Contacts

It is difficult to overstate how important contacts are to being a successful journalist as you will rely on them to give you stories and to give you a steer on stories you are working on.

When you start in a new role, you should ask your colleagues to give you the phone numbers of their contacts, as journalists are usually fairly generous in this way. Also, try to get a list of contacts from the person whose job you are taking over and inherit these as your own.

Contacts With Decision Makers

The first thing you need to do is establish a personal relationship with the most important people in the area, such as the council leader, the head of the police, the local MP and the head of the local fire service.

While it is not always possible, you should try to arrange a face-to-face meeting with these people to introduce yourself properly and to explain what sort of stories you are interested in.

It is also a chance to set out some ground rules, such as telling them you can be trusted to keep a confidence and that you will always give them a right of reply.

You should aim to get their personal mobile numbers because you need as much access to important people as possible, though it may seem too pushy to ask for it during a first meeting. If this is the case, offer them your mobile number and say they are welcome to call you at any time if they ever have any concerns about a story. Hopefully, this will lead to them giving you their number in return.

After this, you just need to go out of your way to be as pleasant as possible to your most senior contacts. This does not mean going easy on them in print, but there is no harm in phoning them after the paper has gone to print to warn them what the article is going to say.

Many newly qualified journalists find it intimidating to deal with people like this because they are usually much older and more senior than them. There are no easy ways of getting around this, but it is really important you do not let them dominate the relationship.

You just need to develop a bit of arrogance to convince yourself you are good enough to deal with the person on an equal footing and remind yourself that you know more than them about the media.

Developing Other Contacts

Getting to know your area's decision makers is a good start, but they are not generally going to tell you things their organisation does not want you to know.

This is why you need to look further for your contacts and develop relationships with people who do not have an interest in maintaining the status quo but still have access to information.

Sometimes these people will have an axe to grind, but often they will just like to gossip and gravitate towards journalists because they find it exciting to see what they have told you end up in the paper.

The perfect type of contact is someone who is both indiscreet and works for an organisation that is often in the news, such as a hospital or a police force. They are much more likely to give you the inside track on what is going on than the people at the top.

You should also be actively seeking people who fit the description of connectors in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. These are people who know large numbers of people. If you can develop a relationship with one then they will usually pay dividends in terms of giving you stories.

But it is not usually initially obvious whether someone will be a great contact or a waste of time. Because of this, the best advice is to take the name and number of everyone you meet.

Maintaining Contacts

It is not enough to develop a relationship with a contact. You have to keep the relationship going as well.

This means sending them Christmas cards, meeting them for coffees and drinks, asking after their families and not just phoning them when you want something from them. Basically, you need to make them think you like them, even if you do not.

This is not to say you cannot become friends with your contacts. You can. But remember that the point of the relationship is to get stories and you should focus most of your energy on the people who give you stories rather than the ones who are good company.

The best and most traditional way of maintaining contacts is to drink with them in the pub, not least because alcohol tends to make people less discreet. However, doing this regularly can be a big time commitment and most newsdesks will not let you drink with contacts on company time.

This means you often have to choose between drinking with them in your own time and not doing it at all. Personally, I would suggest the amount of stories you get out of it means it is probably not a good use of your time, not to mention the effect on your health. But if you enjoy drinking with them, then why not?

Making a Contacts Map

You should take a map of the local area and mark on it where each of your contacts lives and works.

By doing this, whenever there is a breaking story in the local area such as a murder or a big fire then you will be able to look at the map and immediately see whether you know anyone who lives near the incident.

If someone does live near then you can call them and ask if they have heard any gossip about the story that can give you a lead. Or if you are lucky they may even have seen the incident or the immediate aftermath and will be able to give you an eyewitness quote.