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1. “I know you're not supposed to do it, but I keep EVERYTHING. I never know when a nugget of info that I didn't use for a story may be worthwhile down the road. It's a bad habit, I know, but old habits die hard.” 2. “I've been advised to keep notes only as long as I expect to refer to them.” 3. “I recall the Chicago Tribune advised reporters to clean out their files six months after a story ran and required them to destroy their notes after two years. You can’t surrender under subpoena what you no longer have. However, with computer hard drives and their un-erasable quality, that may be a useless endeavor. 4. “I keep everything on the computer, so I can find sources and contact info. I’ve heard some say you should get rid of notes right away, but I think what’s most important is consistency ... either you get rid of everything, or you keep everything.” 5. “I pretty much take all my notes on my computer now and have become a digital pack rat, so I keep everything. I have notes on stories going back from when I first started at the company seven years ago.” 6. “On the advice of an attorney long ago, I regularly trash my notes. There may be rare occasions when they might come in handy, but with grand juries demanding that reporters reveal their sources these days, I think it best to limit the amount of discovery available to prosecutors and others attempting to force reporters to divulge information. “I would never keep notes for as long as a year. Personally, I do not keep notes on a computer file, so permanently deleting them electronically is not as much of a problem for me as it might be for others. I know some reporters keep tape recordings of their interviews, which presents another set of problems. “On continuing stories, where I figure to do follow-ups, I may keep notes for several weeks. Even so, I think this is probably a mistake. If I didn't use something in my notes in an initial story, chances are I will never need to refer to them for a follow-up. “Before responding to your inquiry, I contacted a media lawyer I respect and asked for his opinion. His advice: Keep the notes until the story is published and then trash them. There may be a rare legal case where notes can help a journalist, but in general they just give the plaintiff's attorney something else to question the reporter about, and the individual quoted in the notes can always claim the reporter made up the quote in his notebook. “There is no law requiring reporters to keep notes, the lawyer noted. “I think the rule about keeping notes until publication is a good one. But people should probably check with their editors to see if there is a company rule. My guess is most newspapers avoid such hard-and-fast rules for legal reasons.” 7. “I keep them as long as I can get away with it — i.e., until I have no room to store them. It's usually a year for notes I take on my computer. But I'm not terribly organized about it . If I had to find a certain notebook with certain notes I doubt I could find it right away, and doubt if I could read the notes if I did. I will save the transcripts of important interviews (i.e., an hour-long sit down with a CEO) indefinitely in case I need something for it later.” 8. “I am one of those people who tries to take notes on the computer when I am interviewing people. So long as I have hard drive storage I keep everything (but maybe that is the lawyer in me). “And here's my accompanying anecdote about how it served me well: A while ago I did a piece on the revitalization of Chicago’s far West Loop neighborhoods around the United Center for Hemispheres (the United Airlines in-fllight magazine). The editor accused me of changing the story that I pitched. I was like "Huh?" Turns out he was upset because of my use of the name "United Center" in the article. Hemispheres claims it's not a United Airlines mouthpiece (Really?!). Fortunately, I had kept all of my notes, including the original ones he had sent back to me on my pitch. All clearly used the United Center name. I sent my notes and his notes back to him. “ 9. “They're trashed within 30 days of the story that runs. Without fail. Period. The ONLY things I keep are notes related to people I may choose to profile over the long haul. I'm highly selective about those notes, so let's just say I haven't accumulated many over the years. I started this practice at the insistence of my first editor out of college. Never got out of the habit. It wasn't a policy of that paper, but it was his instruction, so I followed it.” 10. “The best advice I ever heard on this topic was from [a media lawyer]. He basically said either policy (keeping or destroying) has its own pros and cons. However, once you select a policy, stick to it religiously in all stories. The worst you can do is to have a tradition of keeping notes and then having to explain why on the story that caused a lawsuit, you destroyed the notes. Or vice versa.”  The hows and whys of my note-keeping policy While working in my first newspaper job, I established some personal rules unwittingly. The first reason: I had some of my notes confiscated when an unfortunate headline over one of my court stories prompted concerns that the newspaper I worked for might be sued. The paper’s lawyers took my notebook, which also happened to include weeks of notes from other stories — as well as my grocery lists and the doodles I sketched to kill time during the trial I covered. Let’s just say I have not used my notebooks for personal artistic expression or menu planning since. The second reason: I learned early in my career that after a few days, I couldn’t read my own notes. I have horrible penmanship, especially when I’m writing quickly. So, my notes often don’t make sense when viewed out of context or several weeks after the story in question. If I haven’t used notes to support a published story, chances are good I won’t need those notes again. Even when I have a nugget or idea for a story contained in my notes, I create a new file and build stories from there. I have never sifted through old notebooks, looking for story ideas. While I forged certain note-management habits, I didn’t have a “policy” until I went on to my second job, where a mentor in the newsroom told me to develop one. I was working for a New York Times-owned paper and was told that while there was no specific policy, reporters were encouraged to build a routine and stick to it. At that point, I decided to keep notes only for a week after a story’s publication. In addition, I started keeping files containing names of non-confidential sources and information for future reference. If I got subpoenaed — and I have several times — I would explain my note-retention policy and be able to say that I could refer only to the published story. Ditto for tapes of interviews, which I started keeping only as long as I needed them for a story. Destroying my notes regularly and promptly has served me well. I once had an exclusive interview with a murder suspect. Once the story was published, I taped over the conversation. I was, indeed, subpoenaed later and couldn’t get the subpoena quashed. I had to show up at court as a possible witness — but I didn’t have to turn over a tape or notes. When I went into online reporting eventually, I would keep notes longer because most of them were on my computer. But again, I would delete files on my personal hard drive a month or so after publication. Magazine reporting, which I do frequently, has required me to hold on to my notes longer. They’re often needed during the editing process, which can take much longer than the reviews needed for online and daily journalism. Still, I purge my files regularly. Aside from notes, I do maintain lists with information about sources and my encounters with them. These lists have helped with ongoing stories. And this practice also has come in handy because I have been challenged — twice during my current job — by sources who have denied speaking with me or getting a call from me. I have been able to present my supervisors with lists documenting my calls and the responses I have — or have not — received. |
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George L. Daniels is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences. He joined the UA faculty in 2003 after completing graduate studies at The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. As a graduate student, Daniels participated in the University of Georgia’s SPJ Campus Chapter. But, his first experience with SPJ came when he received a scholarship from the Washington DC Chapter of what was then Sigma Delta Chi (SDX) in the early 1990s. In 2006, Daniels was selected as an SPJ Diversity Leadership Fellow.
Mead Loop is chairman and an associate professor of journalism at Ithaca (N.Y.) College. He has been a SPJ board member since 2002 and is co-chairman of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation Grants Committee.
