Obstacles to reporting

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Gathering and Developing the News

186 calificaciones

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Michigan State University

Gathering and Developing the News

186 calificaciones

Curso 2 de 5 en SpecializationBecome a Journalist: Report the News!

Journalists develop information through interviews and sources. The most successful journalists quickly master these important skill sets. The production of journalism relies on several elements: newsgathering, interviewing sources, researching and trying to find as much information as possible. The course will also teach you how to where to find information, interviewing skills and how to process information from various sources for publication.

De la lección

Earning and keeping trust

How - and where - journalists obtain information can determine if their news reports will be deemed credible and trustworthy by their audience. Finding the best sources for information and quotes is a process conducted by every professional journalist. You will learn the best ways to find information and sources for your reporting.

Obstacles to reporting8:35

Conoce a los instructores

Joanne Gerstner
Sports Journalist in Residence
Michigan State University School of Journalism
Jeremy Steele
Specialist
Michigan State University School of Journalism
David Poulson
Instructor
School of Journalism
Eric Freedman
Instructor
School of Journalism
Joe Grimm
Instructor
School of Journalism
Lucinda D. Davenport
Director & Professor
School of Journalism

[MUSIC]

Welcome to Be a Journalist.

I'm Dave Poulson and

in this lesson we will discuss some common obstacles to reporting.

Now many reporting challenges come from simple misunderstandings.

There's an old joke about a reporter who wrote that a fire at a local

farm killed 2003 piglets.

Now that's a big farm.

That's a rural disaster.

But when the farmer saw the story, he got mad and called the reporter up and

said, you dummy, I didn't say that I lost 2003 piglets.

It was two sows, and three piglets.

Or how about the journalist who reported that a bank robbery witness

said the crooks escaped in a brown car.

But what the witness really said was that the crooks escaped in one of these.

Now wouldn't that have been a heck of a story.

Especially if it were four crooks crammed into the same clown car.

So these are funny and probably untrue, but

they show how easy it is to make mistakes even innocently.

But when journalists make mistakes, even the innocent ones or

those that are not their fault, everyone knows about it.

We publish and

broadcast our mistakes for everyone to see and we even sign our names to them.

And because of that, our credibility suffers for it.

So we want to carefully meet these reporting challenges.

Here are some others.

Witnesses of news events may simply recollect them incorrectly.

And you have no control over that.

There's no ill intent here.

We all make mistakes.

Particularly if we're stressed.

And being part of a news event is stressful.

Heck, getting interviewed by a journalist is plenty stressful,

particularly if it's your first time.

That's why journalists double check facts and use multiple sources.

They make sure that what they thought was said really was what the source said.

And even if it really was what that source said, was it what they intended to say?

Did they say what they meant?

We need to verify the accuracy of what we think are facts.

Our allegiance is always to the truth.

Some reporting obstacles are simply built into the nature of our job.

We journalists are a nosy bunch.

Most of our work is asking questions and people value their privacy.

Now some are just too shy to talk.

Of course, there are grandstanders and camera hogs, but

many people don't want whatever they say spread out for everyone to see.

And that's why journalists often have to be sensitive and probe gently.

Coaxing a reluctant source to speak with you requires some people skills.

They're the kind of skills that you only develop with experience.

Often reluctant sources can be convinced to talk by showing them that what they say

is important for the public to understand.

Sometimes you have to explain how speaking up can be a civic duty

If the news story better informs or even protects the public from bad actors.

Here's an example.

Victims of scams are often embarrassed to talk about how they lost money

in a dubious scheme.

They feel kind of foolish for falling for it.

But explaining how they were duped can help other people escape that same fate.

That's a powerful card to play when dealing with people

reluctant to be interviewed.

And it works, because it's true.

A big part of our job is warning people of the dangers that are out there.

Now, laziness is another reporting obstacle, and

I don't mean laziness of the sort I mean laziness of the reporter.

It's easy for a source to avoid a lazy reporter.

When a reporter sends someone an email with a question

that source can simply ignore it.

But you're not doing your job if you then report that the person declined to respond

to questions.

You only send a single email.

That's lazy.

Your job is to get answers, even from people who don't want to provide them.

So don't be lazy.

Don't just send one email.

You could send dozens.

But better yet, call that person up repeatedly.

Heck, call them hourly.

Still not working?

Show up at their office or at their home.

Convince them that the only way you're going away

is if you get what you came for.

A good reporter overcomes their own natural reluctance to be persistent.

You can be politely persistent.

Without being pushy.

That said, sometimes you need to be pushy.

Sometimes a source will just dig in their heels and refuse to release information.

And that's a tough challenge.

If it's a government official sitting on public information

you might seek answers with the help of laws designed to make sure

that public information is indeed made public.

Now these laws vary dramatically by country, and even within the same country.

Often they're nonexistent, and sometimes they have the opposite impact, making

it even harder to disclose information that you believe should be public.

Perhaps you risk getting arrested if you publish what you know.

Now that's a significant reporting hurdle.

Regardless, the legal route almost always takes too much time and

you need answers now.

Another approach is to simply report the truth.

Keep asking those questions and

keep reporting truthfully if someone refuses to answer them.

Often that generates pressure for the source to finally say something.

Now another challenge is that reporters cover so

many different things that they can't be expert in all of them.

So, if you're writing about, say, education and you typically report on

transportation, you may not fully understand the jargon of your sources, or

the issues that they are talking about, and

believe me those education people can talk a lot of jargon.

In fact, we all do, everyone does within their own field.

And that works within our own communities but

we're trying to explain things to people outside those communities.

We have to cut through that jargon.

Now reporters can overcome this deficiency by taking specialized workshops,

or other training opportunities.

Some of them maybe even get another degree so

they can better report on a particular topic.

That they're specializing in.

But mostly, mostly they overcome the lack of specialized knowledge

by getting thrown into the deep end of the pool of new story.

And struggling a big until they learn to swim in new waters.

And before they know it, they have good expertise on a number of diverse subjects.

Yet another challenge is simply access.

We can't all ask questions of star athletes, famous movie stars, and

powerful officials.

That access may depend upon who we work for, the clout of our organization,

or even our individual brand or

previous body of work we've built up across many publications.

And finally, the lack of time and

the pressure to produce quickly is a big reporting hurdle.

When you report fast, you can get sloppy.

And with fewer editors around these days,

there are fewer people to back stop any mistakes.

So resist that pressure to sacrifice accuracy for speed.

Your reputation and the reputation of you employer is at stake.

Perhaps the most significant barrier to reporting is trust.

Guess what?

People lie, for any number of reasons.

Just because they say it, doesn't make it true.

Just because it's on the Internet, doesn't make it true.

That's why reporters use multiple sources and double check facts.

But it works both ways.

If you're sloppy or simply bad at your job, people won't trust you.

Why should they tell you their story if they can't trust that you'll get it right?

Building that trust between reporter and sources is critical for

a successful journalist.

And we're going to talk about that in another lesson.

[MUSIC]

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