{"id":3811,"date":"2022-04-14T20:26:08","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T20:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vpms1.humber.smartmanagedservers.com\/convergencemag\/?p=3811"},"modified":"2022-06-30T18:11:07","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T18:11:07","slug":"getting-the-scoop-who-gets-there-first-is-more-challenging-when-it-is-so-difficult-to-build-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/getting-the-scoop-who-gets-there-first-is-more-challenging-when-it-is-so-difficult-to-build-connections\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting The Scoop: Who gets there first is more challenging when it is so difficult to build connections\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Eli Ridder<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The president\u2019s been assassinated. It was this information James McLean carried with him as he ran towards the ocean shore of Washington, D.C. on an April evening of 1865. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford\u2019s theatre and later died. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The detailed report that McLean filed didn\u2019t make it on time for the steamer leaving for Europe that night, so he hired a tugboat, chased after the steamer and threw his report aboard. Europe got the news that Lincoln was killed 12 days later via his reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When wide-eyed, new students enter their journalism school programs, they learn how to use press conferences, social media and other tools at their disposal to publish their stories. But where reporters, and the publications they work for, rise above others is the scoop. A scoop is the main prize, getting information ahead of a rival news organization, beating the competition to the punch and snagging an exclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the traditions of Reuters scoops continue. David Ljunggren, one of the news agency\u2019s top political reporters in Ottawa, explained that it\u2019s all about getting out there and meeting the players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe main bit of advice I have is that if you want to be a successful journalist, you\u2019ve got to be a people person. You\u2019ve got to like getting out there and meeting a continuous stream of new people,\u201d explained Ljunggren. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When searching for a big scoop, the Guelph Mercury-Tribune\u2019s Graeme McNaughton said the critical way to be successful is in learning about the ins and outs of a beat. From his home in Guelph he talked about how it\u2019s often hard for a reporter to know everything when they are\u00a0new to the region or beat they are covering. When McNaughton first moved to the Mercury-Tribune to cover politics, there were complaints he wasn\u2019t producing the same behind-the-scenes coverage of his predecessor Doug Halat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoug was here for 20-30 years, I started last week, so give me a second,\u201d the Humber College journalism graduate said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
From the standpoint of expert reporters it takes patience, perception and people skills to become a great journalist. Photo taken by: Charlesdeluvio Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is essential to meet the players to build up a Rolodex for scoops. Reuters\u2019 Ljunggren lamented how difficult the global coronavirus pandemic has made finding those sources if a reporter is new on the scene, or even for veteran reporters to find someone new. \u201cPretty much every big scoop that we\u2019ve had since COVID started, when everyone was working at home, has been talking to people I already knew and who I already had formed a close enough relationship with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Ljunggren and McNaughton emphasized patience in building up the relationships is needed to start getting those exclusive stories that can make a career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of times, you\u2019re not going to necessarily get your stories from the people who are directly involved, you\u2019ll get it from people that are on the periphery,\u201d McNaughton said. It might be from the mayor, the councillors or the city staff that share a scoop but, it can also be from political activists or concerned community members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporters can also look to journalism from outside their beat or region — and localize a scoop. The Washington Post reported a story about a tech company that did backend systems management that was hacked by the Russian government. McNaughton noticed the story and localized it by contacting the technical support staff at the city hall and managed to get an exclusive reporting that the city hall\u2019s technical department used the same software. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to covering politics at the provincial level, Mitchell Thompson of the non-profit news organization Press Progress looks for a scoop in the publicly available documents and finds stories there that other newsrooms may have missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a lot of cases, we tend to get our story ideas from\u2026 primary source documents, and that comes down to knowing the kind of technical language of your area,\u201d explained Thompson. Sometimes these types of documents can be sitting in email inboxes and all it takes is knowing the right person for the story to come to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of our big scoops this year was a plan for the Ministry of Education. This was distributed to the school boards that they were going to cut over $1.6 billion for the schools,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cThat was lurking in the inboxes of union officials and school board officials and principals for a long time.\u201d Once he was able to get a hold of a document it got turned around into a headline that made an impact on people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mitchell Thompson of the non-profit news organization Press Progress said that covering the story on how the Ministry of Education cut $1.6 billion in the budget was one of the biggest scoops him and his colleagues covered. Photo taken by: Feliphe-Schiarolli Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The scoop can change history. It became worldwide news in 2013 that the mayor of Canada\u2019s largest city smoked crack cocaine. It was a story broken by the Toronto Star. In October 2017, The New York Times broke the story of Harvey Weinstein\u2019s years of sexual abuse of women, sparking the cultural phenomenon known as the #MeToo Movement that led to firing over 200 powerful men who abused their positions. Time Magazine, during September 2019, broke the news Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had worn \u201cbrownface\u201d to an Arabian-themed gala 18 years earlier, changing the tone for a national election and potentially impacting its outcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether a reporter patiently builds up their relationships, finds documents through freedom of information requests and those that are publicly released, or just being in the right spot at the right time, anyone with enough drive can start finding the scoops they\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When searching for a big scoop, the Guelph Mercury-Tribune\u2019s Graeme McNaughton says the critical way to be successful is in learning about the ins and outs of a beat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-scaled.jpg",2221,2560,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-170x120.jpg",160,113,true],"medium":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-260x300.jpg",260,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-768x885.jpg",696,802,true],"large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-889x1024.jpg",696,802,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-1333x1536.jpg",1333,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-1777x2048.jpg",1777,2048,true],"td_150x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-150x173.jpg",150,173,true],"td_218x150":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-218x150.jpg",218,150,true],"td_300x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-300x346.jpg",300,346,true],"td_324x400":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-324x400.jpg",324,400,true],"td_485x360":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-485x360.jpg",485,360,true],"td_696x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-696x802.jpg",696,802,true],"td_1068x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-1068x1231.jpg",1068,1231,true],"td_1920x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/charlesdeluvio-vQdFU6DVgxM-unsplash-1920x2213.jpg",1920,2213,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"convergencemag","author_link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/author\/convergencemag\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"When searching for a big scoop, the Guelph Mercury-Tribune\u2019s Graeme McNaughton says the critical way to be successful is in learning about the ins and outs of a beat.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3811"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4167,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3811\/revisions\/4167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}