Veteran Reporters’ Cheat Sheet!
Some tricks of the trade journalism school will not teach you
A tongue-in-cheek look at some of the unofficial survival tricks and the informal nomenclature used by reporters once upon a time, much before the Internet, Google and webinars were even known. Mind you, the context is very Indian and limited to news bureaus. But some of them are still relevant and often used by the current crop of reporters, young and old alike.
Gobaring (Thanks to @DKU & @KVL)
This was the standard, minimum must do to justify your existence and keep the Bureau Chief at bay. It could be anything assigned, or not assigned, to you and something that you put out without a sweat. If you were dawdling but had to justify your existence this is what you did. Pick up a press release lying around, those days you did not have social media but there was plenty of paper left around by political parties, sundry companies, associations etc. It may not be a very important story but with ample gas added to it, (and hence its name) you made it look so and it was enough to mark you presence. If there was nothing worth your salt, even after dipping into wastepaper baskets for discarded press releases, then you tagged along with another reporter, preferably a senior. It could be a press conference or a one-on-one. Along with the free refreshment, and perhaps the gift, if you were the unscrupulous kind, one could even end up with an add-on story that made you look good with the COB. In fact it was the daily rigor. You went home only after putting it out.
Understood ke basis pe (Thanks to my first boss)
You had a great peg but no confirmation to hang it on. A source has given you the information but not with the conviction for you to stick your neck out with it. So, what you did was to add a very useful ‘understood’ to the attribution line. Nobody asked you what you understood or from whom. This is very prevalent even today except the language is more refined. (Some reporters put it like “according to at least two people close to the situation” even if the two are the one and the same. Most popular in the pink press.) This is the easiest way to pull off something speculative without deniability from the subject being written about. But the boss should be agreeable to you putting it out even though he may not ask you to reveal your source. Reporter’s privilege, what!
Pelicanning (Courtesy @JTbangalore)
This is close to trick #1 but different in the sense that you are not making even the little effort that you do for Gobaring. The story just falls into your lap. (It is something akin to a thirsty pelican that has to just keep its mouth open waiting for rain drops to fall). Sometimes the story comes chasing you. (Quite common at a leading pink paper. Company executives will give an arm to be quoted or mentioned in it). At times it is the PR agency that will be courting you with the offer of an exclusive. You consent but with the rider that output would be on merit, though heart of hearts you know there is nothing to do today so, anything goes. The easiest is a telephonic. But it need not always be an exclusive. If you were on the political or local beat, you usually depended on the hardworking friend from another newspaper. (Mind you this was before the advent of social media, internet and TV. Life is much easier today.) You just borrowed the notes and regurgitated. Better still if you were working for an outstation paper and lucky to be located in a space like the INS Building in Delhi. You just walked into the neighbour’s office and grabbed your friend’s transmitted copy and sent it across to your desk as yours. Nobody will know the difference. Now-a-days you have the joy of email to do this. No sweat!
Cooler treatment (Credit to the ladies at the Times)
It was called cooling as it was particularly popular during the Delhi summers when you dreaded stepping out of the office. You spent most of the time in the office library if you were lucky to be employed by one of the big media houses that had air conditioned offices. (Those days HT and Times were among the few in town to have central AC and had perhaps the best stocked libraries). If not then you just browsed through your own clippings files in the hope of a good follow-up prospect or even something that could be repurposed with a fresh peg. The deskie would ask no questions. Remember, there was no Google then!
Angling
Though something similar to cooling, it is totally legit as it involves some degree of innovative repurposing and kept your story pipeline busy. The trick was not to use up all your ammunition at one go on a story and to keep some of it for the next time. If the boss asked you why you did not file it along with the previous story, you could always say the source called up later with additional info or that some other source provided a fresh angle to the story. Mind you it is not to be pitched as a follow-up!
Sidelining
Perhaps the best trick in the bag that gave you kicks from beating the shit out of the competition. Yours truly thoroughly enjoyed using it and others in town hated you for it. You attend a press conference along with all the others but next day’s paper pops up an exclusive from you. The trick was to position oneself at a strategic point somewhere outside the hall (best if it was after the PC) when you had enough dope about what the meet was intended for. Success rate depended on how much homework you had done and what more you knew than the other reporters. The trick was also to know which other official to buttonhole on the sidelines (hence the name) for that extra piece of info or confirmation of a factoid you have been able to dig out from your outside sources. It worked 90% of the time. Churning out exclusives from PCs and getting better national displays for your stories was always fun.
