Technology puts you in contact with people, but it doesn’t give you their attention.
A reporter can have all the smartphones, iPads and software on the planet. If the interviewee doesn’t want to talk, there is no story. A journalist must know how to use gadgets in a way that don’t stop him or her from doing their job.
More important than technological skills are interpersonal skills. One of the experiences that really proved that for me came about recently, in the three months I digitally chased former football icon Roberto Carlos all around the world.
He only surrendered at the brink of the closing of the transfer window. I cornered him through my experience; I have been a reporter since 2003 and have worn out a few shoes in my career. If I had relied on no more than the means of communication, I would never have gotten him to talk.
When a British magazine asked me for an interview with the former Real Madrid and Brazil star I didn’t think it would be difficult. I contacted a friend in back home and I got his Russian number right away (Roberto is a director at Dagestan’s Anzhi).
I called the man through Skype because I didn’t want to pay for an international call. No response for days. I had to go to his press people. “He doesn’t answer calls from a 000000 number,” his PR said. “And you should have called us first.”
So I buy another phone number and start calling him in Russia. At first he was very gentle and prompted to give the interview right away. I told him we needed more than the five minutes he had to offer. He was in Moscow then.
He asked if I could call on the following day. That happened at least eight times during the three months I electronically chased him in Russia, Qatar, Brazil, Greece, UK and Spain.
In our first contact he told me he was going to war-torn Dagestan and that iPhone’s Facetime was what really worked there. He told me to call at 10 am, which meant 6 am for me in London. I did what he said and all I got was his answering machine and a headache.
I called his agent and they said all I could do was to send an email and set up another time. So I did. No answer. I tried Twitter. No reply. I followed the routine for weeks.
Days before Christmas his PR people told me Roberto was on holidays in Brazil and wouldn’t take any calls. I decided to start again in January; with a different phone, just in case. Miraculously Roberto answered. He said he was in Dubai and that I should call him within three hours. So I did.
And there was no response again. “They have mechanisms to ignore calls they don’t want, technology isn’t there only for you,” a former boss told me. We journalists aren’t that special.
But I am persistent. I decided to call him really late via Skype (I could always have the excuse of the time difference and not knowing where he was). He could think it was someone else. He ended up answering.
I told him I needed some talking so the magazine would accept postponing the material on him for the following edition. He didn’t say yes or no. So I started asking questions. The plan was to split the interview into two.
Roberto spoke for 7 minutes, clearly bothered for my boldness. And then he said he had to leave. I promised to call again. No answer for days. I call his PR people. “You will find this funny. He was going to pick up the phone to get your call. His phone fell in the water. He is now in Madrid. He is going to get a new phone and transfer his line from Russia.” I didn’t find it funny. I found it unprofessional. But that had become personal.
So I called people from the magazine to write him emails in Spanish and English. I write to him in Portuguese every day. It was clear he wanted neither to say no nor to give the interview. But he was going to. And we still needed his pictures for the cover – I mentioned that in all emails I sent him.
In my deadline week I texted him to say I need his address in Madrid to send photographer to his house – I knew he would be there to watch Real Madrid vs. Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu. No answer.
I went to a friend who had interviewed him in Spain and he gave me the address. I texted Roberto asking to confirm. Probably frightened for my insistence, he said “yes, send him on Tuesday at 4 pm.” Those sessions usually take 30 minutes. Roberto stayed for five.
Of course I asked the photographer to tell Roberto I was going to call for the interview and that it had to be in that week. He said he was going to call me, which I never believed. I knew the following day would be the deadline for Europe’s transfer window. And I also knew he might turn his phone off again after the most difficult task for him in the semester was over.
On Wednesday I woke up at 8am and started calling every hour. I gradually step up every 30 minutes. And then 15 minutes. And then 10 minutes. At 4 pm he finally answered. Probably because I was calling him every five minutes and he had to keep his phone on in case of last minute deals.
He knew I was going to insist as much as I could. But, very gently, I didn’t give him the time to say a thing. I just started asking the questions. After three minutes he noticed it would be better to do it at once.
He spent 15 minutes on the phone, gave me all the material I needed and never again got a call from me. He didn’t even tell me, probably because he didn’t want to, that he had just clinched the biggest signing of that whole transfer season – he paid 35 million euros for Shahktar’s William.
To me, what this experience shows is that if you start with the wrong foot there is a chance you will have to make a much bigger effort to get the material you need. Technology is fine, but just having it doesn’t make any difference to the most important part of the journalistic craft: access to sources.
Of course there are various tools that enable reporting that seemed impossible decades ago – at a very low cost too. Still content is king. Knowing how to get attention doesn’t come with an account at Skype or in a smartphone app.
I am a journalist. But that is not my fault, I assure you. I am also from Sao Paulo, Brazil. That is probably my fault.