When it comes to most sources, journalists are fearless and ruthless. Journalists will grill sources on their facts, sources and even opinions. There is, however, one exception when it comes to sources – when the source the journalist is quoting also signs the journalist’s paycheck.
Whether it’s an announcement of staff layoffs, reduction of news coverage or reporting the fact that the newpaper’s publisher got into a fistfight with the town mayor, newspapers will on occasion find itself in the awkward position of reporting on itself. And the newspaper will find an even more awkward reporter to write the story.
When it comes to having to quote an editor, publisher or any other superior (yes, that includes the weekend janitor), most of the rules governing the relationship between a journalist and a source go out the window.
It usually goes like this: two three days after every other newspaper, TV station and blog has covered the story about the newspaper’s decision to outsource its reporting staff to India, the editors at the troubled newspaper decide to get ahead of the story and write an article about the decision. But to pull this off and have the paper come out as unscathed as possible, the editors have to be careful with their choice of reporter. They can’t go with the veteran reporter; he’ll just tell them to piss off and go back to digging through minutes of a city hall meeting from 1987. No, the bosses pick their victim from a very specific qualification – the last journalist who cried at work, usually the newbie who still is learning how to use the newspaper's unorganized archives.
When it comes to the actual writing of said story, it has less to do with writing than copying and pasting the graphs sent from the journalist’s editors and publisher. And when it comes to actually getting that quote from the publisher, there’s the gut-wrenching feeling of having to talk to the publisher. This is probably the only time the publisher will know the name of a journalist who hasn’t worked at the newspaper since the Reagan administration.
If the journalist is gullible enough, along with the publisher’s canned comment, he or she will also mindlessly put in the paper’s ad and subscription rates.
But the interview is short and relatively painless. It's not so much back and forth as it is the boss saying "write this in the article." The then trembling journalist goes back to his or her desk and punches out the article justifying why the newspaper is downsizing refocusing its news efforts. Usually, a journalist will double check a source's name but when it comes to the boss, that requires a triple check.
But having to quote the boss is a rite of passage in newsrooms. It's something every journalist has to do earn his or her badge of bravery in the newsroom and because other journalists know what it feels like to go through it, they feel inclined to buy the poor journalist a drink. And that, my friends, make it worth it.
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Oooh, this one made me squirm from beginning to end. Truer words were never written.
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