Advice for covering Black Friday

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Sue Stock, the former retail reporter for The (Raleigh) News & Observer, sent out several years ago a memo to the N&O’s business desk staff on how to cover Black Friday. I republished her suggestions, with her approval, in the second edition of “Show me the Money: Writing Economics and Business Stories for Mass Communication” because I think they’re tremendous.

TIPS ON COVERING BLACK FRIDAY:

-Wear comfortable shoes, bring a bottle of water.
-Bring two pens because one always dies. Always.
-Do not wear your jacket in the mall. You’ll just get hot and then have to juggle your coat and your notebook.
-Bring your business cards because people don’t believe you’re with the paper.
-Park by one of the department stores. That’s usually the best place.
-Take the photographer’s cell phone number.
-If you’re traveling with the photographer, you will need to check in at the mall office so they know you’re on site. Otherwise, security will freak out. Security may still freak out so make sure you have your N&O ID with you as a back up.
-Great place to find people who have time to talk is at the kiddie play area or in the food court. This also allows you to sit for a minute and makes you less conspicuous. And people like to talk while the eat. They’ll share more.

ON THE INTERVIEWS:

-I know this is elementary, but when you are doing like 20 man on the street interviews in one day, you can tend to get a little lazy with some of them. Trust me… eight years of experience talking here. Ask everyone everything you can think of. Get super full IDs on everyone… town, age, occupation, who they are shopping for, how their spending compares to last year, etc. Who are they shopping with? Get names, ages and IDs on them too. It really really pays to be super super nosy. More so than normal. Because you never know which detail is going to be the one you need, and almost every year, it’s not the one I expected when I was interviewing them.

-Also don’t forget the physical aspects of the shoppers you interview. Which stores are their bags from? How many do they have? Do they look run down or still excited about shopping? Do they have receipts sticking out of their pockets? What are they wearing? If you don’t write it down, you won’t remember which shopper it was by the time you get back to your desk.

-Keep really good notes. It’s really easy to get the people mixed up when you have so many in your notebook. I actually fold the pages down in my notebook to separate people.

-(most important) Get every phone number you can out of them. If they’re shopping with sister, daughter, mother, get those numbers too. A surprising number of shoppers get home from the mall and either leave their phone in the car with all their bags while they go collapse or turn their cell off because they are mentally exhausted. There is always a question you wish you’d asked.