You know what it's like. You are sitting at your computer in the office, concentrating on the words you have written. Your story is just not coming together. You can't find the right words. It's just not flowing in the poetic form you envision and that telephone won't stop ringing!
Somebody, pick up the phone!
This tip comes from Bob Schieffer of CBS News.
He tells the story of working in a Fort Worth, Texas, newspaper on the afternoon President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
He answered one of those ringing phones to hear a polite lady on the other end ask for a ride.
This isn't a taxi service, ma'am. The President of the United States has been shot. We're a newspaper!
"I know. I think my son shot him."
The sweet little old lady on the other end of the phone line was the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald and because Schieffer picked up the phone, he was able to pick her up and get an exclusive interview while he drove her across town.
As I wrote in an earlier column, we need to get out of the office, go see people and not rely on our telephones. But the result of going to see people is that quite often they call us!
I am not a fan of letting voice mail answer the office phone.
My managing editor can press a button and see who is calling, thanks to caller ID, but I'm old school. When the phone rings, I want to answer it. It might be someone like Mrs. Oswald and I may not get a second chance at the story.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Sunshine laws
What are the sunshine laws in your state?
I don't know about your state but here in Indiana there is a whole body of laws passed by the Legislature with one purpose: To protect Hoosiers' right to know what their local and state governments are doing.
I spent a couple hours last Friday sitting in the offices of the Hoosier State Press Association, learning the latest about Indiana's sunshine laws from Steve Key, the director of the Hoosier State Press Association.
Steve is an attorney as well as a former journalist.
He gave all the reporters in our little group from The Paper of Montgomery County and The Times of Noblesville the latest booklet of information about our state's sunshine laws.
Reading state statutes may not be exciting but the information is extremely valuable when you are chasing down that sexy story you just have to be the first to break.
There is probably someone like Steve Key in your state to whom you can go when you have questions.
Three examples come to mind.
Several years ago, we learned our county commissioners were meeting without notice to interview candidates for a job. We called Steve and got an opinion we could publish along with a banner story about the apparently secret meetings (even though they were being held in the commissioners' room in the county courthouse.)
A couple years ago, the story broke that a married county official was using her county e-mail to romance an official in another county. We asked and quickly learned what we could do to get a copy of those e-mails. That story, I'm sorry to say, was not our exclusive but we stayed on top of it from day one.
I learned a lot about Indiana's Open Door Law through that experience and those elected officials learned to use Gmail or Yahoo for their dalliances. Last I heard, she was divorced and they were getting married.
More recently, a police officer tried to confiscate my smart phone after I took photos of a factory parking lot where a police officer had shot a man who allegedly tried to attack the officer.
I did not surrender my phone and told the officer he would have to arrest me to get it.
After the fact, I called Steve Key to learn what my rights really were under the law. I had run a bluff with the officer and it worked. Despite my bravado, I really didn't know what my rights were in that situation but I knew my publisher and editor would stand by me if I was arrested.
And, that's the real lesson of this column. Don't be afraid to ask questions from someone like Steve Key when you don't know the law.
No one expects reporters or editors to be attorneys any more than we are expected to be medical experts or experts in nearly any field we cover. But we should be wise enough to learn who to go to for the answers.
By the way, my wife was not at all thrilled with the idea I might have gone to jail. Oh, well.
I don't know about your state but here in Indiana there is a whole body of laws passed by the Legislature with one purpose: To protect Hoosiers' right to know what their local and state governments are doing.
I spent a couple hours last Friday sitting in the offices of the Hoosier State Press Association, learning the latest about Indiana's sunshine laws from Steve Key, the director of the Hoosier State Press Association.
Steve is an attorney as well as a former journalist.
He gave all the reporters in our little group from The Paper of Montgomery County and The Times of Noblesville the latest booklet of information about our state's sunshine laws.
Reading state statutes may not be exciting but the information is extremely valuable when you are chasing down that sexy story you just have to be the first to break.
There is probably someone like Steve Key in your state to whom you can go when you have questions.
Three examples come to mind.
Several years ago, we learned our county commissioners were meeting without notice to interview candidates for a job. We called Steve and got an opinion we could publish along with a banner story about the apparently secret meetings (even though they were being held in the commissioners' room in the county courthouse.)
A couple years ago, the story broke that a married county official was using her county e-mail to romance an official in another county. We asked and quickly learned what we could do to get a copy of those e-mails. That story, I'm sorry to say, was not our exclusive but we stayed on top of it from day one.
I learned a lot about Indiana's Open Door Law through that experience and those elected officials learned to use Gmail or Yahoo for their dalliances. Last I heard, she was divorced and they were getting married.
More recently, a police officer tried to confiscate my smart phone after I took photos of a factory parking lot where a police officer had shot a man who allegedly tried to attack the officer.
I did not surrender my phone and told the officer he would have to arrest me to get it.
After the fact, I called Steve Key to learn what my rights really were under the law. I had run a bluff with the officer and it worked. Despite my bravado, I really didn't know what my rights were in that situation but I knew my publisher and editor would stand by me if I was arrested.
And, that's the real lesson of this column. Don't be afraid to ask questions from someone like Steve Key when you don't know the law.
