Part I: Ways to Use E-Mail for Reporting
E-mail outreach to people in your community can help you find good stories to write about, good people to illustrate those stories, and quick input when news is breaking. Moreover, communicating regularly with large numbers of people by e-mail is easy, efficient and begins to challenge the notion that those who are providing news and information are unapproachable or even arrogant. Let’s look at some ways you can use e-mail.
To Help you Generate Story Ideas
We’ve learned at The Spokesman-Review that once you have established an on-going e-mail relationship with people, they are much more likely to tell you about breaking news, feature ideas or enterprise stories.
Experience suggests that simply asking people to “tell us your story ideas” is not an effective method of interacting. It works better if you plant specific suggestions. Here’s an example of how you can do that:
A few years ago, the Spokesman-Review featured a community “Innovator” once a week for a year. In order to jump-start the feature, the newspaper sent out e-mail to local residents asking them to nominate people who had found creative, practical solutions for dealing with work and life. Nominations were received for people who were breaking ground in technology, business and medicine, and for a man who creates authentic stagecoaches by hand.
And our newspaper recently went looking for “good kids,” who do things from their own motivation to help others. The writer asked readers to help locate such kids: “We’re talking about young people who go beyond the can or two of food for the school food drive. We’re looking for young people who freely give of themselves and their time to help those in need.”
In both cases, the readers responded with terrific suggestions.
To Help you Report an Enterprise Story
Enterprise stories are usually longer, more ambitious reporting projects that often rely on gathering information from data or experts on a topic. Comments from people who may be impacted, though, are frequently an afterthought. Using e-mail to elicit input from citizen stakeholders early in the reporting process not only enriches the story, but also helps make it more relevant to readers. Here are some enterprise avenues for e-mail.
Eliciting community comment: Sometimes an enterprise story begs for comment from people who will be affected, whether the story is about an asphalt plant proposed for a residential neighborhood, the proliferation of potholes in the city, or a registered sex offender moving into an upscale neighborhood. An e-mail query to people in that part of town will deliver some robust responses.
Finding a needle in the haystack: Sometimes, it’s hard for reporters to find people with relevant anecdotes about the subject of their story. E-mail replaces luck with a more systematic way of finding these people. For example, a reporter was doing a feature story about the Washington State Capitol dome closing for three years for repairs. He wanted to find local people with fun, personal anecdotes about the building. So he sent out e-mail to 100 people, hoping to find one or two good tales. Here’s what happened:
“Hey, if you ever need an example of why this database is valuable, here’s a great one. I’m writing an otherwise droll story about renovations at the state Capitol, and here’s a woman in remote Wilbur, who, 37 years ago, was stuck atop the dome during a honeymoon tour with her (still) husband. It’s a great anecdote and she was a fun phone interview. I don’t know how we ever would’ve found her any other way.”
Uncovering tough nuts to crack: Sometimes, it’s difficult to find people who are affected by a touchy, controversial subject, or to get them to talk on the record. By contacting a broad cross-section of the community, you dramatically increase your chances of finding someone who’s willing to be a source for a story.
To Help You Report a Breaking News Story
E-mail can help reporters who are on deadline with a breaking-news story. A solicitation seeking eyewitnesses or people with personal experience or relevant anecdotes is more reliable than luck. And by inviting people to comment, news organizations can open the door to fresher, more diverse voices.
Finding a needle in a haystack: On Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, sent out e-mails to nearly 1,000 people in our e-mail database, asking for their personal connections to the attacks. Within minutes, the responses began pouring in: The husband of one local person’s cousin had just exited the World Trade Center when the first building collapsed and his cell phone went dead. Several other local residents had friends or relatives in the air, in the Pentagon or in the World Trade Center. Some of their comments were included in that afternoon’s special edition.
Getting person-on-the-street reaction: A few years ago, Roger Smith, a staff writer at the Vindicator newspaper in Youngstown, Ohio, won an Associated Press public service award for a series in which half of the people he quoted participated via e-mail. Here’s his description of how the e-mail tool was used:
“Congressman James Traficant was convicted in federal court on all 10 counts of bribery and racketeering against him about 4:30 p.m. A few minutes later I sent a query asking for thoughts on the conviction. We’re a p.m. paper so I didn’t need to turn it around immediately. If we had been on deadline, we had 30-some comments available to run within two hours. Nonetheless, I was given until about 11 p.m. to produce something and ‘keep it under 40 inches.’
“I went home, ate dinner, walked the dog, watched TV (not bad for being ‘on deadline’) and came back to the office about 9 p.m. I got 60 e-mails between 4:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., edited them based on their focus to the verdict and where they came from, and spun out 32 comments. Three other reporters assigned to ‘man on the street’ reaction across five counties that evening produced 30 people in their stories combined. And they didn’t get to eat dinner at home or walk the dog that night. “
To Generate Commentary
Whether you’re trying to generate traffic to blogs, online forums, or to more traditional print-oriented opinion pages, you want to be the community forum for discussion of public issues.
Soliciting reaction to breaking news: On Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks, The Spokesman-Review published a full page of letters to the editor. Those letters came in response to e-mail sent the previous day asking readers to comment.
Inviting comment on specific issues or projects: You might choose an “issue of the day” or “week” and invite people to comment on that topic. Here are three examples:
A Maryland editor wanted to get feedback on his newspaper’s reporting after a number of girl basketball players were kicked off the local high school team for drinking at an off-campus party. The response was illuminating.
A North Carolina editor wanted to know whether local governments were wise to offer huge tax breaks to a large multinational corporation in exchange for job guarantees.
And editors at various locations around the country want to know what citizens think about the possibility of reinstituting a draft for military service.
Or, you might choose larger, ongoing topics such as elections to generate commentary.
The e-mail should come from the person who’s going to be using the information - usually reporters. As a courtesy, the reporter should reply to everyone who responds, saying thanks and letting them know what’s going to be done with their comments.
Ideally, your database should automatically keep track of where and when e-mail is sent, so that the same people don’t get bombarded with messages from different reporters.
PREV: Using E-mail to Jumpstart your Newsgathering
NEXT:
Part II: How to Create an Easy E-mail Tool
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