish on the same site (after you've fed its URL into Authory) in the future will also be imported automatically. In other words, Authory will import your past and future content.
Authory also sends email notifications for every new piece it imports, so you'll always know if something you submitted has been published.
Of course, you should NOT take my word for it. The only opinions you can truly count on are your own.
Get started with Authory for free and see for yourself what works for you!
