By Tom Hill, Course Director and Founder, Up To Speed Journalism.

In this series of articles on reporting skills I am dealing with some of the important inter-personal skills you need to develop to be a good reporter. Today my tip is to find ways to Earn Your Contacts’ trust.

Tip #18 Earn Your Contacts' Trust

There are few phrases in the English language that are likely to inspire less confidence than, “Trust me, I’m a journalist”.

But, trust me, at some point or other you are going to have to ask your informants to take a calculated risk and confide in you.

The relationship between journalists and their sources is often a complicated one and particularly when those contacts are professional spin doctors, or media-savvy people in public life.

As a reporter you have to have your wits about you. Dealing with contacts can be like a game of cat and mouse and you have to know whether you are playing the cat or the mouse in any given situation.

So, you might have a contact who feeds you several small snippets of information to keep your attention away from the bigger story involving her organisation. Spin doctors notoriously pick news days dominated by big stories, to “bury” unpalatable announcements.

Similarly, it may be in a company’s best commercial interests to issue a “no comment” statement or to say, “we can neither confirm nor deny that we have received a buy-out offer at this stage”. This keeps interest in the story alive and rumour can fuel financial speculation and so have an influence on the price of  the company’s shares.  A foreign exchange dealer in the City once confided to me that his motto was, “buy on the rumour, sell on the news”.

However, a canny journalist will also play this game to her advantage. One way to keep one step ahead of the rest of the pack is to demonstrate that your source can rely on you. So, if you are ever told something, no matter how small, in confidence by a source, you have to make a calculation about what is more important, your source or the story. You don’t have to enter into a conspiracy of silence, but by demonstrating discretion and tact over some issues you can gradually build up a rapport and if you have read the person and the situation properly, you may become a favoured conduit for more important stories and snippets of information.

If you watch, or read, All The President’s Men, you will see that the story, which gradually gained momentum, ultimately leading to President Nixon’s impeachment, was fed by tip-offs from an anonymous source nicknamed ‘Deep Throat’. That contact put himself at considerable risk to pass on the information, but why did he choose Bob Woodward, a relatively junior general reporter on the Washington Post, rather than one of the paper’s top political correspondents?

The answer is that Woodward was not a reporter straight out of college. He had spent five years working as an officer in the US Navy, and on the staff at the White House, before turning to journalism. At the White House, Woodward met a man who would be in charge of the day-to-day running of the FBI three years later when the Watergate case was being investigated.  That man’s identity remained secret until 2005, when Deep Throat was finally identified as W.Mark Felt.  Felt died last year, aged 95, and speculation about his motives for disclosing the information will no doubt continue for many years. However, it seems likely that Felt decided to give Bob Woodward the information because he believed that the former White House aide was someone who understood the rules of the game, someone who would protect his identity and someone he could trust.

By Tom Hill, Course Director and Founder, Up To Speed Journalism.

Tip #13 Become A Detective

In the latest in this series of blogs on the skills that will serve you well as a reporter, I urge you to become a detective.

Mist shrouded the dark surface of the river and stabbed at my lungs as I turned off the towpath and came face to face with a man toting a submachine gun.

I knew straight away that I was onto a story. The men I had discovered on my early morning jog were counter-terrorist police investigating an IRA bomb attack. I arrived on the scene as they were digging up some semtex high explosives in an allotment.

A year later I sat at the press bench in an imposing court room at the Old Bailey as a judge sentenced three men to 35, 25 and 10 years respectively for the bombing of the Warrington Gas Works.

I had stumbled across a story by chance, and as a reporter I was able to follow it to its conclusion in the courts. Luck had played a part in finding the story, but it was the sort of thing that happened to me quite often when I was a reporter.

You will find stories when you are looking for them obsessively and when you are using your eyes, your ears and your contacts in the hunt for clues in the same way that a good detective should.

