Third places
Get out of the council chambers and find out what real people on your beat are talking about.
Here are two tips on diversifying your sources and finding bold, edgy and real stories. They are culled from The Pew Center’s report “Tapping Civic Life” and from the Freedom Forum’s “Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists.”
1) Listening Posts. Reporters tend to focus their beat work on conventional or traditional places, classically city hall or the municipal complex, police headquarters, the fire station, schools, etc. This automatically limits the contacts and sources you have to work with, especially on deadline.
Listening posts are places where minority, immigrant, seniors and other nonofficial community members gather informally to gab and learn what’s going on. They are the diners, delis, small groceries, churches, barber shops, daycare centers, basketball courts, ballfields, senior centers, etc. where folks hang out. If you want to deepen your understanding of what’s important to people, find these listening posts– and listen! It’s suggested that a reporter not barge into such a place and start asking a lot of questions. Don’t deceive anyone that you’re not a reporter, but visit at first to just engage people in conversation, find out what’s on their mind. There are numerous listening posts in our towns. It’s just a matter of finding them and spending the time.
2) Community Catalysts. Social mapping by several newspapers show that journalists tend to focus their attention on official sources and civic activists, who are semi-officials in the sense of their participation and involvement in special interest issues. Especially in minority and immigrant communities, there are almost unknown leaders who never show their face at meetings, but function as communicators, neighborhood mayors, spiritual leaders, healers, etc. These community catalysts are a largely untapped source of news and stories. Spend some time locating them and you will eventually have a new rainbow rolodex of sources that will improve the thoroughness of your beat coverage and bring new voices to the paper.
- Jonathan Maslow, Herald News, Oct. 2002