Where to get it

Research is about knowing where the bodies are – or might be – buried. You should therefore be as insatiable about collecting potential sources of information as you are about the information itself. These sources fall into three categories: online, human and printed.

Human sources

These are the most familiar sources, covering everything from the official spokespersons, officials and politicians contacted regularly, to the person spoken to once and maybe never again. They also extend to people that the inexperienced would never dream of contacting. If there is a golden rule of successful research it is: never be afraid to ask. The worst any one can say to you is no and you will often be amazed at the help you get. other hints are:

Collect phone numbers obsessively

The most basic tool is obviously a well-maintained, detailed book of contacts, with their addresses, phone and fax numbers. When you are the only person in your office, it is late at night and you need some vital information, you will find out just how good your contacts book is. You should be ruthless at entering every name and number you are given or can get hold of and use every possible means of getting hold of more. scrounge them from colleagues and rivals and when you read papers and magazines note down the names of useful-sounding experts and try to get their numbers. And don’t, like me on many occasions, fall into the trap of thinking you will not need that person’s number again and fail to transfer it from notebook to contacts book. You can be absolutely sure there will come a time when the lack of it will be a real problem.

An awful lot of people are paid to help you

There are more people than you might imagine who have been put on this planet to assist journalists. They may not know it, but they have been. How many lakes does the Lake District have? How deep is that ocean? How high is that mountain? There is someone in an embassy, tourist board or visitor centre who can give you an instant answer. If you

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want quick, uncontroversial, factual information, go first to those who are paid to promote, or help the public with, the subject in question. In a country like Britain there are literally tens of thousands of them. Make them earn their wages.

Whatever the subject, there’s an expert somewhere

There are a surprising number of people and places who can speedily put you in touch with experts on some of the more obscure aspects of life. Professional institutions, trade associations and specialist museums often have an in-house expert and if they don’t, they can refer you to one. For instance, suppose you want to speak to someone about marine salvage in a hurry. You can call the national maritime museum, a trade association for divers, a marine insurance company, navy press office, a journal of marine history, even the library of a local council on the coast – and that’s before you’ve gone online, or searched the cuttings for experts named in previous stories on the subject, etc. Certain organisations, such as local libraries and museums, maintain a database of experts on even the most arcane subjects.

When you have a choice, think before deciding who to call

A common mistake in research is to ask the wrong person. A lot of information that you want will be known to a variety of sources, but some are more likely to help you than others. If, for instance you want to find out the sort of profit margin that shops charge on imported fashion shoes, don’t ring a store’s press department. They will be nervous at the very mention of the words ‘profit margin’, especially as it is theirs you are investigating. Go instead to a wholesaler or manufacturer. Then go to the stores for a comment.

Try other media

on one occasion in Moscow I heard of a Russian professor who was being held by the immigration authorities in san Francisco in the united states, pending deportation in unusual circumstances. It looked like a good story. The problem was that I had no telephone numbers for her representa- tives or the American authorities; the us embassy in Moscow was closed, there was nothing yet on the wires and the story was needed within the hour. After a couple of false starts I got the number for the Associated Press office in san Francisco, called it and immediately got numbers for everyone I wanted, including that of the professor’s American husband and, from him, those organising a campaign on her behalf. Local newspapersarealwaysworthacallinsuchcircumstances.Youcanoffer to trade information, or free publication of your final piece.

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Be cheeky

The most pathetic words a reporter can say are, ‘I can’t find out. I’ve tried everywhere.’ oh really? In 99 cases out of 100 you can be certain they have not and that there are several more places they could try, for there is nearly always somewhere where you can get the information you want. Imagine this situation: you are in your office at 10 p.m. at night and hear that one of your nationals has been arrested for armed robbery or gun-running in Florida. What do you do? The us embassy in your city is closed, your consulate in Miami is not answering the phone, the FBI office in New York knows nothing about the case and neither does the Associated Press office in the city. When that happened to me, I called the American Express office in Miami, claimed to be a card holder (which was true, but need not have been – they would never have checked) and asked if they could give me numbers for the local police, district attorney’s office and prison. I soon had my story.