Newsletter
Winter 1997 Issue
There's more to interviewing than just asking
questions
By Lonny Cain
The 21-year-old woman wasn't even a suspect when Steve Rhoads began interrogating
her about the murder of her roommate. When he was done, however, she had
confessed.
During the interview Rhoads had stopped her several times before she could
speak, knowing she was about to tell a lie.
"You can read my mind, can't you?" she asked afterward. "Yes,
I can," he replied.
Actually, what Steve Rhoads was reading was her involuntary body language,
using an interrogation technique that he has been teaching law enforcement
agencies for several years.
Now Rhoads will share the technique for the first time with journalists
in a daylong training program Friday, Jan. 23, offered by the Northern Illinois
Newspaper Association. The interviewing program will be the first in a series
of advanced training programs being developed by NINA to elevate skills
and offer new resources and tools to working reporters.
"Our goal is to offer classroom type programs at a low cost and give
our members something they can take back to a newsroom and use," said
2nd Vice President Rick Nagel, chairman of the NINA Education Committee
and editor in chief of Press Publications.
Rhoads will shorten a two-day program into one day and said those who attend
will learn to:
* Improve their ability to gather information through interviewing and evaluate
its accuracy.
* Recognize nonverbal messages and the important role they play in communicating
how a person thinks and feels.
* Comprehend key words or phrases to help understand what a person is saying
- or not saying.
* Build rapport to build a positive environment or overcome a negative environment.
* Use the environment and setting to benefit the interview.
* Use the interviewee's posture and communication style for maximum results.
Rhoads was a police officer for 24 years. He has taught for every federal
police agency and continues to be an integral part of the training provided
by the U.S. Justice Department and the State Department. He has taught police
officers in all 50 states and students from 67 foreign countries.
His techniques for information gathering are part of the curriculum of instruction
at Quantico, Va., and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia
and New Mexico.
Rhoads is the primary interview and interrogation instructor for the Chicago
Police Department and is the primary forensic hypnotist used by the Chicago
police.
He also has taught teachers, lawyers, sales personnel, social workers, and
private security investigators.
Rhoads was chief of the Parachute Police Department in Parachute, Colo.,
in the early '80s, when he first learned about Neuro-Linguistic Programming,
a relatively new idea being used by psychologists as a tool to build rapport.
Through his police work, Rhoads discovered the technique could be an effective
tool for ferreting out liars and criminal suspects.
Rhoads said he's excited about taking his experience into a different arena
- the newsroom.
For more information on Rhoads and the interviewing program, call Lonny
Cain, managing editor at The Daily Times in Ottawa, at (815) 433-2000.
When
8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Jan. 23
Where
The Daily Herald, Arlington Heights.
Registration
$10 a person. Attendees will buy their own lunch at the Daily Herald cafeteria.
See registration form on back page.
Deadline to register
Monday, Dec. 22. Please send fees with registration to guarantee a spot.
Pulitzer winner tells press to be vigilant watchdogs
By John Etheredge
NINA President
Investigative reporter Deborah Nelson of the Seattle Times faced a challenge
that most reporters frequently encounter.
As Nelson gathered information for what would eventually become her Pulitzer
Prize winning series on the mismanagement of federal Indian housing programs
in the Northwest, she often came across potential sources, including many
private citizens, who were inexperienced with talking to a reporter and
reluctant to reveal their information to her.
To secure the confidence of these sources, Nelson said she would attempt
to put them at ease by calling them back prior to the publication of her
stories and reviewing the information they had given her one more time.
By adopting this practice, Nelson said, she was able to make her sources
more comfortable and collect still more vital information.
A 1975 graduate of Northern Illinois University, Nelson recalled her experiences
during her keynote address at NINA's annual fall convention Oct. 24 at NIU.
I found Nelson's handling of reluctant sources sound advice, especially
for reporters on newspapers in smaller communities. When I first started
covering local news for the Ledger-Sentinel in what has become rapidly developing
Kendall County more than 16 years ago, it wasn't just private citizens who
were reluctant to talk to the newspaper. Many local governmental officials
were simply not accustomed to regular scrutiny by the local press. To gain
their confidence and get the necessary information, we have worked hard
to get the story right like Nelson, but we have also exercised our right
to obtain information as granted to us under Illinois' public access laws.
Back in the early 1980s it was not an uncommon event for me, while visiting
a local governmental office in quest of some public document, to be hit
with this question from a suspicious department head or office staffer:
"What do you want with that?"
