The Big Bad Reporter

Jerry Seinfeld and his pals made a show out of nothing. Unfortunately, there are some reporters out there who think they can make a story out of nothing. These reporters are the worst to deal with and if I was a mean person, I would say they're not really journalists at all - but I'm not a mean person so I'll just say that they are 'desperate' journalists.

Let me explain. Imagine a reporter sitting at the round table for the morning news team meeting. Everyone on the team is pitching their story ideas for the day and one by one, the eyes are slowly swinging around the table to our desperate journalist. Desperate has no solid leads. No real story. Nothing to pitch. But he (or she) heard a rumor, read a blog, had a random thought or feeling about something in the past week. He grasps at it and before we know it, he is spinning out a fabulous story pitch about something that is made of nothing. The news director LOVES IT! Desperate is now committed to producing that story for the evening news (Desperate isn't always a television reporter but for this blog he is).

Now comes the rub. Desperate still has no solid leads or facts to support his story idea. But the story idea was so good, he's not going to let real facts get in the way of his pitch. So Desperate sits down and writes his story. Almost pure fiction but that's okay, because Desperate can find someone, somewhere to give him a quote that will corroborate his theory, he's sure of it. Once his story is written, he gets on the phone and sets up some interviews with whomever will talk to him on camera, on the record. And voila - he has his story for the evening news.

I admit that I am at a loss as to why an ethical journalist would do this but I have seen it happen quite a few times. I can actually tell during the initial phone conversation with the reporter when they have already written their story and are now just looking for someone to give it a 'credibility quote'. I don't know if it is desperation, stubbornness, or pure ego - but it is virtually impossible to get Desperate to hear the real facts and follow that story, rather than the one that is already written in their mind or on their laptop.

So what do you do with this kind of reporter? Well first you have to get enough experience to know when you're being used by one. Then all you can do is keep reiterating the facts and be very, very prepared not to be sucked into saying something out of context during an interview. It's hard - sometimes you will know that the story is pre-written but you don't know WHAT the pre-written story is - so all you can do is hope for the best, and hope that the journalist suddenly realizes what they are doing is wrong, and that they need to do what they were trained to do and listen to the facts so they can do a solid, quality story. And don't despair - there are only a handful of journalists that pull this crap and once they've done it once - you'll have them pegged.