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.