Covering a Beat This is intended to be a general guide for a new reporter assigned to cover a beat. Perhaps it will be helpful as well to some old hands. Contacts A reporter needs to
establish as many contacts - both official and unofficial - as possible.
Anyone who is informed is a possible contact, a source for information
or a tip that might lead to information. Regard everyone as
a possible source - not only the heads of departments on your beat but
also the rank and file: secretaries, assistants, clerks. Some of these
may be people you will never quote, but if they get to know and respect
you, they can be invaluable in steering you to a story. Don't overlook
outsiders, either - the political opponent or political junkie who keeps
an eye and ear on a department, the gadfly. The reporter must
tread delicately in dealing with sources. You must have their trust and
respect. They need to know that your word is your bond. Which means, among
other things, that you mustn't give your word too easily. If you let yourself
get sucked into too many agreements to keep something off the record,
for example, you will be hamstrung. You need to be friendly
but not effusive, firm but not abrasive or confrontational. You make contacts,
of course, by spending time talking with people. If you can catch them
when they are not too busy, take the time to learn something about them.
Ask a question that indicates an interest in them as individuals. If they
see you only when you need something from them, they may feel that you
only want to use them. If you are trying
to cultivate a contact, look for favors that you can do for him, within
reason of course. A reporter might write a little feature story about
the person's work if it is a legitimate story. If a source is potentially
an important one or has already been helpful, there is nothing wrong with
sending a small gift, such as a fruit basket, bouquet or plant. Even something
as simple as a magazine cthat contains articles about a person's hobby,
or a paperback book, can help make a source feel friendly toward you. Key people on your
beat should be seen or called on a regular basis. A police reporter, for
example, should make it a point to see the police chief and key commanders
on a weekly if not daily basis. A reporter covering a county beat should
see the county manager regularly. Make it a point to
have specific questions for these people. Never drop in with a question
that invites the contact to get rid of you. Don't say, "What's going
on?" Unless he wants to use you to promote something for him, the
official will answer your question by saying, "Nothing much." Ask a specific question about some facet of the official's job or department. This will likely get a response that will be helpful. If nothing else, you will get some information that will add to your store of background knowledge. It will be information that will be useful later even if it doesn't give you a story today. Keeping Lists You should keep a
list of names and numbers of sources. It helps to put them in a looseleaf
notebook and jot down when you last talked to a source and what you talked
about. Jot down questions for next time. There are at least
three other lists a beat reporter needs to keep:
Read journals and
other newspapers for ideas and stories that can be done locally. Ask other
reporters for tips on how to cover a beat and on how they come up with
ideas. And he needs to keep
an eye on budgets and spending. Who's doing business with a government
agency? What is it costing the taxpayers? Are there any hidden connections
between those who award the contracts and those who get them? Most beat reporters
probably don't follow the money as well as they should. Even when such
scrutiny doesn't turn up wrongdoing, there is great interest in how public
money is spent. Don't overlook the
opportunity for offbeat stories. And don't overlook the obvious. For example,
in one North Carolina city, the same gadfly appeared at city council meetings.
He was such a fixture that the reporter covering the beat paid no attention.
Obviously, it wasn't news when the fellow threw some barbs at a particular
meeting. But you could live in that city for years and not know that the
gadfly was part of the scene. It should have occurred to the reporter
at some point that the gadfly might be the subject of an offbeat feature. Your goal as a beat
reporter should be not only to keep your readers informed about important
happenings but also to give them the flavor of the beat. A reporter new to
a beat should set out to learn everything he can about the people and
institutions he is covering. He needs to know the politics - who's allied
with whom - and the mechanics, how and why things get done. He needs to
know what records are available and how to get to them. The more the reporter
learns, the more valuable he can be to his newspaper. But familiarity
with a beat carries its own pitfalls. One we have already alluded to:
It is easy to develop a ho-hum attitude, to forget that matters familiar
to the reporter may be interesting to others. A rookie, bringing a fresh
view and new curiousity, will often see stories on a beat that the veteran
has overlooked. A reporter who can
combine a newcomer's perspective with a veteran's inside knowledge approaches
the ideal. to refrain from becoming
an advocate instead of an observer. A reporter who finds that happening to him should ask for a transfer. Those Meetings Inevitably, there
are meetings to be covered on your beat. The challenge is to cover meetings
well without letting them dominate your approach to the beat. Too many
newspapers simply write about the meetings, often in long and boring detail,
and don't do any independent digging. A dull meeting does
not justify a long and dull story. Too often a reporter gets caught up
in the nuts and bolts, and that translates into tedious writing. In most
instances, you are better off to skip the nuts and bolts; concentrate
on what matters to a reader, how it will affect his life and purse. Keep
stories tight. Many a long meeting story would be better handled as two
or three shorter stories. And many a meeting
story would be vastly more interesting to readers if the reporter would
work in a bit of color or human interest. Did someone toss off a good
one-liner at the meeting? Why not put it in the story? Often, a colorful
quote or a line or two about some byplay in a meeting will be more informative
to the readers than anything else. If Smith tells Jones: "You idiot,
I'd never vote for that nonsense," put the quote in. Some reporters,
believe it or not, would leave it out on the grounds that Smith and Jones
are always carping at each other. So instead of putting in the interesting
byplay, the reporters write: "Smith said he wouldn't vote for the
proposal," and the readers never do know that Smith and Jones are
always sniping at each other. Or the reporter will say he doesn't have
space for that sort of thing. Usually, he'd have the space if he left
out a paragraph or two of minutiae that couldn't possibly interest anyone
but the insiders. Almost every meeting
- even a dull one - is good for ideas. Chances are good that you will
hear something that contains the germ of an idea for a feature that can
be developed later. A reporter who comes out of a meeting without an idea or two has probably been sleeping. Press Agents A fact of life on
most beats is the existence of one or more press agents. The worst of these
people are whores. The best are honorable people who won't lie to you
or try to sandbag you. His job is to get
favorable publicity for his boss or agency, to minimize unfavorable publicity.
He is not likely to volunteer the bad news. You will have to dig that
out for yourself. What you get from the press agent is likely to be superficial. A reporter who merely takes the handout isn't doing his job. Tips And Tactics Here is some advice
that has worked for other reporters covering beats:
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