When you are covering a small town, always looking for stories about it, its name will leap out at you from any piece of text, no matter how small the font. That’s how, as someone who can’t speak a word of German, I once came back from a holiday in Switzerland with a front-page lead for my local paper. I gave the Swiss newspaper no more than a cursory glance, but spotted the words “Colwyn Bay” buried in the German prose. A friend translated the rest for me and I had a Welsh angle on a Zurich murder, a crime story we hadn’t picked up on back in North Wales.

Sometimes, real detectives can become a little irritated by the “armchair detective” theories of crime reporters. I remember a friend of mine having one of his theories about a fatal arson attack shot down at a police conference in the morning, only to find the woman he had suspected, confessing her crime to him in the afternoon.

However, detective instincts should not merely be reserved for crime stories. Fascinating historical features can be unearthed if you are prepared to follow a trail of clues through the dusty records at your local archives, and readers often appeal for help from reporters when trying to track down long-lost friends, relations and even pets.

Seven years after Victorian explorer David Livingstone went missing while trying to find the source of the River Nile, the New York Herald sent a reporter, who originally came from North Wales, to track him down.

In November, 1871, after eight long, hard months that reporter, Henry Morgan Stanley, was able to start his interview with the immortal question, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

Stanley had grown up in a grim Welsh workhouse before joining the merchant navy. As a teenager he jumped ship in New Orleans, and was to serve on both sides in the American Civil War, before finding an outlet for his adventurous spirit, dogged determination and detective instincts in journalism.

There will always be room in journalism for people who can apply their initiative, drive and can-do approach to a problem and come back with the story against all odds.

By Tom Hill, Course Director and Founder of Up To Speed Journalism.

In the course of 100 posts over the next few weeks I’m looking at some of the skills, aptitudes and attitudes you need to be a good reporter.

I will devote time to specific skills for radio, television, print and online journalism, but first of all I believe it is important to focus on the ways in which we deal with people. Stories are almost invariably about people on some level, and people skills are the key to discovering those stories.

Today’s post runs counter to everything your parents may have taught you about stranger danger.

Tip #10 Talk To Strangers

In my street we have had two postmen in recent years. Sam was older than Simon. My guess is that Simon has probably spent more time in education than Sam. They were both polite and efficient and we have never had any complaints. The difference is that Sam loved to chat to everyone in the street and to know what was going on, while Simon was more shy and worked his way down the road with his iPod headphones plugged into his ears. There may be nothing to choose between them as postmen, but I know who would make the better reporter.

There is no doubt that the iPod is a wonderful invention and I’m amazed by how much the iPhone can do, but new technology will never replace traditional people skills and when you are a hunter-gatherer looking for news, ear plugs can be a distraction.

In the most extreme manifestation of social withdrawal coupled with technological obsession, Japanese psychiatrists have identified cases of hikikomori, where teenagers will retreat to their bedrooms for years at a time. That’s not a great place to launch your career as a reporter.

Journalists can find out what is going on by using Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, but this must be coupled with a deep-seated desire to mix with people in person.

Sam the postman certainly has this desire and he also has another advantage over many of us and that is in the way he travels. Sam spends most of his working day either walking or riding his bike. You see far more on foot, or on a bike, than you do cocooned in a car, or trapped in a tube train, and you have more opportunities to meet fellow travellers and to find out what they are up to.

Of course walking takes more time and so does stopping to chat to people. However, if you build in the extra time in your day and you learn to make small talk with strangers, you will quickly find that chatter is every bit as effective as Twitter and all the other so-called social media sites put together.

Tell people you are a journalist, get into the habit of carrying a calling card you can hand out to them and give them the time of day when you see them and you will find that slowly, but surely, the man in the newsagent, or the woman in the park will start to call you and let you know what’s going on.

The writer Bill Bryson started his  journalism career at the Daily Echo in Bournemouth, where Up To Speed is based today. His witty travel writing is based on the people he meets and the observations he makes about the world he travels through. His best-selling book Notes From A Small Island is a wonderful portrait of Britain in the mid-90s and it has sold over 1.5 million copies. Bryson’s notes were all made while travelling around the country on foot or by public transport. And he spent a great deal of that time, not in solitary reflection, but talking to strangers.

