This presentation discusses developing sources and covering beats as it relates to journalism.

1. Developing
Sources & Beat
Reporting

2. What is a beat?
A specific area of coverage:
● an entire municipality
(Godfrey)
● parts of the government
(city council, courts)
● topic (education/school
board, business,
environment, sports, etc.)

3. Developing story ideas
Use your natural curiosity to
develop ideas:
● Check for ideas online – keep up
on blogs/sites that cover the
subject
o Local or not, it’s good for getting hot
topic ideas
● Check what people are writing in
or calling in to the paper about
● Check what main organizations
are doing

4. Beginning a beat
● Meet people in person – get
to know your community or
the agency you cover.
● Cruise the town and get
familiar with the streets,
where the rich and poor live,
the famous and infamous.

5. Campus beat
● If you have a campus beat,
introduce yourself to campus
officials, department heads or
leaders of organizations and
clubs. In most cases, people
you meet (especially clubs
and organizations) will be
happy to tell you what’s going
on because they will want
coverage.

6. Beginning a beat
● Check clips and archives –
great way to get familiar with a
new beat or town. You might
come across a story that needs
to be updated.
● Read real estate section –
gives you an idea of the
economic climate of the
community

7. Beginning a beat
● Find out who’s in charge – remember
that secretaries are the gatekeepers.
Go up and down the organizational
ladder – get to know the top and the
bottom.
● Write a source book – record names,
phone numbers and email addresses
of key people on your beat.

8. Common to all stories, in general
● Get rid of jargon
● Write in clear sentences,
the more simple the
better without resorting
to first grade
● Use analogies
● Assume no prior
knowledge of the subject
or financial lingo

9. Common to all stories, in general
● Include all background readers need
● Anecdotes can be wonderful
● Quotes, good sources

10. Cultivating sources
Once you find sources, you need to get them to trust you.
● Be honest.
● Be straightforward.
● Do not manipulate your sources.
● Sources will usually be cooperative if you give them a chance to explain
their views and if your story is accurate and fair.

11. Cultivating sources
● Build relationships. Contact
sources regularly, even if
you don’t have a specific
story in mind – make sure
they know who you are.
● Regular contact is
important because some
police and courts are
reluctant to talk to reporters
they don’t know well.

12. Cultivating sources
*The advantage of a beat is the relationship
between you and your sources.
**The disadvantage of a beat is the relationship
between you and your sources.
Know where to draw the line – beat reporters have to walk a fine
line because they have to be friendly enough to develop
relationships with their sources but not so friendly that it might
compromise your work. Don’t socialize with them.

13. Checking records & human sources
● Go to the sources – knock on doors, talk to family members,
victims, friends and neighbors.
● Besides covering stories as they come up, you should be watching
for trends. Do that by checking public documents, police files (if
police beat). If you look for sources and information on the Internet,
make sure they are credible - .gov, .edu, .org.

14. Remember these tips:
● Does the web site offer contact information? Call the
number and verify the contact, if using the site as a beat
resource.
● Check the date of information posted. If you don’t find any
date, you could ask the person you call how old the
information is.

15. Remember these tips:
● To find out who owns or manages a site, go
to a Whois database where you can identify
owners and contacts at nongovernmental
agencies (go to www.betterwhois.com)
However, it isn’t always current info and you
just get the registrar, not the direct owner.

16. Education beat
One of the most diverse beats, it
includes stories about budgets, school
board meetings, crime reporting,
investigative reporting, statistics of test
scores and enrollment, breaking news
and most of all news and features
about what is happening in the schools.
● Education Writers Association
www.ewa.org

17. Education beat
• Check educational journals for trends and national
comparisons of school performance.
● When writing about test scores or other school statistics,
explain what they mean and how they affect students.
● Translate jargon.
● Make sure you get into the schools to write stories about
education – go in, walk around, meet the administrators, etc.
● When you attend meetings, ask parents what they want to
know about their schools.

