On the beat

Beat reporters are the foundation of print journalism. 

Or at least a vital part of the final product. Without beat reporters developing articles, contacts and storylines becomes a more daunting task, especially in a climate where people just don't trust reporters anymore. 

It's something I've come across over and over again since entering the real world and taking hold of a beat of my own. Granted, it's not a senior political position with the Washington Post or the New York Times, but it's my own little slice of New Hampshire where I'm expected to know everything and everybody, understand the issues and capture life on a daily basis.

There were obvious challenges at first and some I still come across. People were hesitant to talk to a  new reporter, especially a cub reporter. In some cases it would take days for people to give me a call back as I struggled to file stories on the deadlines I had been assigned. Over time that issue faded as I developed and then cultivated relationships within the communities I cover. Rare are the folks in Salem who won't give me at least a call back these days and more and more frequently I have people coming to me first, with news and information they would like to see put out. 

Some of those early challenges remain, of course. There are the town administrators who still don't feel the need to talk to a reporter from the Union Leader or the occasional selectmen here or there who doesn't trust a kid from Massachusetts not to rip their words out of context.

Reporters now fall under that suspicious category of people who are just waiting to take the words out of your mouth and throw it into a slanderous article that might have far-reaching consequences. We slander, libel and muck-rake our way to the top, tear down governments and exhibit and increasingly partisan bias. Worse than that, with the Internet, anything you may go on the record about will undoubtable become an object of scrutiny for some future employer. 

That is the hurdle that fresh reporters, new reporters must overcome. You don't stand aloof above the beat, be it a community, police station, business, etc., but join with it. People talk to me because they know who I am, they've seen my name in the paper and they know I'm not out to make a name for myself by producing hyperbole. 

Which is what gets me back to my original point and that is that the relationships I have established with so many different people in Salem, Windham and Pelham - from the superintendents to the members of the planning board all the way to the town manager who calls me "reporter-man" whenever he sees me lounging around town hall - makes it that much easier to do my job. 

Which is to know everything. 

But only in Salem, Windham and Pelham.