Cold Calls

Yet another thing they don't teach you in journalism school -- or put in the job description -- is that assignment editors actually need to be excellent salespeople.

To start with, an assignment editor is often making cold calls to get information. S/he might be randomly calling roofing contractors in the yellow pages if they need to find a work crew working in the summer-sun for a story during a heat wave. Or if they don't have a reliable contact in the real estate market, s/he might have to cold call local real estate agents. The assignment editor has to get the principal on the phone, explain what the story is about and come up with compelling reasons for the subject to actually clear time in their schedule to speak with a reporter.

Then, there are the routine calls to police and fire departments. But most states have hundreds of towns and many jurisdictions to deal with. It's pretty frequent that a deskie will call a police department not knowing a single soul to ask for help from. So it is especially important that s/he be able to schmooze to have a fighting chance at getting the information sought.

Bottom line is that an assignment editor spends a lot of time trying to get people to do what we need them to do to make our newscasts stand out from the competition. Some training in sales is not necessarily a bad thing (in addition to knowing journalism, law, and basics in a variety of fields like health, law enforcement, government, courts, public records statutes, and the list goes on) in the overall picture of an assignment editor.

Good luck with your beat calls!