Over the years, I’ve helped dozens of journalism students with their projects. A few have been extremely thoughtful about the news business, and I’ve even learned some things from them in the process. Heck, I was once a journalism student myself (albeit in the age before e-mail).
But lately, I’ve gotten a number of help-me-with-my-homework e-mails from journalism students that make me worry that they’re just not getting it. Take this one, received from a student at a respected journalism school the day before Election Day with 11 questions on beat reporting due by midnight:
From: (Name redacted) (MU-Student) [******@mail.mizzou.edu]
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 9:25 AM
To: Korte, Gregory
Subject: Beat Reporting InterviewGregory,
My name is (Name redacted), and I’m currently a sophomore Journalism student at the University of Missouri – Columbia. We have begun to study beat reporting, and, as part of a class assignment, I’m required to contact a reporter outside of the city of Columbia and question him or her about this reporting technique. We are working on a deadline, and have to turn in our assignment tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. I realize that it is short notice, but I was wondering if you could answer a few questions about beat reporting? If you could please answer the questions listed below and e-mail me your responses by midnight, I would really appreciate it. Thank you!
Sincerely,
(Name redacted)
Is beat reporting still used in your newsroom?
If not, why is it no longer used?
Have you ever worked as a beat reporter?
If yes, what beat(s)?
What kind of events did you cover?
If you don’t currently cover a certain beat, would you like to?
If so, what would you prefer to focus on?
What do you think are some of the qualities of a good beat reporter?
What do you feel are some of the challenges that come with being a beat reporter?
Did a journalism professor actually assign this? What will this student learn about interviewing — or for that matter, beat reporting — by cut-and-pasting my answers into her paper? Don’t get me wrong: I use e-mail as a reporting tool all the time. I have never, and would never, send a cold-call e-mail to an unknown source with eleven essay questions.
To make it worse (or perhaps better), this same student e-mailed a colleague with the same questions. I’m not sure whether to be offended that she’s wasting our time doing duplicative work, or to admire her canny resourcefulness. (How many of us have sought the same information from multiple sources on deadline?)
For the first time I can remember, I’m not helping a journalism student. And that makes me sad.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I got something like that yesterday from a journalist student I met when i was in the US for a week last month and I answered it, I actually do not see anything wrong with such.
I see nothing wrong with what this student did. In fact, I applaud them for emailing you and your colleague. When I covered medical news, I’d call several doctors or hospitals for a story and I talked with the first one who got back to me. Casting a wide net is a necessity these days.
It’s interesting you are disgruntled that she or he cold emailed you. As a student – and a young one at that – I doubt he has a large network of experienced journalists to pool for this assignment. And don’t we all cold call/email potential sources on a regular basis? Probably wasn’t the best tactic to throw 11 questions your way on such a tight deadline, sure, but it seems to me a classic rookie mistake.
I don’t see why you think this student doesn’t get it. (Although, I’m guessing his professor gave him more time than one day to do this assignment and he procrastinated.) Did you respond to this student explaining why you weren’t going to help and offering advice on the best way to go about this in the future? You of course have no obligation to do so, but when I was at Mizzou I always found journalists to be quite helpful – even with silly homework assignments. It makes me sad that the new generation of experienced journalists isn’t returning the favor.
I think the issue is less that it’s a cold email and/or that multiple sources were used than that the student is closing off the chance for dialogue. This conversation has been limited before it even began. What about follow-up? What about having the chance to talk to you about his/her own career? What about the ability to go off script? Initial emailed questions annoy me, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a j-student or a veteran. Here, you would be doing all the work for the student, and they wouldn’t really learn from it in the way they should. You know the answers to these questions, don’t need to write about it, but they could gain so much.
Cold emails are fine, I say, but as a preliminary. Could give you resources for further reading, or could be used to set up a time for a more in-depth discussion. Email questions are good only if your interviewee can’t afford to give you enough time for a phone/in-person convo.
