Free the Beagle Journalism Prize - Newsroom Confidential

Media Strategies Workshops and Dean Rotbart's Newsroom Confidential Column or CLASSROOM Edition.

Why I'll Pay $2,500 to Identify the Journalists Who Still Rely on Their Instincts and Hunches

Aroo! Aroo-aroo!

By Dean Rotbart

Nellie Yang rings me up with a hunch. She is hoping to finally place one of her clients, an advertising agency, in reporter Stuart Elliott's influential column in The New York Times.

Stuart is a notoriously tough sell, as are most journalists who are regularly inundated with idiotic pitches and one-size-fits-all news releases.

I agree that Nellie's unconventional approach and story line just may rise above the clutter and capture Stuart's fancy. I encourage her to go with her instincts.

Casius J. Meehan, too, has a hunch. Veteran reporter that he is, Cash thinks that the mayor is being less than truthful in explanations of why she was spotted lunching downtown with some oil industry lobbyists. Cash has no hard evidence to suggest malfeasance, but the thought keeps redialing his number.

Nellie meets with her ad agency client and is poised to free her beagle. But when the client enters the conference room, Nellie loses her nerve and instead suggests they put out another news release over PR Newswire. The client nods his agreement.

Nellie's retainer is safe for another few months.

Cash never comes so close.

Each morning at the end of the newsroom meeting, editor Sy Legree trolls for any hunches or leads that might be worth checking. Cash abhors the prospect of looking silly even more than he covets the possibility of looking smart.

"What if the mayor's lunch turns out to have been innocent," he asks himself. "What if everyone laughs at me?" So Cash keeps his beagle in the kennel. A sign over his desk reads, "No dogs allowed."

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The beagle is an extraordinary hunter. Set one sniffing the trail of an animal or lost child, and it will zigzag and back track and run around in circles and take the most chaotic path. And just when you begin thinking, "What a dumb dog?" it will land its quarry.

The beagle isn't worried about being laughed at nor is it intimidated by breaking with convention. The beagle is all about instinct, hunches and results.

Would that more PR people and journalists follow in the beagle's paw steps!

The Master of Persuasion, Roy Williams has been breeding, boarding and freeing ideas from his intellectual dog pound for many, many years. A best-selling author and advertising whiz, Roy's first home-brewed book was aptly titled, "Does Your Ad Dog Bite?"

Roy writes, teaches, consults and creates wonderfully innovative advertising campaigns from his successful advertising agency in Buda, Texas.

That, right away, should tell you something about Roy's unconventionality. Who in his/her right mind would launch an international advertising agency from a rural Austin hamlet whose welcome sign encourages drivers to "Keep Texas Budaful?"

Yet Roy has beaten the odds and become a recognized global advertising and marketing guru. His "Wizard of Ads" trilogy of books were not only award-winning business best sellers in this country, they are being translated into multiple languages for international consumption.

Roy's next book, due out in September, is a work of fiction. Or at least that is what he claims.

But the book, Free The Beagle, isn't easily pigeonholed.

On the surface, Free The Beagle appears to be a fable about a lawyer and the canine that has unwillingly been placed in his temporary custody. The lawyer and the beagle set forth on a long journey to seek the dog's rightful owner. Along the path, the lawyer rediscovers his own inner-beagle.

But I think Roy is pulling a fast one on us all. Free the Beagle is more than a fable. It is also a manual for living, a children's book, a philosophy book, an advertising manual, a PR manifesto and a creativity guide for reporters.
As Roy writes in his weekly Internet column (www.wizardofads.com): "There is no telling where your beagle will take you, but I'll wager that you'll be startled and delighted each time you find yourself in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time."

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In the old days, journalists played their hunches all the time. At the best news organizations, they still do.

But increasingly, news has become pasteurized and homogenized. Story planning and placement are governed as much by focus groups and financial interests as they are by solid news value.

Chasing a promising hunch that leads nowhere is not valued in many newsrooms; it's discouraged. "Costs too much." "Wastes too much time." Prevents the reporter from filing more frequently.

The history of American journalism is filled with tales of reporters who followed their instincts and came up big. I think the biggest PR success stories also have emanated from practitioners who let their beagles run. It's time that both professions, journalism and PR, reestablish full diplomatic relations with their creative sides.

Toward that end, this year, my company (The TJFR Group) will establish an annual award for the journalist who best epitomizes those bold thinkers who risk insult, failure, humiliation and sore paws chasing hunches and freeing their beagles.

The Free the Beagle Journalism Prize will be announced and presented later this year and I will retell the story of the dogged journalist in a future Newsroom Confidential column.

To help fuel the hunt, TJFR Group will donate $2,500 to New York University's prestigious program in Business and Economic Reporting in the winning beagle's honor. The funds will help perpetuate TJFR's annual Business News Luminaries Awards journalism scholarship at NYU. To nominate a journalist or to nominate yourself, please e-mail (even if its only on a hunch) your candidate to me at freethebeagle@tjfr.com. Make sure you let me know how he or she followed a hunch.

In return for your suggestions, I promise to buy you a copy of Roy's Free the Beagle book when it is published September 2002.

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At lunch today, just before transmitting this week's column, I stopped by Frank's News, my favorite newsstand on the planet. As I've mentioned in the past, Frank gets the latest editions delivered sooner than any other newsstand in town.

"Howdy scoop," Frank greets me, as always.

"Hey, Frank, what's news?" I reply, just full of myself for being so pithy. "Seems the mayor got caught with her hand on the dip stick," Franks says, handing me the evening edition still warm from the presses. I plunk down my four bits.

As I'm walking back to the office I unfold the broadsheet and stare at the bold headline: "Mayor Confirms Extramarital Affair With Top Oil Lobbyist"

March, 2002