The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing by Zachary Petit

Author:Zachary Petit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2015-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Off-the-Record Sources

Like e-mail interviews, on-spec writing, and, well, I suppose, most topics in writing, there are different schools of thought on off-the-record conversations. Throughout my career, I’ve observed that most journalists have a personal code when it comes to the topic.

As an overview, let’s oversimplify a wildly complex subject and look at it through two lenses. First, some journalists have a flat policy that there is no “off the record.” It doesn’t exist. When you’re talking to a journalist, you’re talking to a journalist, and anything is fair game.

Conversely, the second school of thought embraces off-the-record discussions to deepen their investigations, further their knowledge of a subject, and so on.

While the first approach would make life easier, I’m of the second school. To me, an interview is a game of trust and balance. If a source can’t trust you, you’re not going to get the whole story. It’s psychology. If a source wants to give me a deep insight into something she’s discussing but is not comfortable revealing to the public at large—often it’s something that is personal or something that will lead me to the truth—and asks me if she can speak to me candidly off the record, I’ll let her. Of course, I don’t advertise that I’m of this school of thought, and I don’t welcome it when it happens. (I’d rather not have to deal with it, and to have all information and insight happily volunteered to me, but that’s not the way the world always works.) If what she’s said to me is something I believe should be on the record for the betterment of the pursuit of the truth or the story, I’ll attempt to convince her to say it on the record.

Whenever anyone goes off the record, you should immediately question why she’s doing so. Was it so she could let you know that she’s uncomfortable discussing the disease you’ve asked her about because her husband died of the same terrible illness a year ago? Fair enough. If it’s personal information unrelated to the greater story, I would accept that and change topics. But if it’s a telling detail of crucial importance to understanding the subject at hand, I’d let the source know that and express why I think she should be willing to say it on the record.

But let’s say you’re interviewing a local mayoral candidate, and she asks to go off the record and then tells you that her opponent has an underground lemur fighting ring. Why is she telling you this?

Politicians love to play with reporters—and play reporters. They know if they give you a scoop like that, it will hurt their opponent.

So you look into it. If it’s true and you have verified it without a doubt, yes, it would be newsworthy and worth pursuing. But if you look into it, you might just discover that it’s a pointless smear campaign based on the fact that the candidate once owned an exotic pet lemur two decades ago. His lemur cage matches are distorted fantasies from the other side.

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