7 Chapter 5: Basic Reporting/Developing Sources
Basic Reporting
In the fall of 2023, a podcast dropped called “The Kids of Rutherford County.” It’s a four-part investigative journalism project from Serial Productions and the New York Times. Reporter Meribah Knight describes how a Tennessee county and its people arrested and illegally jailed hundreds – possibly thousands – of children as young as 7 years old for petty crimes, such as pulling hair and not stopping other kids from fighting.
She covered this story through vigorous reporting and finding sources to talk to her about their experiences. Let us start with the first episode, titled “The Egregious Video.”
It begins like this: “It was a March afternoon in Rutherford County, Tennessee, a growing community about 30 miles southeast of Nashville. And then, as kids do, one said something about another kid’s mom. This insult led to some shoving. And then, as kids also do, one of them pulled out a cellphone and started filming.”
The 28-minute podcast describes what happened next, from a police investigation to the arrest of 11 children who were not fighting. How did Knight get that story?
Answer: Sources.
A source is a person, organization or document that provides information for a news story.
In the first episode, Knight uses the video as one source and interviews one of the children who witnessed the fight and her mother, who was approached by police.
Knight tells the listener that she tried to interview the police officers who arrested the children, but they refused to talk to her. Instead, she legally obtained copies of interviews of those officers conducted by the department’s internal affairs division to get the police side of the story.
In the second episode, she speaks to two attorneys whose job was to represent the children who were jailed. She also interviews the county attorney whose job is to prosecute them. In episode three, Knight goes even further, interviewing 25 people who were illegally jailed as children and asking them to recount those experiences and the impacts on their lives.
Notice how Knight is trying to present all sides of the story? This is basic reporting.
General Assignment Versus Beat Reporting
There are two kinds of reporters in most news organizations. A general assignment reporter writes a variety of news or feature stories on a wide range of issues. They do not specialize in one kind of news and must be ready to quickly learn about a subject before they write about it. Examples are reporters who cover a street fair one day and write a feature on a school principal the next day.
A beat reporter covers the same geographic or subject area consistently and specializes in the subject matter. These reporters become experts in their beat and enjoy the ability to dig deeper into a subject because they are familiar with the players and ways to get information. Examples of this are police reporters, sports reporters who cover one team or sport, city or education reporters