Why not take a leaf out of his book, and follow in his footsteps.

Tip #9 Be Determined

By Tom Hill, Course Director and Founder of Up To Speed Journalism Training.

Back in 1969, the war correspondent Nicholas Tomalin wrote a piece in the Sunday Times, which has been quoted frequently ever since.

The Cambridge English graduate, who was to die covering the Yom Kippur War four years later, gave a self-deprecating assessment of his profession.

“The only qualities essential for real success in journalism are rat-like cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability.”

Journalists may require the cunning of rats, and sometimes the curiosity of cats, to find out about people and their stories, but they are more often compared to dogs, thankfully.

Collectively, reporters are referred to as the press pack and individually they are sometimes described as newshounds.

On big stories, or in places where reporters frequently gather in groups, such as the Lobby in Westminster, journalists may get together to chew over the facts and can sometimes come to a collective decision on the angle of the story.

Hunting outside that pack can be rewarding, but it can also be risky, because there is always a chance that you will miss the angle or the story.

The idea of hunting, or sniffing out stories, also conjures up other canine metaphors. Tracking the scent of a story, often in the face of obstacles put in place by those who want their secrets to remain buried, requires dogged determination, patience and hard work. Teasing out the facts, and cornering the reluctant interviewee, can sometimes require the tenacity of a terrier.

Reporters must not be put off the scent by a rebuff or a failure to answer a call, and on some stories journalists have to work painstakingly through pages of dense and baffling waffle to discover the truth.

A classic example of this is the Daily Telegraph’s investigation into MPs’ expenses last year. A small and dedicated team of reporters retired to a “bunker” away from the main newsroom for days to sift through every detail of every expense.  They had to spot stories, but also to understand and explain the complicated financial manoeuvres made by the country’s elected representatives. It was these reporters, and not those making the expenses claims, who coined the phrase to “flip” properties.

You can see a depiction of this kind of dogged determination to root out a political scandal, by two reporters who chose to hunt away from the main pack, in All The President’s Men, the 1976 film about Watergate.

It’s a film, which stands the test of time. You see reporters Woodward and Bernstein, pounding the streets, bashing the phones and sifting laboriously through library catalogues in search of the key facts. And you see them persevering despite the threats of those in authority, the sneers of some of their colleagues and the doors slammed in their faces.

It’s amazing what reporters will do for a front-page splash and a pat on the back.

By Tom Hill, Course Director, Up To Speed Journalism.

In the latest of our series of posts on careers advice for journalists and people interested in improving their reporting skills, I’m examining the importance of spending time with your contacts away from the newsroom.

Tip #8 Enjoy Spending Time With Contacts

There’s an ugly phrase used at the BBC and because it’s the BBC it has a TLA (that’s a three-letter acronym). UGC stands for user-generated-content, which means stories, audio clips, pictures or videos sent in by viewers, readers or listeners.

When I first worked as an evening newspaper reporter, not long after the era depicted in Life On Mars, the best stories were often BGC – or Boozer Generated Content. Except that we didn’t have an acronym for it.

The reporters on the Nottingham Evening Post had their own room in the Blue Bell pub with a sign saying, Press Bar, which you could see across the road as you made the morning calls to the police, fire and ambulance control rooms at 7am.

Very often, the younger reporters would finish bashing out the nibs and fillers about car fires, chip-pan fires, minor accidents and petty crimes gleaned from the emergency services’ official sources, only to see a splash headline all across the front page, as the first edition rolled off the presses at 10am.

The byline, at the top of the stories the press officers had failed to mention, was usually, “Tony Donnelly, Chief Reporter”. So how did Tony, who sadly passed away last year, do it?

