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Mousing around looking for something else and I stumbled on this.
An excerpt:
Conducting e-mail interviews is "madness" to Melvin Mencher, a veteran newspaper reporter who taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for 30 years and wrote a widely used reporting textbook. "It's frightening how many people would rather sit in front of a computer screen instead of getting out and enjoying humanity... It's part of a trend that separates the reporter from the reality of the life we're supposed to be examining."
Even in a phone interview, he says, "you can still get a sense of the person's voice, their personality," and you can hear their pauses, chuckles and reactions. E-mail, though, is just a collection of stale, lifeless words without context.
I call shenanigans. Big time.
First, one is communicating not with a machine, but another live, human being. In-person interviews are no guarantee of candor or better quotes. Someone who is shy and reticent in person may open up in text, thereby giving a far better interview (that would apply to yours truly, in fact.)
But the biggest reason this is bullshit is that last bit: lifeless words, indeed. Sounds like the man is indicting print journalism itself in favor of live TV interviews. After all, if we journalists are supposed to be seeing and hearing our sources in order to get the best stuff from them, how can we justify only writing our stories, instead of putting them on video? The sheer arrogance of the idea that pro journos know how to write in a way that isn't boring doesn't wash. If text is boring, it's boring no matter who is writing it. If it's not boring, then e-mail isn't a boring way to get an interview.
People are busy. They don't have the time to sit and talk to a reporter for an hour unless they're the subject of a feature piece or are a PR rep pimping something. (And in the latter case, one may as well just quote from their press release, because you'll get the same thing in person.) E-mail is how people with diverse schedules communicate. It's almost exclusively the way the business world communicates, now. For a reporter to go outside that is going outside now-established protocol, which isn't going to endear her to her source.
There will always be stories that need more physical context for an interview, but getting basic information for basic news stories really shouldn't require that. And in fact, given the extremely short news cycle and the push of print onto the net, there should be no excuse for wasting time setting up in-person interviews when you can get the same damn questions answered in half the time just by hitting "send" and waiting a few hours.
As the article points out, there are real pitfalls to communicating exclusively this way. But frankly, those sorts of "be aware of potentially being hoodwinked" lectures should be taught in basic newswriting classes anyway. The very same caution one uses to make sure a phone source is legit applies for online sources as well. And honestly, if a reporter can't easily differentiate between legitimate online sources and bullshit, she should quit her job and go work at Dairy Queen instead.
I suspect a lot of this "online sources are EVAL" stuff is coming from old-skool editors who are already annoyed at how the net has taken over the distribution of news, and so therefore, damn the torpedoes, it won't be used to gather it, too. Well, too bad. Digging in one's heels and clinging desperately to one's battered Underwood isn't going to save journalism, but instead brings a risk of making it more obsolete.
Print media are rapidly becoming as dead as the trees they're printed on. Trying to pretend otherwise--and gutting a legitimate method of newsgathering in the process--is only ensuring that real journalism won't be found on the newer news distribution channels.
When real journalists refuse to gather and deliver news via the net, the net will be devoid of real journalism.
An excerpt:
Conducting e-mail interviews is "madness" to Melvin Mencher, a veteran newspaper reporter who taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for 30 years and wrote a widely used reporting textbook. "It's frightening how many people would rather sit in front of a computer screen instead of getting out and enjoying humanity... It's part of a trend that separates the reporter from the reality of the life we're supposed to be examining."
Even in a phone interview, he says, "you can still get a sense of the person's voice, their personality," and you can hear their pauses, chuckles and reactions. E-mail, though, is just a collection of stale, lifeless words without context.
I call shenanigans. Big time.
First, one is communicating not with a machine, but another live, human being. In-person interviews are no guarantee of candor or better quotes. Someone who is shy and reticent in person may open up in text, thereby giving a far better interview (that would apply to yours truly, in fact.)
But the biggest reason this is bullshit is that last bit: lifeless words, indeed. Sounds like the man is indicting print journalism itself in favor of live TV interviews. After all, if we journalists are supposed to be seeing and hearing our sources in order to get the best stuff from them, how can we justify only writing our stories, instead of putting them on video? The sheer arrogance of the idea that pro journos know how to write in a way that isn't boring doesn't wash. If text is boring, it's boring no matter who is writing it. If it's not boring, then e-mail isn't a boring way to get an interview.
People are busy. They don't have the time to sit and talk to a reporter for an hour unless they're the subject of a feature piece or are a PR rep pimping something. (And in the latter case, one may as well just quote from their press release, because you'll get the same thing in person.) E-mail is how people with diverse schedules communicate. It's almost exclusively the way the business world communicates, now. For a reporter to go outside that is going outside now-established protocol, which isn't going to endear her to her source.
There will always be stories that need more physical context for an interview, but getting basic information for basic news stories really shouldn't require that. And in fact, given the extremely short news cycle and the push of print onto the net, there should be no excuse for wasting time setting up in-person interviews when you can get the same damn questions answered in half the time just by hitting "send" and waiting a few hours.
As the article points out, there are real pitfalls to communicating exclusively this way. But frankly, those sorts of "be aware of potentially being hoodwinked" lectures should be taught in basic newswriting classes anyway. The very same caution one uses to make sure a phone source is legit applies for online sources as well. And honestly, if a reporter can't easily differentiate between legitimate online sources and bullshit, she should quit her job and go work at Dairy Queen instead.
I suspect a lot of this "online sources are EVAL" stuff is coming from old-skool editors who are already annoyed at how the net has taken over the distribution of news, and so therefore, damn the torpedoes, it won't be used to gather it, too. Well, too bad. Digging in one's heels and clinging desperately to one's battered Underwood isn't going to save journalism, but instead brings a risk of making it more obsolete.
Print media are rapidly becoming as dead as the trees they're printed on. Trying to pretend otherwise--and gutting a legitimate method of newsgathering in the process--is only ensuring that real journalism won't be found on the newer news distribution channels.
When real journalists refuse to gather and deliver news via the net, the net will be devoid of real journalism.
