Why don't reporters go to the person's office or home in person anymore!!!???? It's easy to ignore an email or text; in the old days, it was a phone call that didn't get answered or responded to. Go and sit in their office for all day, if necessary. Email, txt, X is simply lazy reporting.
Here's my thinking about it: I would have liked to have original reporting in the lead item rather than just an aggregation of Ashby's column.
That could have included comment from the congressman, which would have been ideal. If I felt I *needed* it, I could have gone further in the due diligence to at least satisfy any questions I might have had about him not getting the messages. But it's not that consequential an item, really. It could also just be an aggregation item if that's all I have.
So, I went the digital communication route — the lazy route, as you put it — reaching out via multiple email addresses and on social media, thinking that if someone has just won a race for congress then you'd think they are either keeping up with their inboxes and social platforms in the week after, or have someone doing that for them. And if they aren't, well, that's kind of notable, I suppose.
Why do I think I didn't hear back? Here are some possibilities I'm thinking about:
1.) They really just aren't keeping up with their incoming digital messages and didn't see the requests. Odd, and kind of irresponsible maybe — to me, anyway — but possible.
2.) Someone saw the requests and just didn't want to engage on the topic. Perhaps the congressman and his team didn't take the Sentinel column very seriously, don't assume it will have much impact locally or beyond, and didn't want to elevate it or legitimize it by commenting and drawing it out into another story. (Another possibility is maybe they're embarrassed by their actions that they feel in retrospect they aren't defensible, and they hope this whole thing will just float down the river. Possible, but.)
3.) They didn't want to engage on my platform. Maybe if I were, say, a talk-radio host with a name they recognize they might want to get in the mix about it, but just don't think a Substack newsletter with only 4,300 subscribers, mostly people who care about what's going on in Colorado's local media scene, is the place to do that.
I'm not entirely bummed I didn't get to have any original reporting in the lead item this week, but it would have made it stronger. I had some original reporting elsewhere in the newsletter, so I don't feel like I let this week's readers down too much by just aggregating and curating, which is also a large part of the newsletter's value each week. I do the work of rounding all this stuff up so you don't have to go looking for it yourself.
To your direct question about reporters not going to the offices or homes of sources as much as they used to, I think they probably don't, especially younger generations of reporters who grew up online and might have some anxieties about that. Some of those anxieties might be legit — they read news stories about people getting shot because they turned around in the wrong driveway. Some of it might be different opinions about privacy than I might have. (Ask a class of college journalism students if they think it would be OK to knock on someone's door at dinnertime for a story, for instance, and see how many hands *don't* go up.)
But some of it also might just be an unwillingness to engage in human-to-human behavior than those in the past, or to take the time to do it when the click lords are breathing down their neck about getting that story online as soon as possible.
That puts a premium on those willing to do it — and those who can and do will be better at their jobs.
Me no really like the idea of doubling down on "advertorial," to use that good old term, per the O'Rourke interview. I knew they were expanding more, and knew that they were interestingly creative. Not a fan of this, even if it's well marked as such. O'Rourke does not mention, I see, how the editorial page handles any "issues" with businesses running advertorial. Do they get a spliff to stay shut up?
Thanks, Corey, for your comprehensive response. You raise some cogent issues as to why reporting has gotten more distant from the subjects it is covering. As to person-to-person contact, I'm not advocating going at dinner time or in middle of night, but during business hours. And, as to fear of being shot, that feels like a cop-out: How often has a reporter gotten shot in the U.S. in our (40 for me) years in the biz? Can't think of any ... if you feel intimidated, then you leave. I know it's a more dangerous world these days and more people are armed. But you're not going to get shot in the DAs office, or in council chambers, or in the office of the mall manager ... or any other location that is normally covered by a news reporter. As to the "click lords," I fully understand: "Feed the Beast" was a dictum at one paper where I worked. Shame on them, I say. It doesn't take long to recognize imbalance in a story and to shoot it back for a rewrite. Or make the correx yourself. The whole business has gotten lazier and lazier, Corey, editors very much included, which feeds so conveniently into what authority has always wanted: Freedom to do as it wishes without the hassle of an aggressive press. Watch what happens now: No press conferences, stonewalling all the time, PR not objective stories, very little accountability. If reporters don't suck it up and force their way into the halls of authority, the result will look like, at the very least, oligarchy.
