People provide scoops
But why should they bother?:
- Readers, who are the sources, care about stories being right.
- They want to right a wrong.
- They was to publicise something.
- They want to get their view out before anyone else.
- Because newspapers have an authority and audience few other outlets can claim.
- The source must trust the reporter:
- because of previous reporting.
- through the handling of sources.
- the knowledge shown in person (and in print).
- they mustn't blab to anyone, in case loose talk lands them in trouble.
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson has worked as deputy news editor at the FT and is now the Media Editor based in New York. He makes several point about getting scoops:
- 'Scoops can come simply because you have made the effort to arrange a drink with the right person at the right time. If you know a company's in trouble, you think through who inside the company will know its situation, which of your contacts knows what's going on, who might bear a grudge (such information needs careful checking).
- 'There's usually a wide circle of people: executives, employees, lawyers, bankers, auditors, corporate investigators, regulators, law enforcement representatives, suppliers, board members, etc: you'll usually find at least one crack in the dam among them.
- 'One of my early FT scoops, about a fraud in a company, came from accountants, horrified at what they'd discovered their chairman was up to: salting away wine in his private cellar, filing fake invoices for everything from butter to lobster and wiping security tapes.'
Face-to-face meetings are far more likely to yield scoops. Putting a face to your byline helps when someone is deciding whether to answer your call – days, weeks or years later. Social meetings and parties serve the same purpose.
Ingenuity helps, says one correspondent:
'I knew that US executives tended to stay in one of two local hotels with king-sized beds and air conditioning: a £5 tip to the barman confirmed the Texans were in town and I knew a business deal was in the offing.'
Scoops breed scoops
If you are leading the journalistic pack, anyone with an interest in the story will come to you first.
The next page explores some big scoops of recent years...
