Mastering Your Beat

A reporter on a new beat faces two challenges that sometimes compete: producing right away to gain the attention and respect of readers, sources and editors and taking the time to learn new sources and issues. These tips may be helpful in addressing these challenges on a new beat, injecting some life into a beat that's feeling too familiar or improving coverage on a beat where you or your editors want to elevate coverage:

Plan your beat coverage

• Make a plan.
  If your editors didn't give you a job description, write your own. If they did give you a job description, perhaps you will need to add some detail. What public and private institutions and organizations fall in your turf? What topics and issues definitely or probably fall in your turf? What topics or issues that lie primarily on someone else's turf may sneak onto yours occasionally? Which regular meetings or other events will you always cover? Which regular meetings or events will you always monitor and sometimes cover? Which, if any, will you usually ignore? What will be your high priorities? What will be low priorities? (If everything is a high priority, then you haven't prioritized.) How much of your time will you spend on enterprise? How much on daily news? What are some investigative opportunities? What are some feature possibilities? Discuss your plan with your editor, and discuss any differences in your expectations. The plan should not be a straitjacket. As you learn the beat, you and your editors may need to adjust the plan.
• Identify potential conflicts.
  Where might your turf overlap with other reporters'? Discuss these possible conflicts with the reporters and with editors. By addressing overlap in advance, you can avoid missed stories, bruised feelings and duplication of effort.

Learn the topic and the territory

• Debrief your predecessor.
  Unless your beat is new, ask your predecessor and other reporters who have worked the beat for advice. Ask what stories she intended to do someday but never got around to. Ask about helpful sources or difficult sources. Ask about confusing issues. You'll want to surpass your predecessor and bring a different approach to the beat, however good she was. You'll want to develop good relations with the sources she found difficult. But you'll also want to tap her experience.
• Ask lots of dumb questions.
  You may know a lot about the beat, but you don't know as much about each piece of it as your sources do or as regular consumers do.
• Confess your ignorance.
  If you don't know the topic, don't pretend you do. Ask people to educate you. They will respect your candor, and as you learn, they will respect your knowledge. If you pretend to be an expert before you are, people will know. You will lose respect and have a difficult time gaining it. Mike Reilly of the Omaha World-Herald advises: "One of my favorite ways to start a question in an interview is, 'Pardon my ignorance, but ...' I learned the hard way as a reporter to follow this rule of thumb: 'Better to humble yourself in the interview than humiliate yourself in print.'"
• Learn the geography.
  Especially if your beat is geographical, you need to understand the lay of the land. If it's a suburb, drive the rush hour commute and make your way through the cul-de-sacs. If it's a tough neighborhood, get out of the car and walk it. If it's a region, drive the main roads and the back roads. Stop and ask questions. Wear out your maps. Visit landmarks. Visit gathering places. Visit major employers and some minor ones. If your beat is topical, geography still may be important. If you're covering education, visit the schools. If you're covering crime, ride around with some cops and visit some high-crime areas without cops. If you're covering social services, visit the institutions.
• Learn the jargon.
  Each beat has its own jargon, acronyms and processes that a new reporter must learn. Read and ask so that you learn the terminology and the processes. But remember that you are writing for readers who may not know the jargon. You have to learn it to understand your sources. But you have to translate into English for your readers.
• Be curious.
  Watch for changes or trends, especially as you're out on your turf. Construction or going-out-of-business sales may lead to a story. If you see something odd, ask about it. If you see something new, ask about it.
• Read exhaustively.
  Identify local or national periodicals that you should take to stay current on your beat. Identify and obtain any books or articles that will help you learn the background of an issue, the jargon of the beat or the personalities. Identify and obtain reports that will help you learn about the beat and its issues.
• Check the clips.
  Read your own paper's clips (and any competing papers' clips) for general background. And check them again every time you're pursuing an idea. You'll get valuable background and context. And you can save yourself from "discovering" a story that's been covered by every reporter who ever had the beat.
• Surf the Web.
  Find and bookmark Web sites of agencies and organizations, nationally and locally, that relate to your beat. Click around their Web sites to see which ones have statistics, background information, discussion groups and the like that might be helpful. If they have searchable databases online, search them and learn what is available. Ponder how you would use this data as the basis for a story. Ponder how you would uses the data routinely on stories. Visit the Web sites occasionally to look for story ideas and sources. If you haven't visited a Web site recently, it may have changed, so don't assume a lame site will stay that way. A revamped Web site or a new service offered online may be worth a story.
• Develop files. Create folders (electronic and paper) to store information on the various issues and organizations you will be covering. File away statistics, reports and studies so you can find them quickly on deadline.
• Learn the law.
  Learn the open meetings and open records laws of your jurisdiction. Know which meetings you can attend and which records you can obtain. Learn how the open records law applies to electronic records. Learn who are the custodians of public records. Develop some rapport with them and let them know you are interested in the records and understand the law.

