The basic law of council reporting
The basic law of council reporting is this: the local newspaper’s specialist correspondent covers hundreds of meetings every year, deals with senior city politicians on a daily basis, and knows what’s going on at the authority like the back of his or her hand.
At every meeting, no matter how important, you’re unlikely to see a rival reporter. Broadcast media just don’t want to know.
Then, once a year at budget briefing time, a couple of telly reporters and a radio reporter turn up and act like they own the town hall.
TV reporters, mainly because they appear on the gogglebox most evenings and probably get recognised in Waitrose as a result, are usually the worst. “I’m on a deadline”, they tell press officers breathlessly, as if to distinguish themselves from the rest of the media pack who are also working to deadline.
Time always seems to be short for these hacks – despite usually only covering a single story in a day – so they don’t have time to do nitty-gritty.
The best and most recent example of this was at the county council’s budget briefing last week.
Myself and the radio reporter from BBC Leicester were going through the budget line-by-line, asking for clarification on each bit of information. The officers were patient, the press officer helpful, we ploughed through lines of incomprehensible council-speak and made sense of it. The dense document was becoming clear.
Then a local BBC TV reporter – who shall remain nameless – bounded in half an hour late. He sat down, quickly glanced at the report, then said:
“Right how many old folks homes are closing?”
“Er, none” the officer replied.
“Right how many youth clubs are closing?”
“Er, none. Actually we’re just covering all this now.”
“Right what’s closing then. Come on, something must be closing. What’s closing?”
“Nothing that hasn’t already been announced,” the press officer interjected.
“Right well what’s being cut back?”
It was straight out of the booklet on how not to conduct interviews. You’re supposed to start with big open questions then move on to nail down the specifics, not the other way round.
Perhaps it’s the symptom of rehashing stories nicked from the local press on a daily basis – there’s less time to do original news and you forget how to interview primary sources.
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