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SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

1 Sources

What is a source? How can you find and develop good sources?

A source can be any individual, organization, or medium that can help a reporter on a story. Sources can range from traditional voices, such as government officials, to the unconventional ones , such as pop singers. You may think you have no idea how to find people to interview. You may be used to writing stories based on official handouts. Yet even if you don't realize it, you have many contacts that can be tapped.

It is important to find spokespeople on all sides who can comment and give context to stories. Obtaining comment from spokespeople on all sides helps balance the story by including a variety of (often conflicting) voices that allow the reader to make up his or her own mind.

Establish contact with experts who have studied both sides of an issue and might be able to provide a more objective analysis of events. Experts who are one step removed from the situation can often assess events and issues more dispassionately than those directly involved, and they offer the added benefit of being authorities in their field due to years of research or involvement on the topic. This adds credibility to their comments. Also use experts to shade in the background and history of an issue, giving the reader context in which to understand the present-day events.

Contact government spokespeople, but also conduct "man-on-the-street" interviews that can illustrate in narrow focus how a new law or phenomenon is affecting average citizens. Man-on-the-street reporting uses the lives and struggles of individual people to illustrate national economic or social policies.

Other sources include religious authorities, business leaders and union representatives, doctors and health care professionals, nonprofit agencies, artists, and members of subcultures. (For a thorough discussion of this topic, see Television/Radio News & Minorities by Donald R. Browne, Charles M. Firestone, and Ellen Mickiewicz, published in 1994 by the Aspen Institute and the Carter Center of Emory University.)

Draw up a list of your sources, share the list with colleagues, and keep adding to it as your work as a reporter moves forward. These sources may include individuals and organizations, both public and private.

This list you compile relates to the concept of a Multicultural Rolodex, a term coined by News Watch, a publication of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University. It is a concept that is being adopted in many American newsrooms. Instead of relying solely on dominant-culture, male "sources," the Multicultural Rolodex calls for reporters to find men and women of other religions and ethnic groups in business, politics, academia, and civic life who can provide authoritative opinions on a variety of subjects.

2 Interviewing

Knowing how to conduct interviews is vital to good journalism. Finding the person on the street who illustrates a trend, the bureaucrat who has the crucial statistic to illuminate a story, or the source with a poignant anecdote requires planning and research before the interview. And it requires a willingness to ask probing questions once interviewing is under way.

Here are some ideas for planning and conducting interviews.

• Draw Up a List of Interviews: Draw up a list of sources, then review it to ensure that it is balanced for ethnicity, class, race, gender, and religion. Equally important is that the interview choices avoid harmful stereotypes. (A multi-ethnic reporting team can help avoid such pitfalls: Each reporter can identify concerns that others might miss. This sensitizes the entire team to stereotyping and will,we hope, encourage efforts to avoid such depictions in the future.)
• Prepare the questions: Compile a list of questions to ask. Plot the story structure ahead of time and visualize the information you need to obtain from the interview. Make sure questions aren't open-ended or general. And prepare for follow-up questions by rehearsing the interview ahead of time.
• Hit the Five W's: Review those old journalism chestnuts: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. How will you answer those questions in a story? If this is too simplistic, try the alternate Five W's espoused by Art Charity, author of Doing Public Journalism. He suggests that reporters frame the interview in terms of community concerns and ask: What is the problem? Who does it affect? How and where does it affect them? When and why did it arise? Why won't it go away? This line of attack helps reporters frame questions that address the larger issues underlying a story and probe for answers as they write the stories.

3 Some Key Issues for Reporting and Writing

Focusing on the following issues can help journalists produce balanced, diverse, and objective articles that address the concerns of real people.

Diversity: Portray members of ethnic and racial groups fairly and accurately. Think about how the local media portrays members of individual ethnic groups verbally and visually. Does this tell the whole picture? What is a stereotype? What stereotypes exist about your own ethnic group. How do you feel when you see those stereotypes in print or on the air? Likewise, what are the hot-button issues in your community? What kind of a job does the local media do in portraying these important issues?

