It’s more important-and engaging-to tell readers why they should keep reading.Īnd a colleague once taught me you own the whole story-from the headline, to the photos, to the chyrons. You don’t need to get all the “who what where when why” into the first sentence. One editor of mine told me long ago to simply imagine you’re telling your friend or colleague what happened and why it’s important in one line. It can be anxiety-producing to reroute a story when one is already in the field, but the story is almost always better for it. I realized that these interviewees were unwittingly guiding me to a much better story about digital ownership, and quickly folded the first premise into their new one. I’d told the Facebook PR folks that I wanted to write about the way Facebook was remaking old friendships-this was the truth-but when I visited their offices, all they could talk about was the company’s dedication to users’ privacy. But I never realized the value of simply listening to subjects talk about what they want to talk about until 2009, when I wrote a piece on Facebook for the cover of New York. I’ve always believed that reporting should dictate a story’s angle rather than the other way around. Vanessa Grigoriadis, contributor, New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair author, Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus It taught me that the most important narratives don’t take place center-stage but are often fighting to be heard at the margins. It made an incalculably strong impression on me: the idea that journalism can reveal deeper truths, and that beneath the flash and shiny lights often lies the real story. That housing was being replaced by Olympic facilities. Later I learned that, while the opening ceremony with its brightly colored tale of racial reconciliation played out, civil rights protestors were demonstrating against the demolition of low-income housing that primarily served black residents in Atlanta. It was all a bit over the top, but I didn’t give it much thought. Martin Luther King, which President Bill Clinton applauded. The opening ceremony had an elaborate, garish tribute to “The New South” and to Dr. I had never given thought to the politics of sports or the ways that sports could be used politically until then.
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In 1996, the Atlanta Olympics were in full swing. The source ended up talking about the show he went to in the ’80s, and we talked about that for 30 minutes before we got to business.ĭave Zirin, sports correspondent, The Nation One time, I met with a source, and I had a Misfits T-shirt on. That can sometimes lead to a conversation about, Hey, I know that band, I’ve seen them play. So sometimes I’ll show up to an interview in a band T-shirt-I happen to own thousands. When I’m trying to cultivate sources, I’ve learned that it’s best to make people feel comfortable so that they can let their guard down, speak freely, and perhaps disclose information. It was simple: I wore a T-shirt that music fans could react to, and it opened up the door to a conversation. Some of the younger guards and the people who escorted us around, however, struck up conversations with me when they saw the shirt. Someone there who was quite a bit older than me thought that my T-shirt represented the black flag of Al-Qaeda. When I was reporting in Guantánamo, I wore a Black Flag T-shirt. Jason Leopold, senior investigative reporter, BuzzFeed News
Some interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity. CJR surveyed journalists by phone and email about such experiences. Because journalism is a profession that is learned on the job, reporters often develop their own personal approaches to writing, interviewing, researching, and other aspects of the craft based on singular experiences that they carry with them. Many reporters have had “aha” moments that have changed the way they think about journalism. But the insight helped me achieve a new level of awareness that I hoped would allow me to see a story before anyone else.ĪRCHIVES: 18 journalists on how-or whether-they use tape recorders This may not sound like much of a revelation. (For better or worse, I am annoyed by a lot of things.) After a while, however, I found a groove: some of my favorite pieces, I realized, had started when I’d been annoyed by something -or, more accurately, noticing that I’d been annoyed by something and reporting out the feeling.
Because I was a relative greenhorn in the newsroom, I struggled to come up with story ideas. It was my first full-time job in journalism, there was little oversight, and I had no assigned beat. Between 20, I worked as a reporter for The New York Observer.
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