(This listing first appeared on Chitti's LinkedIn account. It can be read here)
Gobaring (Thanks to @DKU & @KVL)
This was the standard, minimum must do to justify your existence and keep the Bureau Chief at bay. It could be anything assigned, or not assigned, to you and something that you put out without a sweat. If you were dawdling but had to justify your existence this is what you did. Pick up a press release lying around, those days you did not have social media but there was plenty of paper left around by political parties, sundry companies, associations etc. It may not be a very important story but with ample gas added to it, (and hence its name) you made it look so and it was enough to mark you presence. If there was nothing worth your salt, even after dipping into wastepaper baskets for discarded press releases, then you tagged along with another reporter, preferably a senior. It could be a press conference or a one-on-one. Along with the free refreshment, and perhaps the gift, if you were the unscrupulous kind, one could even end up with an add-on story that made you look good with the COB. In fact it was the daily rigor. You went home only after putting it out.
Understood ke basis pe (Thanks to my first boss)
You had a great peg but no confirmation to hang it on. A source has given you the information but not with the conviction for you to stick your neck out with it. So, what you did was to add a very useful ‘understood’ to the attribution line. Nobody asked you what you understood or from whom. This is very prevalent even today except the language is more refined. (Some reporters put it like “according to at least two people close to the situation” even if the two are the one and the same. Most popular in the pink press.) This is the easiest way to pull off something speculative without deniability from the subject being written about. But the boss should be agreeable to you putting it out even though he may not ask you to reveal your source. Reporter’s privilege, what!
Pelicanning (Courtesy @JTbangalore)
This is close to trick #1 but different in the sense that you are not making even the little effort that you do for Gobaring. The story just falls into your lap. (It is something akin to a thirsty pelican that has to just keep its mouth open waiting for rain drops to fall). Sometimes the story comes chasing you. (Quite common at a leading pink paper. Company executives will give an arm to be quoted or mentioned in it). At times it is the PR agency that will be courting you with the offer of an exclusive. You consent but with the rider that output would be on merit, though heart of hearts you know there is nothing to do today so, anything goes. The easiest is a telephonic. But it need not always be an exclusive. If you were on the political or local beat, you usually depended on the hardworking friend from another newspaper. (Mind you this was before the advent of social media, internet and TV. Life is much easier today.) You just borrowed the notes and regurgitated. Better still if you were working for an outstation paper and lucky to be located in a space like the INS Building in Delhi. You just walked into the neighbour’s office and grabbed your friend’s transmitted copy and sent it across to your desk as yours. Nobody will know the difference. Now-a-days you have the joy of email to do this. No sweat!
Cooler treatment (Credit to the ladies at the Times)
It was called cooling as it was particularly popular during the Delhi summers when you dreaded stepping out of the office. You spent most of the time in the office library if you were lucky to be employed by one of the big media houses that had air conditioned offices. (Those days HT and Times were among the few in town to have central AC and had perhaps the best stocked libraries). If not then you just browsed through your own clippings files in the hope of a good follow-up prospect or even something that could be repurposed with a fresh peg. The deskie would ask no questions. Remember, there was no Google then!
Angling
Though something similar to cooling, it is totally legit as it involves some degree of innovative repurposing and kept your story pipeline busy. The trick was not to use up all your ammunition at one go on a story and to keep some of it for the next time. If the boss asked you why you did not file it along with the previous story, you could always say the source called up later with additional info or that some other source provided a fresh angle to the story. Mind you it is not to be pitched as a follow-up!
Sidelining
Perhaps the best trick in the bag that gave you kicks from beating the shit out of the competition. Yours truly thoroughly enjoyed using it and others in town hated you for it. You attend a press conference along with all the others but next day’s paper pops up an exclusive from you. The trick was to position oneself at a strategic point somewhere outside the hall (best if it was after the PC) when you had enough dope about what the meet was intended for. Success rate depended on how much homework you had done and what more you knew than the other reporters. The trick was also to know which other official to buttonhole on the sidelines (hence the name) for that extra piece of info or confirmation of a factoid you have been able to dig out from your outside sources. It worked 90% of the time. Churning out exclusives from PCs and getting better national displays for your stories was always fun.
This website is an archive of my articles and interviews apart from the sporadic updates and thoughts that I put out. 
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