Don't Be Afraid and Other Tips From Winning Reporters

The following was submitted to the SIPA Blogger by Harry Baisden, SIPA Director of Publications, offering tips from winning specialized content reporters at today's (June 5) "New Rules" conference at the Mayflower Hotel.

Don't Be Afraid, Make Your Readers Winners and Other Tips from Winning Reporters

Washington, DC -- You’ve got to be tenacious…you need to know how old laws fit new realities, you’ve got to know what your readers want and need…you must learn to follow the daisy chain…you’d better be sure you KNOW the field you’re covering. Make these “have-to’s” your mantra and you, too, can be walking up to the podium at the annual International Newsletter & Specialized Information Conference to accept an award in Specialized Information Publishers Foundation’s journalism and marketing excellence competition. Five past award winners -- Carl Ayers and Jonathan Stern of UCG, Glenn Demby of Bongarde Media Co., George Lobsenz of The Energy Daily and Ellen Smith of Legal Publications Services -- talked about what it takes to get the award-winning story at a session of the 31st Annual International Newsletter & Specialized Information Conference in Washington today.


“You just can’t be intimidated,” Ayers said, pointing to the lawsuit threats he has received. “You’ve just got to stick with it.”


Demby’s award-winning efforts come from a different perspective. “We’re not a big breaking news organization,” he said. “Helping people in their business is our essence.” The political systems of the U.S. and Canada usually struggle to try to keep up with the changes in society, he said. It’s a newsletter’s job to help its readers learn how the old laws fit the changes in their industries.


Stern cautioned reporters and editors not to be so focused on “the story” they’re working on in an interview to miss tips that might point them to the trail of a whole new story. “A lot of reporters just don’t get the ‘listen’ part right.” Stern's breaking news coverage of the WorldCom collapse won him a first-place SIPF award three years ago.


Many stories come about of a long “daisy chain” of information that may not be easily recognizable at first, Lobsenz said. When you get a small piece of information that might start you down that daisy chain, it’s important to “act like you know more than you do and you’ll get even more information.”


“It’s one of the hardest things for a young journalist to realize how important it is to know the field they’re covering,” Smith said. She said there was no way she could have won the awards she has garnered in recent years when she first starting covering mine safety and health issues in the late 1980s. “People trust me and trust my knowledge,” she said. “They may not like me, but they know I’ll get the story right,” she said.