Why don't reporters go to the person's office or home in person anymore!!!???? It's easy to ignore an email or text; in the old days, it was a phone call that didn't get answered or responded to. Go and sit in their office for all day, if necessary. Email, txt, X is simply lazy reporting.
Here's my thinking about it: I would have liked to have original reporting in the lead item rather than just an aggregation of Ashby's column.
That could have included comment from the congressman, which would have been ideal. If I felt I *needed* it, I could have gone further in the due diligence to at least satisfy any questions I might have had about him not getting the messages. But it's not that consequential an item, really. It could also just be an aggregation item if that's all I have.
So, I went the digital communication route — the lazy route, as you put it — reaching out via multiple email addresses and on social media, thinking that if someone has just won a race for congress then you'd think they are either keeping up with their inboxes and social platforms in the week after, or have someone doing that for them. And if they aren't, well, that's kind of notable, I suppose.
Why do I think I didn't hear back? Here are some possibilities I'm thinking about:
1.) They really just aren't keeping up with their incoming digital messages and didn't see the requests. Odd, and kind of irresponsible maybe — to me, anyway — but possible.
2.) Someone saw the requests and just didn't want to engage on the topic. Perhaps the congressman and his team didn't take the Sentinel column very seriously, don't assume it will have much impact locally or beyond, and didn't want to elevate it or legitimize it by commenting and drawing it out into another story. (Another possibility is maybe they're embarrassed by their actions that they feel in retrospect they aren't defensible, and they hope this whole thing will just float down the river. Possible, but.)
3.) They didn't want to engage on my platform. Maybe if I were, say, a talk-radio host with a name they recognize they might want to get in the mix about it, but just don't think a Substack newsletter with only 4,300 subscribers, mostly people who care about what's going on in Colorado's local media scene, is the place to do that.
I'm not entirely bummed I didn't get to have any original reporting in the lead item this week, but it would have made it stronger. I had some original reporting elsewhere in the newsletter, so I don't feel like I let this week's readers down too much by just aggregating and curating, which is also a large part of the newsletter's value each week. I do the work of rounding all this stuff up so you don't have to go looking for it yourself.
To your direct question about reporters not going to the offices or homes of sources as much as they used to, I think they probably don't, especially younger generations of reporters who grew up online and might have some anxieties about that. Some of those anxieties might be legit — they read news stories about people getting shot because they turned around in the wrong driveway. Some of it might be different opinions about privacy than I might have. (Ask a class of college journalism students if they think it would be OK to knock on someone's door at dinnertime for a story, for instance, and see how many hands *don't* go up.)
But some of it also might just be an unwillingness to engage in human-to-human behavior than those in the past, or to take the time to do it when the click lords are breathing down their neck about getting that story online as soon as possible.
That puts a premium on those willing to do it — and those who can and do will be better at their jobs.
Me no really like the idea of doubling down on "advertorial," to use that good old term, per the O'Rourke interview. I knew they were expanding more, and knew that they were interestingly creative. Not a fan of this, even if it's well marked as such. O'Rourke does not mention, I see, how the editorial page handles any "issues" with businesses running advertorial. Do they get a spliff to stay shut up?
Thanks, Corey, for your comprehensive response. You raise some cogent issues as to why reporting has gotten more distant from the subjects it is covering. As to person-to-person contact, I'm not advocating going at dinner time or in middle of night, but during business hours. And, as to fear of being shot, that feels like a cop-out: How often has a reporter gotten shot in the U.S. in our (40 for me) years in the biz? Can't think of any ... if you feel intimidated, then you leave. I know it's a more dangerous world these days and more people are armed. But you're not going to get shot in the DAs office, or in council chambers, or in the office of the mall manager ... or any other location that is normally covered by a news reporter. As to the "click lords," I fully understand: "Feed the Beast" was a dictum at one paper where I worked. Shame on them, I say. It doesn't take long to recognize imbalance in a story and to shoot it back for a rewrite. Or make the correx yourself. The whole business has gotten lazier and lazier, Corey, editors very much included, which feeds so conveniently into what authority has always wanted: Freedom to do as it wishes without the hassle of an aggressive press. Watch what happens now: No press conferences, stonewalling all the time, PR not objective stories, very little accountability. If reporters don't suck it up and force their way into the halls of authority, the result will look like, at the very least, oligarchy.
Hear, hear!