Putting 'Constructive' Back into Criticism

The art of graciously accepting feedback

- Ms. Simone Preuss

As a journalist, revising one's work is necessary and it becomes second nature - you write, you edit, you write a bit more, you edit again. Once you are satisfied with the result, you submit, generally to an editor who has the final say if a story will be published or not.

Usually, my stories get accepted. Until recently. I had written an opinion piece, which I thought was pretty slick. And useful. With pictures I had clicked myself. However, opinion pieces are tricky and a bit of a hard sell, at least at the publication that I work for. In addition, they recently changed their business model from free to paywall, which means that content gets scrutinized more carefully.