Lesson 3
Activity A2

Qualities of a

REPORTER

By Melvin Mencher

We don't now much about how reporters think. We know what they do, but don't know how they do it. All we know is about how they write, and how they can be taught to write better.

At any rate, there's been very little research or thinking about what I call the process of reporting. When we talk about the qualities of a reporter, we are really making noises in the wind. These qualities, we presume, have something to do with reporting, but if we look at what reporters do, we're not quite sure that these match the processes that reporters go through.

If we look at what reporters do, perhaps we can gather some insight into what qualities one should cultivate or develop to become a good reporter. I want to read you a very brief account that one of my students, named Camy Wilson, who works on The Minneapolis Tribune, sent me, of two stories she covered. Let's see if by watching her at work we can generalize about how a reporter works.

A few weeks after Camy took a reporting job with The Trib, her city editor gave her an idea for a feature story. (A feature story entertains readers, but isn't necessary for their knowledge.) She was told to spend a day with a woman in a wheelchair to see how people with handicaps get around in the city.

Camy knew that the best way to write a story about human beings was to observe human beings in action. She decided to accompany a woman as she went about her daily activities. She did her chores at home, got dressed, went downtown, did some shopping, and ate lunch. Camy watched all this and at the end of the day, the woman remarked to Miss Wilson, "Isn't it awful how much we have to pay to be taken to the doctor?"

"How much?" Miss Wilson asked.

"Forty-fifty dollars," the woman replied. Camy sensed that there was a story here of greater impact than about how a woman got around in a wheelchair. She asked the woman if she had a receipt for her trip to the doctor. The woman said she did and that it was at home. Camy picked it up and with the name of the firm, began to ask questions.

I don't know if you've just noticed something very important to a reporter. She asked if the woman had a receipt. That's the difference between what we call a physical source and a human source. The physical source was the receipt. The human source was the woman's recollection. Good reporters always try to get documentation. They always try to get physical material. Why is that? Because a human source has absolutely no standing whatsoever, particularly in the credibility of the reader.

By the time Camy finished asking questions a couple of weeks later she had a major scandal on her hands. The transportation of the disabled, it turned out, was a multi-million dollar operation. The poor, elderly, and handicapped were being billed $40-$50 for a round trip to a medical facility. Even though two, three, four, and five would be taken at the same time, they were billed as if they were taking the trip individually. Who pays for this? We all do, when we pay taxes.

Because her story involved Medicaid money, the Health, Education, and Welfare Department in Washington became interested and did a great deal of research. The State Legislature enacted several laws to remedy the situation.

Weeks later, Camy did some house hunting on her own. She had been living in a apartment. In one house, she noticed that every item was for sale, from a worn-out washcloth to a television to a cabinet. She asked, "Has the owner died?"

"No," the real estate man said. "He's in a nursing home."

"Well, why, then, is he selling?"

The real estate man replied, "He's not selling -- it's the conservator."

"What's a conservator?"

The real estate man told her. Once again, she realized she had a story. In checking it out, she learned that the owner, a man named Ludwig Hoggin, 86, suffered a fall and was taken to a nursing home to recover. While there, the church that he named in his will marked the house and all his belongings for sale. This was legal, under Minnesota laws, but still pretty horrible. Again, she investigated.

As a result of this particular story, the county attorney's office and the community launched thorough investigations of home care versus nursing home care. Their conclusion was that it is more expensive to put someone in an institution than it is to take care of that person at home.

What we have in these two examples of Camy Wilson's coverage is one basic ingredient of the reporter -- enterprise. Without it, you shouldn't be in journalism. It is the ability to be a self-starter, to look around and see news. The authorities don't want you to have this ability. To some extent, any concentration of power fears a good reporter because he or she is in a adversarial relationship. The reporter is an opponent of power. In some countries, the press are hand-maidens to the parties of governments, but in the United States, we have a free press. The press acts as a check on power.

If you have this inherited responsibility you should earn it every day by carrying out your heritage. How do you carry it out? What qualities do you need?

One is the ability to look beneath the surface, to look beyond the press release, the handout, the statement given to you, or the authoritative remark. Most people in our society are victims of the hierarchy of credibility. The higher the authority, the more credibility we give them. Most reporters in Vietnam found generals highly believable, privates not so believable. You'd more readily believe what a banker says about a bank than what a bank teller says.

We are victims of this all the time. Who sells sneakers, basketballs, or clothing? How many people wear pants with somebody's name on them? People pay extra for that to impress someone. There's more credibility in a good designer. Many years ago, the cigarette company that manufactured Camels used to pose people in white smocks. They were trying to say that doctors smoke Camels.

It wasn't until a few years into the Vietnam War that reporters began to believe the private. The generals were saying that we had been winning. If every statement by a general, the State Department or the Defense Department had been truthful, we would have won and been out of Vietnam five years earlier. We were being licked; the privates knew it and said so. But, because of the hierarchy of credibility and the belief that a person who goes to Harvard is much more intelligent than a person who goes to Kansas State (and we all have these beliefs), we're victimized. In this way, we play into the hands of centralized power.

Let's move on. There's a thinking process that's somewhat unique to journalism -- rational thought. If you look at the way reporters work, you'll notice they engage in two steps. One is called reporting and the other is called writing. If you make an analogy, you can see that reporting is what we call the analytic process and writing is what we call the synthesis. The reporting process consists of taking an event apart and examining it and its constituent segments. The writing process consists of pasting it together in a form that may be somewhat unlike the original event, and has coherence and meaning.

Any kind of writing does not equal truth. There's a rough similarity, but it isn't exact. It can't and shouldn't be, since the event itself can sometimes be misleading. The reporter puts all kinds of ingredients into the recasting or the synthesis. What are some of those ingredients?

Relevant background is one. You may need to explain D because D makes A, B, and C understandable. The event never consisted of D but you introduce it to give the event perspective and meaning. How do you introduce D? Is it something that someone has told you? Most often, not. The reporter must pull from the well of his or her experience and knowledge and must do so quickly under the pressure of deadline.

This leaves us to talk about another quality -- knowledge. It is impossible to be stupid and be a reporter, although I've met many ignorant ones. They never went anywhere. I don't mean stupid in the terms of inherited intelligent (we all are approximately equal in that), but in the terms of acquired knowledge. I don't know a good reporter who doesn't read a lot, both in and outside his field. He or she learns about the enormous diversity of events. The reporter who is serious about his trade has the quality or characteristic of forever being a student. If you talk to reporters, you find them the most exciting people around. They're always learning something.

Return to Lesson 3 or go directly to Activity B, Four Theories of the Press.