8/19/2013

Ask, and you will often receive

Jennifer Retter
Ninja Journalist
Today I visited with Ninja Journalist Jennifer Retter, the primary reporter for the Community News in Parker County where I worked years ago. Jennifer is more skilled than I was at her point in her career and is not only an entertaining and informative writer, but also uses her Ninja skills to gain access to stories other journalists will only read about.

We talked about the “story behind the story” – the how-to of getting the great story – and it made me think of a simple yet important point I practice:

It never hurts to ask!

It takes a little personality and a lot of courage, but a good journalist has the guts and gumption to walk right up to a stranger, introduce themself and ask. Many times you will receive.

I was covering an ongoing story of the construction of a new high school campus and was challenged to come up with a new story angle and interesting picture every two weeks. One week the campus’s water well was being drilled with a large tower in a field, so I introduced myself respectfully to a grizzly-looking worker in a hardhat, offered him a cold water, and at some point in the conversation asked, “Hey, can I go up there and take a picture of you on the ground?” I was shocked when he said “yes.” I was also a terrified because it was one of the few days I wore sandals, but I was not going to back down. I would have been safer in high heals, so I secured my camera over my shoulder, meekly ascended a skinny metal ladder to the top of the tower, hooked my arm in the ladder and told the man on the ground to cross his arms and look up at me. Man, it was a great picture, and all I had to do was ask.

On another occasion, I was doing a story about Texas Department of Public Safely Trooper John Forrest of Weatherford, Texas. Forrest, now retired after 43 years of service, had a reputation of making large interstate drug busts. He provided me many opportunities for stories, but the grinning post-bust pictures posing with hundreds of pounds of pot he provided were redundant and corny. I wanted more, so I asked.

I knew I was in trouble when I questioned him about the missing back bumper on his cruiser. “I knocked it off so many times the shop quit putting it back on,” he said as I buckled myself in. He explained his success lies in making as many calculated stops on suspicious 18-wheelers as possible, and then stepped on the gas. We shot down I-20 at an even 90 miles per hour for about 60 frightful second, braked hard into a fishtail turn in the grass median, and sped off the other direction to stop on an 18-wheeler. A few questions later he jumped back into the car, peeled out at 90 miles per hour and did the same thing the other direction. He did this over and over again skidding sideways in medians and speeding down the highway and I was petrified in terror. I took a few pictures of him in the cruiser and at stopped trucks and then asked him to take me back to my vehicle. “We’re just getting started,” he said disappointingly. I have done a lot of crazyass things in my life. But I swore that day I would never ride with Forrest again.

Those are just two of my funny stories about what happens when you ask, but my lesson is just to ask “Can I ride with you?” “Can I take your picture?” “Can I go inside.” “Can I come along?” I asked that last question while doing a story on a band on tour. Very cool.

PS.  In December 2011, a burglar broke into the Forrest home at 1 a.m. The 65 year old underwear-clad retired trooper drew his weapon and commanded the crook to lay down. He didn’t, and Forrest shot him as he lunged at him, but the fool lived to go to jail. Trooper Forrest, you are one badass dude.

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