IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN when it seems impossible to escape the holiday hype.
Primetime airwaves are flooded with promotions aimed at budget-conscious gift-givers and high-energy commercials appealing to those making out their wish list. The Sunday paper’s advertisement and coupon sections grow thicker with each week. Area malls are packed with holiday shoppers and even grocery stores are crowded with people getting a jump-start on family feasts.
It happens every year. So what is a reporter to do?
Poynter.org checked in with some reporters to see how they accommodate the added weight of the holidays while continuing to produce quality journalism. While we found that each reporter had a unique approach to developing good stories at the end of the year, the advice we received can be applied to stories throughout the year.
Stan Miller, a personal technology writer at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, says it is harder this year to find compelling technology stories after the excessive attention devoted to last year’s Y2K preparations.
“Unlike last year, no one is expecting any major technological meltdowns,” Miller says, “so we’re doing a lot of stories on e-commerce, online shopping, and high-tech gifts.”
It is always good to keep a lookout for trends or stories that are off the holiday beaten path, Miller says. For instance, he says he plans to write about the massive increase he’s noticed this year in mainstream marketing of historically niche consumer electronics items such as Diablo, a real-time strategy computer game for PC enthusiasts.
The Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer turned to its readers for help with a holiday story this year.
In gathering information for a story on heirloom ornaments, the paper placed a teaser within its Home and Garden section asking readers to share their family traditions or talk about ornaments that are special to them.
“I think it’s going to be a fun, heartwarming story,” says Denise Drake, the paper’s home and garden reporter. “This is the kind of thing that makes the holidays special. It also gets you away from the generic story ideas.”
Drake recommends reading other newspapers and magazines to get story ideas during the holiday season.
“Every story has already been written, in a way,” she says. “One of the things you can do is localize a story or get ideas from colleagues and people in the community.”
THE END OF THE YEAR PRESENTS a lot of opportunities for reporters covering any beat to reflect on the past and look to the future, says Dan Fricker, a business reporter at the Detroit Free Press.
Fricker, who is working on a story about retail customer service, says the best way to find good stories any time of year is to keep in regular contact with sources.
“Go to a few holiday parties, meet people, network, and never go off of press releases,” he says.
Last but not least, there is a longstanding perception that cops reporters see all the action during the end of the year.
Not true, says Stephen Thompson, a police reporter for the Tampa Tribune in Florida. In fact, says Thompson, police activity tends to decrease during the holidays due to the number of officers taking time off. In his experience, Thompson says, law enforcement tend to execute fewer search warrants, conduct fewer drug sweeps, and even make fewer big arrests during the holidays.
“The biggest challenge for any reporter working during the holidays is to avoid the clichéd Christmas or New Year angle when reporting on breaking news,” he says. “There are events that could happen any other day of the year but because it happens on a holiday, the reporters go for that angle.”
An enterprising police reporter could always request to ride with an officer and report on the types of calls that come in that night, Thompson says. The only risk there, he adds, is that the officer won’t receive any calls worthy of a story.
This was the case for Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner reporter Ferdie De Vega last year. With nothing to report on at the local sheriff’s office, De Vega, a cops reporter at the time, was sent to the local electrical company to cover any potential power outages.
“I basically sat around with people at the power company who were hoping that there were no major power outages that night,” he recalls with a chuckle.
Since then, De Vega has moved to business reporting and is currently writing about the state of health care in his county for the paper’s Christmas Day business edition.
“Start with what you have on your backburner,” he advises. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be holiday-related. This is a good time to work on a story that you really want to write. If you get into the holiday mindset, there is a danger of leaving out other important stories that still need to be reported, holidays or not.”