At public meetings during those years I encountered periodic violations
of the Open Meetings Act. Usually these violations were not deliberate;
the officials were simply ignorant of the law. To enlighten these officials
about the act and their responsibility to conduct their business in public,
we promptly reported violations to the county state's attorney's office.
We also wrote news articles about the violations and editorialized on the
need for local officials to know the law and to abide by it.
Due to the periodic violations, we also adopted a policy of including questions
about both the Open Meetings and Freedom of Information acts on the questionnaires
we mail to all candidates for local public office prior to every election.
The successful candidates can't claim ignorance of the laws after the election
when we have in our files their written response to questions about their
understanding of, and personal commitment to, the laws.
To further drive home the importance of the Open Meetings Act, each week
under our listing of upcoming local governmental meetings we include this
bit of information for our readers: "Under provisions of the Illinois
Open Meetings Act, all of the above listed meetings are open to the public."
In our news coverage of local public meetings, we have always striven to
fairly report the differing opinions public officials and local residents
express. It's imperative that those involved in a controversial local issue-both
public officials and concerned private citizens-believe they have been given
a fair hearing in our news columns. If a news source thinks we aren't being
fair or otherwise slanting the news, we'll find out quickly.
Today in our readership area I believe there is an increased awareness of
the public access laws on the part of most of our local officials. The majority
of them seem to realize we know about the laws and won't hesitate to publicly
call them on it if we think there has been a violation. In fact, a year
or so ago an attorney for one of the municipalities I cover reminded board
members as they contemplated the wording on a motion to go into an executive
session that just because the Open Meetings Act permitted them to go into
private session, they didn't have to do so.
To a certain degree I think our efforts to enlighten local public officials
about the public access laws have also increased awareness about the laws
among our readers. Now, readers occasionally call us to report when one
of the local governing agencies has gone behind closed doors or if they
were hassled by a public official when trying to obtain a public document.
These reports to our office, when checked out further and verified, often
turn into news stories.
And by fairly and accurately reporting the opinions of public officials
and private citizens on controversial issues, we have taken many of them
into our confidence as news sources. Like Nelson and her reluctant sources
in Washington state, our local sources have come to know they can depend
on us to accurately report their views. With that confidence established,
I believe we've gone a long way toward providing our readers with the information
they've needed while also enhancing our standing as the "newspaper
of record" in our community.
John Etheredge is news editor of the Ledger-Sentinel in Oswego. Contact him at (630) 554-8573.
Strong job market cuts both ways for small dailies, weeklies
By Jim Killam
The calls have come at least once a week this fall: editors or publishers
of small dailies or weeklies, desperately looking for reporters, copy editors,
designers, ad sales people, you name it.
I always pass those messages along to students getting ready to graduate,
but I also know those papers are in a tough spot. The reason: a booming
job market for journalism grads -- maybe the best in a generation. The strong
economy leads metro papers to hire more people from midsized suburban papers,
which in turn forces the midsized papers to hire more from small papers,
or even directly out of college. That leaves the smaller papers scrambling
for what's left. Sometimes they'll discover a gem, but even if they're lucky
the search requires more effort and money than in years past.
Even college papers feel the impact. The Northern Star lost two editors
this fall to suburban dailies who hired them -- for decent money -- as part-time
page designers. One already has turned the part-time gig into a full-time
job that's waiting for him when he graduates this month. And he turned down
two other lucrative offers in the meantime. The combination of copy editing
skills and Quark Xpress expertise virtually guarantees a good job today.
What's going on here? What happened to the days of begging an editor to
hire you, even if it meant sweeping floors or working 80 hours a week for
what amounted to about $2.50 an hour? Of being one of 50 candidates for
that single, dirt-paying reporter job in East Armpit, Iowa?
"For a long time after Woodward and Bernstein, everybody wanted to
be a reporter," said Ron DeBrock, publications manager for the Illinois
Press Association. "They'd figure, 'Maybe I can't take down a president
but I can can take down a city manager or a mayor in my town.' So you had
everybody going for the same job. Then, a lot of the people got out of the
business and went into PR, or an entrepreneurial business. And, we all told
the upcoming generations that you can't get a job in journalism.
"For being communicators, we've done a bad job of communicating the
strength of our industry."
That's meant fewer journalism grads when the industry is in a hiring mode
-- and when online journalism has opened a whole new frontier. Plus, editors
and publishers find many of those grads unwilling to "pay their dues"
at small-town papers.