The answer was that he spent hours of his own time, outside the usual 9-5 office routine, with his contacts in CID. Some of that time was spent in the pub or in the police social club with its obligatory Nine Pints Of The Law poster. The city’s detectives knew Tony as a person, not as a faceless voice on the end of a telephone and at times they probably trusted him more than their own press officers.

This is not a lament for the lost days of journalism, or for the decline of the great British pub, but a reminder that stories come from people and that you have to spend time with those people if you want to find real, original news.

The sauce may have trickled out of newsrooms over the last few years, but to be a good reporter you have to devote time to getting to know your sources.

The BBC’s award-winning Business Editor Robert Peston was starting out as a reporter in the City at about the time I was in Nottingham and he probably breathed a huge sigh of relief when Perrier became the tipple of choice at business meetings.

But you can be sure that he has worked his way through hundreds of lunches, breakfast briefings and finger buffets, all the while gleaning snippets of information, useful insights and trusted contacts between the canapés, croissants and cappuccinos.

These contacts, coupled with the work ethic and drive of a driven workaholic, mean that throughout the financial meltdown of the last two years, Robert Peston has broken exclusive after exclusive for the BBC.

Working lunches have made him a legend in his own Crunch time. I’m not sure if the acronym-ists at White City have thought of it yet, but they could learn a great deal from SGC – Schmoozer Generated Content.

By Tom Hill, Founder of Up To Speed Journalism Training.
In this series of blog posts on journalism careers, I am currently looking at some of the ’soft’ people skills journalists need to develop in order to become successful reporters. Today we’re looking at one of the most important traits of a good reporter – charm.

Tip #7 Turn On The Charm

When you first tell people you are a journalist you are likely to get one of two reactions – sudden interest in your exciting job, or, more often, a guarded suspicion that you are someone who is not to be trusted.

So, when you set about digging up a story, it is not always going to be easy. People will not always want to co-operate. They may be too busy, they may be distrustful and they may be genuinely worried that talking to you could cost them their jobs or their reputations.

Reporters have strategies for dealing with this. They quickly develop a thick skin and realise that there is no point in taking rebuffs personally. If the interview is important they also have to find ways to persuade people to talk to them.

Journalists are sometimes referred to as “hard-nosed hacks”. This gives the impression that they regularly bully or cajole reluctant interviewees into speaking to them. However, good reporters tend to find that charm and persistence produce much better results than menace and bluster.

Good reporters have an ability to put people at their ease, to soften them up, and to explain how publication of a story can benefit an interviewee and other people with similar experiences to that interviewee.

This may sound easy in theory, but difficult, or impossible, in practice. However, there are some simple rules of thumb, which can help to secure interviews.

• Find out the person’s name, use it repeatedly in conversation and ensure you spell it correctly. We all love the sound of our own name.
• Treat interviewees with deference and respect. You may not personally have a huge amount of respect for district councillor Joan Smith, but in your professional dealings with her, always remember to call her, “Councillor Smith”. However much she hides behind a veil of false modesty, the chances are Mrs Smith feels immensely proud of being a councillor. We all like to feel important.
• Treat every one you meet professionally in the same way. If you arrive at a company headquarters prepared to charm the boss, but treat the receptionist like dirt, you won’t get very far. Very often the receptionist can be the toughest obstacle you have to overcome in reaching that important person. Important people talk to their staff and may well hear how you behave when you are dealing with people who work for them. We all deserve respect.
• When you make an appointment to meet someone, make sure you are on time. You are in the business of persuading people to lend you some of their valuable time and so don’t waste their time. We all value our time.
• It may sound like a piece of advice your Mother would give you in primary school, but look smart and professional. First impressions really are important. You have to win the trust and confidence of your interviewees if you want them to share information or opinions with you. We all make snap judgements about people based on their appearance.
• And finally, remember that all of the above can be achieved if you meet someone in person, some of the above will work if you are good on the phone and none of the above can be achieved by email.

So, if you are chasing interviews, hit the road or pick up the phone, but only send an email when you are asked to and only then after you have asked for a phone or face-to-face interview first.