WHY hire us
If you’ve ever seen any old movies about the newspaper business, you might recognize our home page photo from the movie His Girl Friday. (For more on this great film, see below.)
If you haven’t, here’s how things go down: Reporters (usually a bunch of grizzled guys wearing hats and chomping cigars) are out on the scene, covering the story. Once they get the details (of the fire, the murder, the scandal), they run to a pay phone, dial the newsroom, and, when the operator answers, they deliver the classic line:
Hello Sweetheart! Get me rewrite!
The call goes to the “rewrite” man — or woman — who takes all the information from the reporter and turns it into front page copy.
In today’s world, you — the business owner, the artist, the non-profit fundraiser — are just like that reporter out in the field. You know what’s going on. You have all the information. You know your story better than anyone. You just need someone to help you tell it.
That’s where we come in.
When you hire re:Write, you get a team of skilled professional writers and communicators, with decades of experience in the media world. We know how to assess — quickly — all the pieces of your story, craft a consistent message, and deliver it in a way that engages your audience.
Our reputation for accuracy and credibility is precious to us. Combined with a consistent level of excellence, it’s why our clients hire us, why they keep us on their team, and why they continue to recommend us.
P.S.: We never, ever, miss a deadline.
The Scoop on His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a classic screwball comedy from 1940. Directed by Howard Hawks, it stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and the crackling dialogue of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (who perfected their craft as journalists). It’s based on their earlier play “The Front Page.”
Why is this film the guiding spirit of re:Write?
First of all, it’s hilarious. Grant and Russell have great chemistry, and they’re masterful with the script’s comic tone. Their rapid-fire, overlapping dialog (some of which is said to have been improvised on the set) is a joy to listen to, even decades later. While we take our business (and yours) seriously, laughter is good.
More specifically for our purposes, His Girl Friday is about journalism. That’s where your team at re:Write comes from (just like Hecht and MacArthur), so the story really resonates for us.
Not all the resonance is positive. Its depiction of reporters and newspapering over 70 years ago is jaundiced. We wince while we laugh at the reporters basically making up “facts,” and news bosses engaging in bribery, sensationalism, and political extortion, all in the name of selling papers.
But on the plus side, His Girl Friday is about the thrill of getting a good story, and telling it better than anybody else. That means the world to us.
And “get me rewrite!”? For people who’ve experienced a never-ending spiral of shrinking newsroom resources, the idea that once upon a time there was a whole news department dedicated to polishing prose and helping reporters organize their facts is at once sad… and inspiring.
One more reason we love the movie: it’s written brilliantly.
Your business may not be a screwball comedy (we hope it isn’t!) But we know it can profit from words that sing, sparkle, delight, and amaze. Why should great writing only live on the silver screen? Let us answer your call for “rewrite!” in the 21st century.
(For the record–and so you know we respect intellectual property–the film is in the public domain. A lucky break for us. We hope we do it justice.)