Also think about the results of the failure to cover an ethnic group in the media. Because this renders that group invisible, it can be as dangerous as stereotyping. It perpetuates the belief that a group is outside the mainstream of life and that its perspectives do not matter.

If and when do you plan to mention the race, religion, or ethnicity of people in stories? When are such distinctions needed, if ever? When is it important to the context of the story? How do your newspapers usually handle such identification with stories about crime? Politics? Human drama?

Some guides have been drawn up by journalism groups on diversity-related issues. In its "Tips for Journalists," News Watch suggests that one way to determine whether race or ethnicity is a proper identification factor in a story is to ask whether the individual's race would be relevant if he or she were white. (For more information on this, see the Seattle Times Diversity Checklist.

Mainstreaming: This refers to the concept of including women and people of color in general news stories and photographs and ensuring that the media represent fullness and complexities of their communities. Is coverage of some ethnic or racial communities limited to certain categories, such as sports, entertainment, or crime? How can your reporting expand that coverage?

Mainstreaming can be applied to photos as well as print coverage. Examine a local newspaper: Are some groups stereotyped or excluded from certain types of coverage?

Give Context: Showing the whole picture means not leaving out material that puts the story in context. For instance, a story that focuses on militant Albanians who advocate armed revolution in Macedonia to incorporate the western part of the country into a "greater Albania" is misleading and irresponsible if it fails to note that the vast majority of Albanians in Macedonia are peaceable and have no territorial ambitions. Such a story could easily stir up resentment and hatred in a country that is already smoldering with ethnic tensions toward Albanians, who comprise the largest minority in Macedonia.

Seeking Balance/Showing the Whole Picture: Stories usually aren't black and white, and there are often more than two sides to an issue. You may need to interview an official government spokesman, then members of the opposition party, then several "average citizens" who can illustrate the story, then an academic expert, then a union boss, and lastly a professional, such as a psychologist or doctor or health care expert, who can comment on the issue involved. Interviewing everyone involved in the debate, not only the ones who generate the most publicity, and helps shade in nuances.

Likewise, you may need to decide about including inflammatory statements. Ways to address this problem are to ask whether the statement is based on fact or rumor, whether it adds anything new or timely to the debate, and whether it can be verified by outside sources.

Avoid Loaded Language and Images: Steer clear of politically loaded language and imagery that will inflame public passions. This is not always clear-cut, however. While some words are almost universally offensive, others are more ambiguous or may have evolved over time to be more or less offensive. For instance, the word Oriental, frequently used in the past in the United States, is now considered inappropriate in describing a person of Asian descent. To clarify such usage, many newspapers have style books of words and phrases to avoid as offensive. (For more information, see "Project Zinger, A Critical Look at News Media Coverage of Asian Pacific Americans, excerpts from the Los Angeles Times Stylebook, and the Multicultural Management Program Dictionary of Cautionary Words and Phrases.)

Symbols such as music, flags, and uniforms can also be provocative images in reporting. In Northern Ireland, an area torn by ethnic and sectarian violence, reporter Paul Connelly points out that even place names can take on dangerous significance. Catholics call Northern Ireland's second largest city Derry. Protestants call it Londonderry. People have been killed for using the wrong version. While this case is extreme, there may be less drastic examples locally.

Journalists and Social Responsibility: Journalists are citizens. What is a journalist's responsibility in a society driven by ethnic tension and how does that square with your professional responsibilities? The media has power to influence events. How can reporters incorporate social concerns into journalism?

Civic journalism, a concept popularized by journalism professor Jay Rosen at New York University, suggests that newspapers act as catalysts for change. Supporters of civic journalism believe that newspapers, communities, and democracy will die unless journalists and the public team up in a search for solutions to community woes. One example of civic journalism was a year-long series in the Dayton, Ohio, Daily News: Its prize-winning stories on teen violence ranged from encouraging people to talk informally about teen violence to printing personal stories and expert information to helping organize public forums to reporting on the conclusions reached at the forums.

