I'm taking part today in a panel discussion at the annual conference of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. I'm the only journalist on the panel. Other panelists include the lawyer who represented Monsanto in a controversial case in which the company sued a Saskatchewan farmer and one of the lawyers responsible for protecting Microsoft's trademarks and IP. I've put my presentation notes online, but here's some excerpts:
“…just as with any relationship, trust is at the heart of a good source-reporter relationship. Those of you who deal with reporters regularly already know this. You need to trust that, if we put you into a story, we won’t, first of all, misrepresent your views or, worse, get them wrong. You need to trust us that we won’t make you look silly. This is particularly important, of course, in TV news, where we’re going to see what you look like in addition to hearing what you have to say. On our side of the ledger, we need to trust our sources to be credible, to know that they won’t make us look silly.
Trust is crucial, of course, for that most essential of conversations – the off-the-record chat. You should be aware and, being lawyers, I suspect many of you are, that there is no such thing as off-the-record. Everything you say to a reporter is on the record. I’m under no legal or any obligation to not report anything and everything you say to me even if I’ve promised not to quote you. Of course, in practice, reporters routinely honour requests from sources that they not be quoted or identified in the interests of preserving a relationship a reporter has with a source. But still, particularly when you’re talking to a reporter for the first time, this is an important thing to remember: It’s all on the record no matter what the reporter promises …
The ultimate goal for reporters in establishing relationships when there is no story at hand is to be able to turn to you when we need your for a quote either on the courthouse steps or on the phone as a guide to a case that’s happening elsewhere. Every reporter will go about this differently and it will depend on the personality of the reporter and their interest in IP issues as it affects their work. But I think all reporters who try to build relationships are trying to assess credibility and reliability. Part of that means getting a sense of what motivates a lawyer. There are many lawyers who are crusaders, for example, and it’s important I get a sense of their agendas before I plop them into a story. Others may be more interested in a building a solid client list for their firm and that may colour their ability or willingness to a credible source.
Whatever it is: I can’t stress enough how valuable this idea of relationship-building is. Those reporters that take the time to work on building relationships are going to be better reporters. They’re going to get the jump on their competition; they’re going to have fresh and interesting angles to their stories. They’re going to get tips and scoops ahead of the pack.