18. Health & environment beat
These are growing areas of writing. The Pulitzer prize was awarded
to environmental stories from 1994-1997. Some J-schools now offer
classes specifically in science writing.
● Challenge the source to speak to laymen. If that fails, allow the
scientist or doctor to speak in his own language but constantly
challenge him with your version of the facts – “Are you saying
that…?”
● Ask the “cosmic questions” – what does XX mean for cancer
patients? Is this an incremental advance or a true breakthrough
that will change the lives of many
● Give your story a sense of true proportion. If you are reporting
that inspectors found rats chewing on patients’ feeding tubes in a
nursing home then say it vividly. But be clear whether it was an
isolated finding or throughout the nursing home.

19. Health & environment beat
● Anecdotes can be wonderful or tedious. At best, they bring to
life the suffering of the afflicted, the benefits of new
treatments or the breadth and social costs of an epidemic. At
worst, they turn a story into a tear-jerking soap opera.
o Anecdotes work when they vividly show the human side
of an issue – all the joy and suffering.
o They also show the practical dimensions of a problem
better than some doctor or bureaucrat spouting
generalities.
o Metaphors can be nice but they can also trivialize.

20. Health & environment beat
Health writers need to be especially wary of information offered
on the Internet about diseases. Many are self-help information
provided by people without medical authority or offered by drug
companies, which do not offer unbiased information.
Environmental writers also have a wealth of resources available
online. Society of Environmental Journalists has extensive links
to resources and publications relating to environmental beats -
www.sej.org.

21. Business beat
Wall Street Journal is famous for its features; they just happen to
be about business, financial and social trends. The WSJ style
has been copied by other papers all around the country.
Many style guidelines from a 1950s memo to WSJ writers are
still followed today:
● Generally have one point or theme with rest of piece
referring back to the central theme
● Clearly organized

22. Business beat
● Specific, not general or vague terms
o Use lots of detail
o Illustrate with colorful examples,
anecdotes or small case histories
o Illustrative quotes
● Assume no prior knowledge of the subject or financial lingo
● Include all background readers need
● Super-simplicity and clarity
● Very tight writing – short punchy sentences and all essential
information conveyed concisely

23. Business beat
● At same time, must be thorough and answer
all questions likely to be raised by the reader
● Don’t use too many numbers in one
paragraph, especially the lead. Consider
using a graph, chart or other visual element.
● The more complex your topic, the more
simple your sentences should be without
resorting to “See Spot run” sentences.
● Avoid jargon
● Use analogies

24. Sports writing
• Sportswriters rely on feature techniques of
descriptive and interpretive writing, even more
so than other writers.
• They are challenged to provide readers with
something more than the basic facts. They
must also stress the how and why more than
in basic news stories.
• Sportswriters witness the action first hand and
have the responsibility for interpreting what
they saw through interviews with coaches,
players and their own analysis. They need to
stress angles: why and how a game was won
or lost or what the strategy was.

25. Sports writing
Sports writers need to know about:
● The games and leagues
● The athletes
● Courts because of legal contract disputes or court
cases from players involved in drugs, violence or other
criminal charges.
● AP style

26. Sports writing
Sports writers:
● Must see the same old story in different
ways – more attention is paid to the people
and action
● Must keep their eyes on the story
● Should write background information ahead
of time and plan for unlikely eventualities
● Should give thought to the best format for
telling the story – some are worth only a
box score and so are some meetings.
Some require a brief and some a long story
or several textual and graphical elements
● Must be able to write in ways that draw in
the reader

27. Sports writing
These need to be in all sports stories
● Who played, where (stadium and city), when
● Score (placed high in the story)
● Major plays and players
● Turning points
● Injuries

28. Sports writing
● Important statistics (conference standing, records for the season)
● Weather, if it had an effect on the game
● Crowd count, if relevant (fully packed or sparse attendance)
● Outcome of previous games between these two teams, if relevant
● Comments from coaches and players to explain the how and why
of the game
Example:
http://www.lc.edu/News_Story/Athletics/Mens_Soccer/MSoccerNatTou
rnGame1-11-15/