A presentation on beat reporting presented at numerous conferences and for various journalism classes.

1. Finding Stories
• Beat reporting
• Reading the news
• Reading bulletin boards, virtual and real
• Attending events and meetings
• Press conferences
• Monitoring groups and issues via the Internet

2. Environment
CITY GOVERNMENT
Poverty Politicians
Cops
What is a beat?
.
Courts
Neighborhoods
Any defined area of coverage
IMMIGRATION
WEIRD PEOPLE
Politics

3. Getting started
• 1. Define the beat
• 2. Make a list
• 3. Deconstruct the dailies
• 4.Start a tickler file
• 5. Lunch with sources
• 6. Quiz yourself

4. Step 1: Define the Beat
 What are the issues within your beat?
 What entities does your beat include?
 Who are the official people within your
beat?
 What kinds of public meetings/events
happen in your beat?
 What kinds of public documents exist in
your beat?

5. City of Santa Fe
 Issues: Budget deficit,  Public records: City
city politics, downtown
development, southside budget, city meeting
growth agendas, annual
 Entities: The Mayor, City report on
Councilors, City Finance demographics, water
Director, City Planning
Director, City Planning
use, development
Commissioners, City Flak applications
 City Council meetings,
City finance meetings,
City Planning meetings,
neighborhood meetings

6. Step 2: Make a list
 Top 10 people to meet.
 Public meetings in the next month to
attend.
 Find out what documents exist, who’s in
charge of them, file the requests.
 Analyze how the dailies are reporting on
this area, if at all.

7. Step 3: Deconstruct a daily story
• Highlight key names in
the story
• Highlight any statistics
and reports they came
from
• Highlight the names of
key organizations
• Analyze for follow-up
stories

8. Deconstruct & Use
• Sources: City Councilor
Rebecca Wurzburger, State
Rep. Lucky Varela, Lynette
Montoya, city economic
development director
• Documents: appropriation
request, budget document
containing rationale for
amount of money needed
• Organizations:
UNESCO, Creative Santa Fe

9. Step 4: Start a tickler file
• Create a system for
tracking who you’re
talking to and what
you’re working on:
meetings, interviews, p
ublic requests. Share
these with your editor
or other writers to get
more ideas.

10. Step 5: Talk to People
• Make regular
lunch, coffee, coffee, sn
ack meetings with
potential sources.
• Get out as much as
possible
• Talk to people when
you don’t need them.
• Don’t rely on the
Internet.

11. Reading the News
• Reading other publications, looking for stories
that were covered, but incompletely
• Reading virtual and real bulletin boards to
look for strange events, calls to action
• Using Social Media to find stories and find
sources.
• Consider using Facebook for Journalists.

12. Events, Press Conferences, Meetings
• Prepare: Research the people/issues at play
for the situation so that you know what is
happening
• Try to arrange interviews so that you aren’t
only reliant on what is said publicly
• At meetings, look for what is most
important/most interesting.

13. Use the Internet to stay in the loop
• If there are organizations or groups that
cover/work on issues you care about, sign up
for list-servs, check their chat
rooms/newsletters to find story ideas.
• Set up a personal news page so that you are
receiving articles and alerts on topics that
interest you.