Get to work

• Find some stories to work on quickly.
  You'll need to spend some time in reading and source development, but you'll learn faster if you get right into the beat. Come up with a list of possible stories. They will announce your presence on the beat to potential sources and to interested readers and generate tips for more stories. Reilly notes, "I believe getting stories in the paper is the most important way to establish yourself with your main sources. It is how they will best understand you in terms of your interests, your responsiveness, your trustworthiness and the ground rules you and they will play by. Just sipping coffee and chatting with sources can actually create difficulties if you are not careful and sources get used to you not writing about the stuff they tell you."
• Use each story as a chance for long-range learning.
  The story itself might be a routine daily piece that you normally could crank out in a couple hours with a couple telephone interviews. Take an extra hour or so. Go to a character's office. Introduce yourself. Ask questions about the history of this issue and of the organization(s) and people involved. Read up on the context. Research the background of the issue. Identify related upcoming events. Identify related issues that might merit in-depth examination. Identify characters who might merit a newsmaker profile.
• Write for readers.
  Your first responsibility, whatever your new beat, is to tell the story to your readers. Identify the people with the strongest interest and with potential interest in the area or topic. Choose stories of interest and importance to those readers. Keep them in mind as you decide the approach to each story and as you consider ways to present your stories and make them useful to readers.
• Write for sources.
  Especially at first, you'll need to write some stories for sources. Don't write anything that won't be interesting or important for readers, but show your sources that you are responsive. Even if you just write a brief from a tip, you tell sources that you value their suggestions. If a tip doesn't pan out, get back to the source. Tell him what you learned and that you always want to hear tips, even if the source doesn't have all the facts. You'll spend some time debunking false rumors, but you'll also get some valuable tips. If you ignore bad tips, you won't get good tips.
• Check agendas. Check agendas of meetings of agencies you cover. By identifying in advance the issues that will be addressed, you can write stories about the impact of the agency's action, which usually is more interesting than the meeting itself.
• Cover your tail.
  Your inexperience on the beat will hamper your news judgment at first. So backstop yourself by running story ideas past your editor. Especially tell your editor what you're deciding not to write about. Your editor might save you from passing on a big story. Or if you do pass on it, you'll have company in the doghouse.

