One crucial part of successful beat reporting is interviewing sources. This provides credibility to the article and introduces “faces” to the reader. It also helps develop that personal relationship with sources who you will continually get in touch with to provide successful beat coverage. It allows the source to get comfortable with the reporter and sometimes provide info off the record that might help push you in the correct direction for followup stories. It’s perhaps the most important part of beat reporting. I can’t stress enough how important it is to interview people. Every article should have at least two quoted sources if you want to pursue this industry. Sometimes you can use a press release that has info on breaking news as a source if officials aren’t available at the current time. But I can’t stress enough how important it is to interview sources. It provides so much more for stories.

Beat reporting is following a “topic” for a continual period of time. It’s completely different than writing a first-person account for an English class. If you have questions about this, please feel free to ask me about it. If you have trouble coming up with interview questions or people to interview, please let me know and we can find some sources for you to talk to. Touch base with people and get comfortable talking and questioning others. No quoted sources is a good way for readers to lose credibility and interest in your writing quickly. And, it’s a good way for bosses to figure out who is putting in the legwork and doing their job. Articles will come together so much quicker and easier with this being done.

Nick