When I interviewed people for Data Delvers, which Gregory cited above, the answers to the questions were only part of what I hoped to get from the experience. I wrote down questions before I interviewed people, but stopped looking at that sheet of paper after five minutes of chatting. These types of assignments should open doors, not create a pre-defined window.
And after you start to foster these relationships, then the real fun begins. Less than a year after I interviewed you, Gregory, I’ve launched myself into a job doing data journalism at PBS. But I only got there because of the knowledge, advice and friendships with data journalists that started with deep conversations that could have stopped easily with a simple q + a. But that’s not what it should be about.
And sorry for hijacking your comments section.
I hope the student who emailed you sees this post.
I appreciate all the comments. I still think e-mail — and this e-mail in particular — was not the right tool for the job, for reasons Michelle explained. (As I recall, when she interviewed me, she first sent me an e-mail explaining the project and then asking when would be a good time to call in the next week or two.)
But I do agree with one point Megan made: We’ve all made rookie mistakes, and I at least owe this student an explanation of why I’m not able to help and explain gently what a better approach might have been. I’ve now done so.
The deadline here is ridiculous and some of the questions are far too mundane.
I make my students RESEARCH and INTERVIEW and WALK and PHOTOGRAPH and even MAP beat locales to actually LEARN a beat. Then I make them go find stories.
But, I do think some questions this student asked you are important, and – frankly – as a Mizzou grad, kudos to her for reaching out to a reporter of your caliber.
Don’t be pissed off. Silence, too, is a lesson.
Of course it’s not the right tool for the job, so make that the teachable moment or delete the email. Don’t publicly berate the student in a self-aggrandizing “no no” statement. Your blog post was ridiculous. You point completely off target. You weren’t dealing with a journalist here. You were dealing with a 18- or 19-year-old student in her first journalism class.
You could’ve made an example of this in a more constructive way. It would have been a much better had you helped the student understand why this was not a best practice, had a back and forth with her, and then wrote a post about it. I’m sure it would have been received much better by pretty much every journalist out there (yours truly included) who has been in her shoes. Michele’s comments are all valid, but not in this context. The girl who wrote you is a sophomore in basically her first 101 “what is journalism?” class. Of course she doesn’t get it. She’s not a reporter. She’s not even a student in Advanced Reporting. Mizzou students have to take a series of classes before they even get to start working in the “real world” classrooms that makes it such a great program.
You have no idea of the circumstances here. Sure, she might be procrastinating. But maybe that’s the assignment … breaking news reporting that has to be turned around quickly. It doesn’t matter. Either way, she didn’t handle it properly. And neither did you. Instead of helping her understand that, you throw her under the bus. Must have been a slow day for blog post ideas.
I’ve worked on both sides of the fence: as a journalist and as a media relations contact at several different companies. I have, for both roles, had to reach out for last minute assistance. And, I have also been approached for last minute assistance by journalists and other PR practitioners.
This is a deadline-driven, under-staffed profession. Requests like these should be expected. While I do agree that the student could have perhaps made a phone call, e-mail is perfectly acceptable for this day and age.
As you yourself said, Mr. Korte, you came up in the time before e-mail, so I can understand if it seems like a foreign way to approach a contact. But I (and most others in my generation) are perfectly comfortable with e-mail interviews, finding sources via social networks like Facebook, conducting Skype interviews, and creating videos to accompany print articles.
It’s a new time for journalism, for better or for worse. And we all have the choice to accept it and adapt, or resist change and become irrelevant.
I agree with Ryan. Posting her email shamefully up on the internet for the world–and her future employers–to see is no more mature of a way to handle the situation than her email was in the first place. She isn’t expected to be a perfect professional yet, because she’s a 19-year-old student who’s obviously JUST learning about reporting… but you are expected to be professional. She really could have used your help.
Plus: You never know who else she contacted. She may have shot you an email on a whim just hoping that someone with your experience would answer. She may have called every single reporter in Columbia, Missouri, and had a lengthy conversation with them. We can’t assume the details.
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