BUILDING TRUST AND YOUR REPUTATION

BUILDING TRUST AND YOUR REPUTATION

Gaining access to shoot interviews and scenes requires building trust with your sources. As you develop your beat and journalistic reputation, it will be important for you to be able to come back to sources often. Your sources and audience must see you as an ethical, hard-working, and trustworthy video producer. Here are strategies for building your reputation:

Never misrepresent. These days, it is very easy for your sources to report on you. A Google search will quickly show the work you have completed in the past, what experience you have, what kinds of stories you tend to do, and the ways in which you produce those stories. Be honest about your approach and style when you are negotiating access with your sources.

Never over-promise. It is both impossible and inappropriate for you to promise to your sources how your final piece will appear and what impact or reach it will have. Your video may get a million views or it may get 500. Politicians may feel for your sources and pass new legislation, or they may dismiss the video altogether. When negotiating access with your sources, all you can promise is to approach your story with fairness.

Always show up on time. Your sources, like you, are busy people. Respect their time. Show up for interviews and other shoots prepared and on time. Be early if you can be. Make sure you have all your equipment ready to go. If you repeatedly show up late or cancel shoots, you will quickly lose the respect of your sources and access to their stories.

Be insistent/consistent. Show up to your beat often. If you are trying to gain access to a story in a neighborhood, you must spend time in that community, introduce yourself to people in that neighborhood, and show up to community meetings repeatedly. This may require months or years of effort. Sources can differentiate the parachuting journalists from those who are committed to telling an in-depth story. Follow up with your sources often, even after you have completed production on your video.

Be fair. Fairness is a highly subjective term. What does fair mean and when are you being fair enough? This is one of the greatest and most difficult questions to tackle in non-fiction storytelling and journalism.

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Your sources do not have to agree with or even like your final story, but they will respect you if they feel you have been fair. But how do you measure fairness? One question I always ask myself as I am producing, shooting, and editing is: Would I be able to watch this story with my source at my side? If I have been fair to my sources in the story, then I can comfortably watch the video in their presence. If I have made unfair misrepresentations or factual errors, I will likely want to avoid my sources after the story has been published. Your personal code of ethics is ultimately your best barometer of fairness.