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Topic: From the Toolbox...Experts: How to find 'em
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| Author | Message |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 8/1/2005 4:26:44 PM | show profile Nothing would pull together your piece quite like a quote from a knowledgeable expert, academic or physician. What are some of your ways of finding experts in the field you're covering? And please: we already know about Profnet, Craig's List, WorldWit and of course, the mediabistro boards. Are those really effective places to dig up sources, though, or just the most popular? Are there different ways of utilizing them to yield more sources that might not be evident to a first-time-user? ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| belinda | Posted – 8/1/2005 5:37:29 PM | show profile >>What are some of your ways of finding experts in the field you're covering?<< -- Note the sources other writers used on the same topic. Like those sources? Call or e-mail them. -- While digging up background from professional journals (health, psychology, etc), note who did the studies, and contact them. -- Call university media-relations offices to find experts. (Not all universities have them, and some universities have media-relations offices for their various colleges.) It helps to call universities known for the subject area you're covering. -- Use Google, Yahoo or another search engine, with keywords related to your subject as the search parameters, and see which experts come up. Contact them. -- Call professional associations and ask to be put in touch with a member who would make a good expert source on your topic. -- Visit a bookseller site such as Amazon.com to see which experts have written books in your subject area. Contact them. |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 8/2/2005 11:42:44 AM | show profile | email poster Those are good ones. When reporting for a local pub, I would look up the websites of local universities and check through the departments using keywords of what I was reporting on. If I did a piece on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I searched gender issues and media. I hate to say that one time, when I was starting out, I called a reporter to ask how to contact a source they had used. how bush league. ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| belinda | Posted – 8/2/2005 12:37:58 PM | show profile >>I hate to say that one time, when I was starting out, I called a reporter to ask how to contact a source they had used. how bush league.<< Maybe, maybe not. I was once assigned to travel across the country for a big-picture story about a political campaign in another state. I did a LexisNexis search for contact information but still felt out of the loop, so I called the political editor of that state's largest daily. We must have talked for an hour about the political scene in that particular campaign, the candidates' personalities, how to hook into campaign itineraries and all sorts of things. I don't remember whether he gave me any names and numbers, because this was a long time ago, but I imagine he did, and he was so helpful that I couldn't wait to thank him when I got there. That's not always the case. Once I called an editor in another country to ask how to plug into a niche scene in that nation. He chewed me out royally and hung up on me. Now he's the editorial director of a U.S. magazine for which I'm a contributing editor. How's that for a small world? |
| belinda | Posted – 8/2/2005 12:54:45 PM | show profile oops, one more thing ... I just noticed that the photo illustrating this topic at the top of the board is of an old white guy. In this day and age, publications are eager for writers to find experts who are NOT old white guys, because they want sources to reflect the real America. Besides, the old-white-guy demographic no longer has a lock on expertise! Where can you go specifically for diversity? One good place to start is the Rainbow Source List at www.spj.org. (Trust me, you can also request a minority or woman expert from any place listed in my previous post. It may feel weird at first to ask, but that's how you find the people you need.) Another place where I've found experts: Multicultural Marketing Resources Inc. in NYC; www.multicultural.com Many minority professionals now have professional associations. For example, if you need a financial expert, you can contract the National Association of Hispanic MBAs. All you need to find these organizations is a good search engine and a working knowledge of keywords. Don't forget to seek out women, people in wheelchairs, and even expert sources you might have to interview via TDD. One of my pet peeves when I was an editor for a national magazine was writers who sourced only in their immediate area. If you're going to writer nationally, you must source nationally. Online phone directories work wonders in helping to find sources beyond the county line. One of the best sites for this is www.theultimates.com. |
| belinda | Posted – 8/2/2005 1:03:16 PM | show profile Please forgive the typos. Must ... find ... espresso ... |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 8/2/2005 2:35:05 PM | show profile | email poster I should lay it down that when I moderate a discussion, there is no need to apologize for typos. We're all smart yet busy people... Excellent point about the diversity, B. ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 8/4/2005 2:24:12 PM | show profile | email poster Hmm, I thought I posted this but maybe I put it somewhere else. What have been some of the most difficult source-finding situations that you've been in and how did you deal with them? I have a friend who is looking for a drug-dealer as a source, and he's having some difficulty, for instance... ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| marianna | Posted – 8/4/2005 8:52:40 PM | show profile Your friend clearly does not live in Los Angeles, the motherlode of chatty drug dealers. Since I write for lad magazines, I'm always having to find ''experts'' in the most appalling professions, so it really helps to have an big, eccentric circle of friends. I begin my search by sending out a bunch of desperate sounding emails describing the type of person I'm looking for and then beg people to forward them to anyone who might vaguely fit the description. And they've always come through! |
| clare04 | Posted – 8/4/2005 9:26:41 PM | show profile let yr fingers do the walking In New York if you are seeking other side of the law for a story (and if you are a girl) you aren't going to feel like scoping around the E. Village in slime dives seeking the textbook crim/druggie for a story -- though it may on occasion be a lot of fun. (It might ruin your hair and wholistic diet ...) You just find a dealer or a molecular biologist or a dry cleaner the same way - through your well-heeled white male associates (the only ones who can or did once afford a line of coke) contacts and rollerdex 'b' of movers and fixit guys and those ol' friends-of-friends etc etc ... |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 8/8/2005 3:38:02 PM | show profile | email poster I was doing an essay for school on women who have taken it off for Mardi Gras and for Girls Gone Wild. It was suprisingly easy to find women who have done it for Mardi Gras--there's a New Orleans message board that I posted to and got tons of responses on...but I couldn't get a peep on GGW. I even got responses from Doug Stanhope, a former producer of the show and one girl who I contacted (via Friendster, of all places) but none of them responded to anything more than my feeler. How would you guys have gone about trying to find one of these gals? ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| sheilamullan | Posted – 8/14/2005 10:38:07 AM | show profile just fyi.. I believe that both Columbia & New York Univ. have good p.r. staffs. NYU has a 40-page book of its various experts that it will send out to journalists. Good luck to all, Sheila |
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