Connect with sources

• Go "prospecting" regularly.
  Your editors probably will give you some time as you start on the beat to make the rounds of major players and introduce yourself. Your first few stories will introduce you to a few more. Go further. Make at least one "prospecting" call per week. Arrange to visit someone with an office, agency or organization you haven't contacted yet. Lunch is often productive, but it's not necessary, and don't meet at the restaurant. Visit the office, shop or home, so you can learn the geography, picture the layout and meet other people. Prospecting calls don't involve a particular story you know about in advance, but try to bring back a story, or at least several tips. You will make a valuable contact for the future.
• "Prospect" among the public.
  Don't limit your prospecting calls, or any of your reporting, to the official sources and institutions of your beat. How do those officials and institutions interact with the public? Talk to consumers, voters, residents, parents, students, victims, etc. If you have a geographic beat, take an occasional drive to a town or neighborhood you haven't visited lately. When you see something you don't know about, stop and talk.
• Follow up. After a prospecting visit, an interview or a story, touch base with the source again. Thank her your helping you. Ask what else is going on. Ask if she thought of anything else after you left. Follow up in a variety of ways: e-mail, note cards, phone calls, in person.
• Diversify your sources.
  If most of your sources turn out to be similar to you in race, gender and/or age, perhaps you are subconsciously connecting better with people like yourself. Or perhaps the official structures of the institutions reflect some discrimination. Seek out more diverse sources by contacting rank-and-file employees, people served by the agency, community groups that deal with the agency, groups organized by age, gender or race. Ask the minorities you do encounter whether they truly are that rare in the field you're covering, or whether you're looking in the wrong places.
• Identify "gatekeepers."
  Develop rapport with secretaries and other "gatekeepers" who control access to important sources. These people can be important sources themselves. At the least, good relations with them are essential at times to contacting the sources.
• Develop national sources.
  Identify national experts who can provide perspective on issues or who can place local events in their national context.
• Correct errors.
  If you make errors in print, make sure your paper corrects them promptly. Apologize personally. Errors hurt your credibility, but taking responsibility wins respect.
• Get lots of contact points.
  Business phone number isn't enough. Get a source's cell number and home number, if you can. Get the direct after-hours number.
• Make e-mail contact. Give sources your e-mail address and get theirs. Learn which ones prefer to communicate by e-mail and which open their e-mail once every few weeks. Learn about list-servs in the field you are covering and see if you can join them, to learn about news and to stay in touch with issues and sources. If you're looking for examples of something, consider sending an e-mail to several sources, asking if they have encountered the situation you're writing about.
• Run out of business cards.
  Leave business cards with everyone you meet who might be a potential source. Collect their business cards and call them back.
• Gather lots of directories.
  Fill your shelf with directories of employees, experts, organizations, etc. relating to the beat. At each prospecting stop or each interview for a story, ask if you can get the office phone directory, the annual report and other booklets that might come in handy. Ask for electronic versions of the directories. Does the agency have an employee database with phone numbers, titles and salaries that you can get as an Excel file?

Connect with colleagues

Learn whether reporters on your beat have an association or a listserv. You can learn sources, techniques and story ideas from other reporters. If you don't have an association or listserv, read other papers in similar communities online. You can connect by phone or e-mail with reporters addressing the same issues. Or you might connect with colleagues through a more general organization or listserv, such as IRE or NICAR.

Some reporter organizations:

• Association of Food Journalists (http://www.afjonline.com/)
  
• Association of Health Care Journalists (http://www.ahcj.umn.edu/)
  
• Crimintal Justice Journalists (http://www.reporters.net/cjj/)
  
• Education Writers Association (http://www.ewa.org/)
  
• Investigative Reporters and Editors (http://www.ire.org/)
  
• National Association of Science Writers (http://www.nasw.org/)
  
• Religion Newswriters Association (http://www.religionwriters.com/)
  
• Society of American Business Editors and Writers (http://www.sabew.org/)
  
• Society of American Travel Writers (http://www.satw.org/)
  
• Society of Environmental Journalists (http://www.sej.org/)

Advice from colleagues

From Daniel Finney, reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, formerly covering retail/consumer affairs:
For me, a new beat is a lot like being put into a room with the lights turned out. Every time you walk forward you bump into a piece of furniture or trip over something on the floor. If you don't find a way to get the lights on, you're going to end up frustrated, battered and bruised. So what's the best way to get the lights on? People. Go to the people first. Not the government. Not the bureaucracy. The everyday people that are affected by whatever it is you're covering. Maybe it's a pastor. Maybe it's a teacher. In my case, coming to this paper with zero experience in business or retail, it was business owners and everyday consumers. Talk to people about what's on their mind. Every person on your beat can shed some light on the dark room. Now maybe their light is dim or the area they choose to shine on isn't all that important. That's OK. Keep them in mind. Eventually they will be important. The important thing to remember is that once you learn something, it's yours forever - it's a light that stays on. Your goal is to make the room - the beat - as well lit as possible for you and the readers.