Journalists and the Public: In his essay "Why Americans Hate the Media" (Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1996) James Fallows says that journalists must try harder to ask questions about how political choices affect people's lives, instead of focusing on short-term political strategies. Fallows says that ³ordinary people² in town-hall forums and radio call-in shows don't care about the short-term impact of the political horse race; they want to know how politicians will provide answers to national problems. Do these sentiments apply where you are working. Is the media trusted or reviled and why? How can you improve this image and begin addressing real public concerns?

4 Writing Tips

Translate Jargon: Think about the average readers. Will they understand these terms? Will they find the stories relevant and interesting? Don't let officials get away with "bureaucratese." If a bureaucrat gives a long-winded, complex answer, the reporter can respond, "I'm not sure I understand." Then rephrase the comments in simpler words.

Go Beyond the Press Release: Pick apart a press release, many of which are as significant for what they leave out as for the information they contain. Analyze what questions have been left unanswered and then pose those questions. Likewise, many press releases include flat, canned quotes that don't really say anything. Call up or visit the source to get livelier comments.

Use Statistics Sparingly: Statistics should illustrate points, not clobber readers over the head. In many former Socialist, centrally - planned economies, both bureaucrats and journalists are still enamored of long strings of numbers and try to shoehorn them in at every opportunity, thinking that they add a ring of authenticity. Assess how meaningful a statistic is before including it in a story. For instance, saying that three million surfboards were produced in 1996 gives no hint as to whether surfboard production is rising rapidly, slowing down, or tapering off. Likewise, giving surfboard production for five years running can make a reader's eyes glaze over.

Statistics can be paraphrased to good effect. Saying the country produced enough surfboards to reach to the moon if laid end to end from Earth gives readers a more lively way to imagine the colossal production than a mere figure. (For more ideas on the use of statistics, see Tips for Business Reporting by Paul Hemp.)

Humanize: Present people as individuals, not as representatives of groups. Find average citizens to illustrate a statistic, trend, or problem instead of relying on "talking head" experts and bureaucrats. Don't just interview people who are rich, important, or official; do man-on-the-street interviews.

Provide context: Show the significance of the news. Make it alive and relevant. Provide context, not just coverage of events. Give background for readers who may not be familiar with the issues. Good stories tell the reader why a problem exists and how it got to be a problem. This doesn't have to be long - a few sentences should suffice. For instance, a Houston Chronicle story about gangs included congressional testimony from a University of Chicago professor explaining that gangs have their origins in early immigration. The story also talked about the role of poverty and community in forming gangs. (For more on this, see "M. L. Stein's Racial Stereotyping and the Media," Editor & Publisher, Aug. 6, 1994.)

5 Maximizing the Impact of a Team Reporting Project

Press Conferences: After completing a team reporting project, you might want to hold a well-publicized press conference at which the individual reporters on the team and their local community sponsors explain the project and answer questions. Highlighting the project in this way will encourage other media to publish stories about the project, which will increase interest in the series. It is also a constructive way to provide reporters with a public forum to describe in their own words what the project meant to them and their communities.

Radio Talk Show with Reader Call-In: In many countries, talk radio is more popular than ever and attracts many listeners. Arrange booking for your journalism team and on-site partner on a local radio talk show with a popular host. Encourage listeners to call in with comments and ideas.

TV Talk Show With Audience Participation: Arrange bookings on a talk show on a local cable TV station or a network or public television affiliate. Many cities now feature local shows on which pundits discuss pressing issues in the community. Pitch the series as a timely, groundbreaking project that seeks to reduce simmering tensions by forging bonds across racial, cultural, and ethnic lines.

Public Forum: Use contacts and resources provided by your local partner to arrange for a townhall meeting at a school, church, or community center at which the collaborative reporting team, the local partner, and members of the public can discuss the series, its impact, and ideas for future collaborations.