No one expects reporters or editors to be attorneys any more than we are expected to be medical experts or experts in nearly any field we cover. But we should be wise enough to learn who to go to for the answers.
By the way, my wife was not at all thrilled with the idea I might have gone to jail. Oh, well.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Pretend the Internet was never invented!
Reporters need to understand this: There is no substitute for face to face contact.
A few of us were sitting in the newsroom one afternoon. I was working on a story and it looked like the other two reporters had nothing to do.
Before long one of them sighed and said, "I wish he would call me back."
The problem was this: He had called a source, left a message and was waiting for the source to call him back.
It wasn't going to happen.
"You know, his office is two blocks away," I offered. "You can drive anywhere in town in 10 minutes."
Now I love technology as much as anyone.
I love my smart phone (ask my wife; she thinks I can't put it down.)Right now, I am writing this blog entry, sitting in the living room. My wife and I are watching "Frasier" on the Hallmark Channel and my laptop is setting on my lap top. I am wearing -- well, you get the idea.
But given the choice I will always go see my sources.
I stumbled on to this totally by accident.
When I became a full time radio reporter I found it necessary to go to the meetings, city council, board of zoning appeals, plan commission, county council, county commissioners, etc. I had the lofty title of News Director but in reality I was a one-man news department.
My boss told me when I started, "I better not read it in the Journal Review before I hear it on our stations!"
As a result, for four years I slept four to six hours each night and tried to grab a quick nap in the afternoons.
But I noticed I was covering the same meetings distributed among three newspaper reporters from the newspaper in town.
Apparently, the elected officials I was covering noticed it, too.
I found that when I called them, they either came to the phone or called me back in short order.
I thought that was standard procedure until I heard other reporters complain they weren't being called back.
It also helped that I paid attention and soon learned about the relationships of those people. I soon learned the city council woman was married to the judge and they both grew up in the small town where my family lived at the time.
I learned the woman on the board of zoning appeals was married to the county council's attorney. And, so on and so forth.
A few years later, I accepted a job as reporter with a newspaper in another city.
A week before I was supposed to leave I was driving through the downtown. It was lunch time and I began watching people while stopped at a traffic light.
Amazingly, I realized I knew nearly every person I saw and had interviewed most of them.
I asked my editor to tear up my resignation and I begged off the new job in a different city.
There is a line from "The Music Man" the describes what happened to me and sometimes happens to other reporters.
"I got my foot caught in the door, Winthrop," says the Music Man, Prof. Harold Hill. He may be from Gary, Indiana, but he found himself in love with the people in a small town in Iowa.
Take time to see the people. Talk to them face to face. Try to leave your phone in your pocket and cut back on writing e-mails. See the people! You will really be glad professionally ... and personally.
A few of us were sitting in the newsroom one afternoon. I was working on a story and it looked like the other two reporters had nothing to do.
Before long one of them sighed and said, "I wish he would call me back."
The problem was this: He had called a source, left a message and was waiting for the source to call him back.
It wasn't going to happen.
"You know, his office is two blocks away," I offered. "You can drive anywhere in town in 10 minutes."
Now I love technology as much as anyone.
I love my smart phone (ask my wife; she thinks I can't put it down.)Right now, I am writing this blog entry, sitting in the living room. My wife and I are watching "Frasier" on the Hallmark Channel and my laptop is setting on my lap top. I am wearing -- well, you get the idea.
But given the choice I will always go see my sources.
I stumbled on to this totally by accident.
When I became a full time radio reporter I found it necessary to go to the meetings, city council, board of zoning appeals, plan commission, county council, county commissioners, etc. I had the lofty title of News Director but in reality I was a one-man news department.
My boss told me when I started, "I better not read it in the Journal Review before I hear it on our stations!"
As a result, for four years I slept four to six hours each night and tried to grab a quick nap in the afternoons.
But I noticed I was covering the same meetings distributed among three newspaper reporters from the newspaper in town.
Apparently, the elected officials I was covering noticed it, too.
I found that when I called them, they either came to the phone or called me back in short order.
I thought that was standard procedure until I heard other reporters complain they weren't being called back.
It also helped that I paid attention and soon learned about the relationships of those people. I soon learned the city council woman was married to the judge and they both grew up in the small town where my family lived at the time.
I learned the woman on the board of zoning appeals was married to the county council's attorney. And, so on and so forth.
A few years later, I accepted a job as reporter with a newspaper in another city.
A week before I was supposed to leave I was driving through the downtown. It was lunch time and I began watching people while stopped at a traffic light.
Amazingly, I realized I knew nearly every person I saw and had interviewed most of them.
I asked my editor to tear up my resignation and I begged off the new job in a different city.
There is a line from "The Music Man" the describes what happened to me and sometimes happens to other reporters.
"I got my foot caught in the door, Winthrop," says the Music Man, Prof. Harold Hill. He may be from Gary, Indiana, but he found himself in love with the people in a small town in Iowa.
Take time to see the people. Talk to them face to face. Try to leave your phone in your pocket and cut back on writing e-mails. See the people! You will really be glad professionally ... and personally.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Be a reporter!
