Covering One of Your Own
On thing that makes me a little antsy is when a kid pitches a story where the main source is a former student from our TV staff. Why?
Former broadcast kids know what you’re after. They “get it.” I do not mean they lie, or that their stories are not worth covering. I just think inside jobs can be a lazy way to get a story. I would prefer kids look elsewhere for sources. BUT… if a former broadcast student’s perspective is so vital, so necessary to a story’s impact, I usually can find a way to get comfortable with it.
Case in point…our latest “Bay 11” podcast. We needed to talk to some current or recent high school students who had tried fad diets, the topic of the piece we were preparing. While my reporter, Anna, looked for teen sources, I contacted a former HTV News Director, Emily, who just graduated college. I often ask former staffers for contacts when we are struggling, and Emily has helped us in the past with some solid leads. Our HTV alums can be invaluable resources, and they remember how hard it was to find people for their own stories when they were on the staff.
This time, when I told Emily what we were covering, she said she definitely had a source. It turned out that she had a diet story or her own to share. She offered to talk to Anna. Like I said, I am usually not comfortable with “inside jobs,” but when Emily explained her dieting journey, and its dramatic consequences, I knew right away teens and others needed to hear it. Anna agreed. It changed both the focus, and the impact, of her final story.
So my sage advice is to not rule out using recent students as sources. Just make sure it is worth not looking a little harder. In this case, I think we got it right, and I certainly appreciate Emily’s willingness to share her difficult experience with us.
You can hear “Losing Weight, Losing Control” on the latest Bay 11 podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, Player.fm, basically wherever you usually find your podcasts. You can also find it on our home page at htvbuzz.com.