Newsroom With A View

As a rookie reporter, I once had the idea of doing a first-person feature about learning to ride a horse, and I called around to a few places. Once place I called, I asked about scheduling a visit, and the person was kind of nonchalant, sort of “Yeah, just come out, we’ll work something out,” sounding not very interested. I called another place and they scheduled something firm. So I never followed up on the first place, wrote my story entirely based on the second — and after the story ran, the first place called my boss and complained about how they had set aside time, scheduled a trainer to wait for me, etc. etc. I was mortified, and it burned a hole in my psyche, and ever since then I have been absolutely mystified — and mortified — by many reporters’ continuing habit to treat public interaction as if it’s a video they can just hit pause and stop on without worrying about how the people on the other end feel or what they are thinking. Last night a reporter told me another reporter would call me today. Still waiting. I work in the business, so I’m like a battered spouse — I’ll forgive anything. But be warned, reporters, whether they read your newspaper regularly or watch your TV show, they think it’s important to have been contacted, and they anticipate the promised follow-up. If you fail to follow through and treat people with this kind of indifference, most people will just write you off, if they are that lenient, and your colleagues with you. You dig your own industry’s grave.