DeBrock sees it. He gets calls every week, too, from editors looking for
applicants.
"There's an image grads have of the salary they think they should get,
and there's the image factor of working for a smaller daily," he said.
"Someone from the suburbs will hesitate to go to a Streator or a Pontiac
(both small dailies) and they'll end up working at a weekly in Orland Hills
or Evergreen Park. There's a comfort factor there. They figure, if it doesn't
work out I'm still in the suburbs."
Pat Mattison sees it. The president of the Belvidere Daily Republican speaks
for just about every small-town daily trying to recruit staff.
"What they learn here in two to four years, they can take anywhere
and succeed," Mattison said. "But they want to break in quicker
now. And the bigger papers can beat the smithereens out of us in pay."
Suburban weeklies may be able to offer location, but their starting salaries
often aren't a big selling point in a seeker's market. Rick Nagel, editor
in chief of Press Publications, Elmhurst, points to a speech made a couple
of years ago to the IPA by futurist Roger E. Herman, author of Turbulence.
"He said we're about to reach a boom period," Nagel said, "and
that that will cause lots of movement and job openings because that's what
prosperity does. His challenge to publishers was, 'Are you ready?'
"We've always been a little like a graduate school for journalists.
We get them right out of school, train them, give them real-life experience,
and then they get hired away.The difference now is that people who were
formerly untouchable -- some of our middle managers -- are being sucked
away."
The choice goes something like this: Increase starting pay to attract talented
people, or lower expectations of whom you can hire. Some who have taken
the latter approach are hiring people with no journalism experience, people
who in the past might have been hired as news clerks, and making them reporters
right away.
A boost in starting salaries also could backfire long-term, if the economy
goes sour and publishers are left with inflated payrolls. Some address that
possibility by paying more overtime or bonuses rather than boosting base
pay.
But enough doom and gloom. Even the smallest papers in the most remote areas
can build hedges against the applicant shortage. Try some of the following:
* A summer internship program. Identify candidates early and begin building
loyalty. NINA's forthcoming internship network is a great start.
"The hard part is convincing yourself you're not just doing it for
the students, you're doing it for yourself," DeBrock said.
* Support your local high school's journalism program ... or help it create
one. Lonny Cain, managing editor of the Ottawa Daily Times, credits his
paper's teen page for helping identify future hires. Be warned, though,
especially in smaller communities, that your newspaper might end up being
the high school's journalism program.
* Recruit. Nagel visits college campuses and tries to identify the best
and brightest journalism students.
Meanwhile, be positive. Tell students about the great job market. Tell them
how rewarding a journalism career can be.
Tell them money isn't everything.
Jim Killam is adviser for the Northern Star at NIU. Contact him at (815) 753-4239, or jkillam@niu.edu.
Education Committee seeks ideas on workshops for journalists
Make it cheap. Make it interesting. And most of all, make sure it's useful.
That's the formula being used by NINA to develop a series of classroom-type
programs that will be offered on a regular basis to working journalists.
"We want to show that NINA can offer member newspapers something valuable
besides two conferences and a contest every year," said 2nd Vice President
Rick Nagel, chairman of the NINA Education Committee.
Along with the workshop on interviewing (see page 1), programs for 1998
could include layout and design, copy editing and libel law. Future programs
also could focus on advertising and marketing.
Member newspapers are encouraged to share ideas. Spread the word in newsrooms
and see what reporters, editors or photographers would like to learn more
about.
E-mail your ideas to Jim Killam at jkillam@niu.edu or snail mail to Jim
Killam at the Northern Star, Campus Life Building 130, DeKalb, IL 60115.
NINA hopes to increase number of scholarships
As part of NINA's new and improved mission statement, one of our purposes
is to focus more attention on educating up-and-coming journalists to better
fit our everyday newsroom needs.
One specific goal is to generate more revenue among NINA members for additional
scholarships. The Education Committee wants to know if you would be willing
to sponsor a scholarship, of any dollar amount -- perhaps in someone's name.
Currently, NINA dedicates $3,000 a year to NIU for scholarships. We want
to be able to reach even more journalism students who need financial help.
A scholarship contribution from your organization would be a great investment,
both for your company and the future of journalism.
In filling out the above form, please indicate if you'd like to sponsor
a scholarship. Checking "yes" doesn't commit you to anything yet,
but it will give us an indication of how interested NINA members are in
increasing our ability to offer scholarships.
Kim Kubiak
Education Committee
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