I love being a reporter! And that's what this blog is all about. It will be an opportunity for reporters - especially young reporters - to gather and share about the best profession in the world (as far as many of us are concerned.)
How did this blog come about?
I became a "reporter" in first grade. Mrs. Lagoni asked Kay and I to talk about our bicycles. As we did so, she drew on paper using crayons and I quickly learned I liked telling people about something.
When my parents and other adults played Pinochle I would become bored. I can remember going around the table one day and reading out loud the cards each adult was holding. I wasn't punished but I knew dad didn't like it very much.
At eight years old I wrote my first "article" using my brand new fountain pen.
I wrote about our new puppy, "Midget."
I found that 3 by 5 card a few years ago and that first report looked pretty good. It had heart, solid information -- and the words were spelled correctly!
In college, I was the model volunteer at our 10-watt radio station, WLCC. My first reporting job was what I learned was "rip and read" of United Press International wire headlines at halftime during the Lincoln Community High School football game.
A year later, in 1971, I submitted my first article that was published in "Christian Standard" magazine published by Standard Publishing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Over the subsequent years leading up to 1994, my free lance articles helped pay the way for our growing family.
One Saturday, our family kept a commitment to go to King's Island in Ohio with our church, even though we really didn't have the money to do so.
When I got home from that day, I found a check for $100 for a book review I had written for "Leadership" magazine.
My wife, Linda, once said we wouldn't have been able to buy groceries some weeks if it hadn't been for my writing.
In 1994, I became the news director of WCVL-WIMC radio and four years later, I landed a job with the Journal Review newspaper in Crawfordsville, Ind.
Since then I have been the editor of two daily newspapers and am currently a reporter for a daily.
Reporting has, without a doubt, been my favorite job over my 61 years. I love it.
If I were ever to retire I would take my Social Security check and other savings and use my free time to be a free lance writer.
I have worked with many reporters over the years. Many of them have been young reporters. Some have been very good. One young lady, in particular, now works in Washington, D.C.
There have been a few things they all had in common. They all wanted to write, they all wanted to have their work read and appreciated and they all were short of money.
I bought some of them books. I love to give reporters a copy of Stephen King's "On Writing" and a copy of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style."
I decided to start this blog because we all need advice, many reporters don't have the money to buy books (though we should) and there just isn't a lot of information out there.
I just did a search of the Internet for "reporter advice." There were a couple websites. One was filled with nearly 70 "tips" but it hasn't been updated since 2009.
So, I have become convinced we can do this together. I will share what I have learned over the years and I hope you will likewise share your advice with the rest of us. I truly want this to be an interactive publication.
Write me! My address is frank.phillips@gmail.com.
How did this blog come about?
I became a "reporter" in first grade. Mrs. Lagoni asked Kay and I to talk about our bicycles. As we did so, she drew on paper using crayons and I quickly learned I liked telling people about something.
When my parents and other adults played Pinochle I would become bored. I can remember going around the table one day and reading out loud the cards each adult was holding. I wasn't punished but I knew dad didn't like it very much.
At eight years old I wrote my first "article" using my brand new fountain pen.
I wrote about our new puppy, "Midget."
I found that 3 by 5 card a few years ago and that first report looked pretty good. It had heart, solid information -- and the words were spelled correctly!
In college, I was the model volunteer at our 10-watt radio station, WLCC. My first reporting job was what I learned was "rip and read" of United Press International wire headlines at halftime during the Lincoln Community High School football game.
A year later, in 1971, I submitted my first article that was published in "Christian Standard" magazine published by Standard Publishing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Over the subsequent years leading up to 1994, my free lance articles helped pay the way for our growing family.
One Saturday, our family kept a commitment to go to King's Island in Ohio with our church, even though we really didn't have the money to do so.
When I got home from that day, I found a check for $100 for a book review I had written for "Leadership" magazine.
My wife, Linda, once said we wouldn't have been able to buy groceries some weeks if it hadn't been for my writing.
In 1994, I became the news director of WCVL-WIMC radio and four years later, I landed a job with the Journal Review newspaper in Crawfordsville, Ind.
Since then I have been the editor of two daily newspapers and am currently a reporter for a daily.
Reporting has, without a doubt, been my favorite job over my 61 years. I love it.
If I were ever to retire I would take my Social Security check and other savings and use my free time to be a free lance writer.
I have worked with many reporters over the years. Many of them have been young reporters. Some have been very good. One young lady, in particular, now works in Washington, D.C.
There have been a few things they all had in common. They all wanted to write, they all wanted to have their work read and appreciated and they all were short of money.
I bought some of them books. I love to give reporters a copy of Stephen King's "On Writing" and a copy of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style."
I decided to start this blog because we all need advice, many reporters don't have the money to buy books (though we should) and there just isn't a lot of information out there.
I just did a search of the Internet for "reporter advice." There were a couple websites. One was filled with nearly 70 "tips" but it hasn't been updated since 2009.
So, I have become convinced we can do this together. I will share what I have learned over the years and I hope you will likewise share your advice with the rest of us. I truly want this to be an interactive publication.
Write me! My address is frank.phillips@gmail.com.
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