From Julia McCord of the Omaha World-Herald:
Get organized. When I started the religion beat in 1990, I started calling or dropping in on people at various denominational headquarters to introduce myself. I compiled phone lists. I developed file folders on each denomination with background on beliefs, doctrines, major issues, etc. I began keeping yearly denominational statistics. This really paid off when doing big or breaking stories. The big thing, though, is getting out and meeting people. I generally was in a different church or synagogue every weekend. I attended various holiday celebrations. As with childrearing, you've got to put in the time.

From Jena Janovy of the Omaha World-Herald:

• Drink coffee with people. Lots of coffee. Meet 'em for breakfast, take them to lunch. But talk to them about what is going on in their lives and in their neighborhoods. You don't always have to have your notebook out and your tape recorder rolling. Just listen.
  
• Talk to people in their homes. Don't try to report on people and their communities over the phone.
  
• Go to the parks. Go to the libraries. Go to the churches and synagogues. Go to the mall.
  
• Talk to the same people each week or every other week. Get them used to having you in their lives. Make yourself a habit.
  
• Respond to people's story ideas. Do the stories they tell you about, then they'll give you more.

From Christine Laue of the Omaha World-Herald:
The thing I have learned on this beat (pop culture) more than any (and I mention this because I really had to structure this beat on my own, without any guidance or expectations or rules) it is to GET OUT OF THE OFFICE, go to your sources, wherever they may be, tirelessly for months. Then you can back off a little - a little. They still need to see you. Even if you're not reporting, they need to see you to feel comfortable with you. Meet everyone you possibly can. Even if you don't build up a solid source relationship with them right away or they don't seem like they would be a great source, get their number and e-mail anyway and put it in your Rolodex - you never know when it might come in handy. This probably isn't new information - very basic beat building. I did it on other beats, but I had to do it harder on this beat because no one really had worked this beat that way before. So my point is the extent to which you work the beat is what is important. And it is never ending.

I also harass my sources if they don't read my stories or give me tips. If they aren't paying attention to the news, they can't tell what might be newsworthy in the future. If I find out about something I should have known about, I go back to my source and say "now, why didn't you tell me about that?" When they say, "well, I didn't think about it." Then I say, "Well, YOU SHOULD HAVE!" Just basic training. We get a laugh out of it, and it solidifies the source-reporter relationship. This is all part of the active feedback that I think has made this beat work -- I am CONSTANTLY seeking people's input before interviews (via SLAM, a local music Web site, or at these weekly business lunches or shows), their feedback on those that have run (insisting that they give negative feedback as well), what they think of other parts of the paper, what parts they read first, what shows should we have covered that we didn't, ANYTHING. If you give them a stake in the paper, they take it. Otherwise, they won't make the time or they won't think of you. Call me a high maintenance reporter with my sources, but it's worked for a year. I get so many e-mails and phone calls a day it's almost annoying. But I at least feel like I've got things covered.

On-line resources to help master your beat:

• Eric Nalder's "Breaking and Entering: How to Dissect an Organization": http://www.dicar.org/data/dissect.htm
• "11 Commandments of Beat Coverage," by John Sweeney of the Wilmington News-Journal: http://www.notrain-nogain.com/Train/Res/Report/11com.asp
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution's beat development plan: http://www.notrain-nogain.com/Man/NRO/newb.asp
• Providence Journal's "Power of Words": http://www.projo.com/words/past.htm#beat
• From Bob Baker's "Newsthinking" Web site, "How to be a more enterprising beat reporter": http://www.newsthinking.com/story.cfm?SID=144
• From the Baltimore Sun's Diana Sugg on Poynter's Web site: http://legacy.poynter.org/centerpiece/100801.htm