“It’s not personal.”
That comes from Mike Elrick, one of the reporters who broke the text message story that ended in Kwame Kilpatrick moving from city hall to the county jail.
“It’s business. Just doing my job. No hard feelings on my part,” was how Elrick described his state of mind just days after the former mayor got out of jail.
“Of course, Kwame may not feel that way,” he added.
I attended a talk Friday by the two Detroit Free Press reporters who broke the Kwame Kilpatrick text message story.
Elrick and Jim Schaefer spoke at the Michigan Press Association annual meeting Friday, in a session moderated by Ron Dzwonkowski, an associate editor at the Free Press.
I’m glad I went. There are lots of story lines from the talk. Including a few good nuggets that I can pass along to journalism students in my classes. Here are some highlights:
– First, I was impressed by the two reporters’ professionalism and humble, self-deprecating manner. It was good to see two guys representing our profession so well. There was no gloating or grandstanding. They clearly were proud of what they did – as they should be. But they did a nice job of keeping it in perspective.
– One of the principal messages they left was that good reporting is about building good relationships with sources. And the best way to do that is to always tell the truth. Be upfront and straightforward, both in any promises you give sources and in what you report in the newspaper.
Even if you report information that is critical of a source, in the long run they and others will respect you if the facts are accurate and fairly presented.
Building good source relationships isn’t just about asking questions. It’s also about getting to know people as human beings.
”We talk to people when we don’t want anything, too,” Schaefer noted.
And both added that it’s okay to give a source a heads-up the day before a critical story.
“At least that way, they can get to the newspaper in the morning before their spouse,” Schaefer said. “They appreciate the gesture.”
– Where and how you approach a source who may have information you want can make a difference.
Elrick and Schaefer often went to public officials’ homes in the evening to ask questions – so the sources wouldn’t have to explain to coworkers or bosses why they were talking to reporters.
“We try to find people in a setting where they are comfortable,” Elrick said.
– Persistence is one of a reporter’s best tools:
“We never take no for an answer,” Elrick said. “We know that more than one person has the information. And we know that people in their heart want to do the right thing. We try to make people understand why it’s in the public’s best interest to give us the information.”
– ”Off the record” conversations with sources are part of investigative reporting.
Both Elrick and Schaefer said they let sources give them information
confidentially. But both emphasized that it involves constant negotiation, trying to get as much information “on the record” as possible.
It’s not off the record until both the source and the reporter agree that it is, Elrick said.
”You can’t let a source say this is off the record and then just start talking,” he said.
It’s critical that the reporter clarifies exactly what ”off the record” means to both parties. And then, after listening to the information, the reporter should start trying to get as much as possible on the record.
Often, Schaefer said, sources want to be off the record. But when you read back to them what you want to report, they say, “yeh, that’s okay.”
– The other key message from the two reporters was that the Internet has dramatically changed the way they do business.
“People want to read, hear, see the news on a variety of platforms,” Elrick said.
As they reported on the text message story, they usually had at least one and often two or more videographers with them – so there would be video for the Free Press Web site, Freep.com.
They noted that the text message story broke on the Web site the night before it was in the print edition of the Free Press.