"Not The Perceived Quality, but The Breadth of Sources that Counts," Simon Hemelryk

By Eda Othman

pinkypanda18@yahoo.com

To narrate any news stories is easy, but to ensure whether all the sources come from are reliable and genuine is such a pain in the neck for a journalist to bear. This is because, collecting trustworthy information is very crucial in order to gain trust from readers besides to being a good, remarkable reporter.

According to Simon Hemelryk, one of the remarkable Reader's Digest journalists, "It depends, of course, on the story. But if you need a psychologist who's an expert on the world of work, say, I would ask an industry body like the British Psychological Society who would they recommend. I also look through press cuttings on the Internet to see who has been quoted a lot on a subject before. I think, generally speaking, it's not the perceived quality, but the breadth of your sources that counts. Never just take one person's word for it on any subject. Always ask three or four and look to see the points they all agree on,"when asked 0n the reliability of stories that he has come up with so far.

This demonstrates that you just need to broaden your perspective and methods of getting news information to make it both newsworthy and trustworthy. Besides that, another point to ponder is, never judge any people beforehand as this will make your ways of finding evident on any particular subject gets shrunken. Sometimes, we might see some people looked grimy, bimbo and what not but surprisingly more often than not, these are the people who have everything in their minds. It just that, they are not among the show-offs.

Besides that, he also stressed on how he got all the information to cover his stories either manually or by going

to a particular side to get a better picture of it.

"Just speak to as many people who are somehow involved with a story as is reasonably possible. You might speak to someone for ten minutes and they'll only say one thing that's relevant, but that one thing can transform an article from average to good. I'd say that for an 1,800 word piece, I might have 20 pages of interview notes. You can rarely have too much info. You then just filter it down into what's most interesting, revealing and entertaining.

As for finding sources, once you've found one person who knows something about a story, ask them who else you should speak to. There's normally a snowball effect. For finding people, the Internet, Facebook, old articles, friends of friends, agents and, as I say, professional industry bodies are all good."

Again, he added, " I do interviews on phone mainly, though sometimes I go to where people work/live or do a behind the scenes report. There's one I did on the UK Memory Championships and also one where I lived off "superfoods" for a month. So that's a sort of living the experience-type report. Both should be online."

Well, this is also a good example to partake since we cannot deny that the primary reason of having a good and exemplary news piece is to call out people whom we would like to deal with and these days, gadgets especially cellular phone is one of a must-have-list in your daily life for instance, Blackberry serves its customer best as the features provide mostly everything that 'engaged' people like reporters need. It doesn't only store contacts but also acts as a mobile and systematic organizer for them.

On the other hand, regarding methods of writing a news piece, Simon stated that, "Flatter people, ask them simple, open-ended questions and then let them talk without interrupting. You'll be amazed on what they say without meaning to," when inquiring about the missing pieces that make up a good story other than the importance of 5Ws and 1H. According to his statement, it's clear that asking people such questions and getting a good, stunning reply from them is as equally good as weaving 5Ws and IH in our news piece. Most importantly is how good you develop your stories after putting in these two ideas.

However, he said that he find the best way to think of news stories is to go through events listings for future months and see what ideas that sparks rather than other plastic journalists who resort to just sitting down at their desk twiddling their fingers waiting for a news story to come to their desk when asked about the length he go to to get news pieces if he can't seem to find any.

According to this dedicated Simon, when asked about kind of news pieces he enjoyed writing the most, "I like pieces where I immerse myself in something so it's a first-hand, behind the scenes account of something. Like when I entered the UK Memory Championships. And came last though i was second to last going into the last round. Thrilling".

In addition, when asked about his favorite memories he has, "It was an article I did doing various secret stunts to test people's courtesy in various UK towns. The results were covered in all the big UK newspapers over here. Then we did the same thing in towns around the world (including Malaysia). The results of that were covered everywhere from CNN to David Letterman. We found that one country was particularly rude and it caused a diplomatic incident. I can't remember where. Think that might have been Malaysia! Or it could have been Thailand. Should be online somewhere."

Oh! This is so unfavorable to be heard. Dear all Malaysian, I beg all of you to differ please. Let's be good, decent citizens of Malaysia.

"As for young journalists students, he reiterated, make sure you enjoy what you're doing. You might be doing it for 50 years, so there's no point doing anything for the sake of it. But if, say, you get offered a job on a trade magazine writing about plumbing or whatever, don't be put off. I find that once you get into any subject it becomes enjoyable," when requested on his wish and hope for young journalists students in order to excel with flying colors result thus ending up the conversation

Simon Hemelryk in this story is a Reader's Digest journalist and his latest article has been released in August, 2010 titled Snow Patrol. He has been at Reader's Digest UK for 11 years. Prior to starting work he did a degree in International Relations at Sussex University and a post graduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at Cardiff University. "The Hole in the Wall Gang" is the best story he keeps fond to his heart.

simon.hemelryk@googlemail.com