Mark Lacter, who writes LABiz Observed, has a list of top excuses that business reporters make when they get beaten on a story.
They include:
–Reflexively dismiss the scoop (“Just more of the same – there’s nothing new here” is the common refrain).
–Deride the source of the scoop (as CNBC’s David Faber did with his snarky reference to The Wrap – the scooper in question – as “an Internet entertainment gossip site,” which, of course, it is not).
–Assure your editor that “I reported on these talks months ago,” knowing full well that your editor can’t even remember what he had for breakfast yesterday, let alone what you might have written about Comcast.
–Say that the information is coming from a second- or third-hand source who doesn’t know what he or she is talking about (an easy maneuver since The Wrap is an upstart news organization that many editors back east haven’t even heard of).
–Rejigger the initial scoop into a second-day story that makes it seem as if you knew the real news all along.
Read more here.
