E-mail From The Floor

Subject: How Scoops Happen: Word Gets Out Because People Talk

"How do they know that?" is a question that may have flitted across your mind when CNN (and others) broke the news today that Jack Kemp has been picked by Bob Dole to be his vice presidential running mate. Of course, these claims are followed by denials, assertions, harrumphing and assorted accusations. And those quotes probably prompt a "why is CNN (and others) making all this up?"

Well, we don't make up these claims. And the reason we know is because people talk. Just as in high school when rumors spread of the latest breakup or matchup among your friends in homeroom class, the older version is known as grownups love to gossip, to feed, to show the power of knowledge by imparting it to journalists. The rule of thumb is there are no rules.

The players -- the ones seeking the knowledge, the tip, the leak, and those in possession of the information -- know that if this leaker and leakee don't produce the story, then, sure as a station break followed by commercial, someone else will leak. Not infrequently a leak, a hint, a word is a payback for past favors; the reporter has done a story on the politician's current favorite project, and this is news currency for saying "thanks" and is more welcome than a fifth of booze at Christmas.

More importantly, you gotta know who to ask in the campaign. There are people by the dozens claiming to know the innermost thinking of the candidate. Sure. And George Bush will pick someone as unlikely as Dan Quayle. Knowing who knows and who does not know requires a long period of cultivation. That means lunch at four-star restaurants; it requires dinners and show tickets, accompanied by the reporter; and long philosophical conversations, not unlike what is going on now in many a dorm room across college campuses, as the reporter gulps up the wisdom of the purveyor, and a considerable amount of beer.

It is a hellish assignment but one that must be done by dedicated newsies who care not for a personal life or for the condition of their livers. But the one thing that won't work is to call up out of the vapor and ask to speak to the campaign chairman. You won't even get the secretary. So, cultivate and put it on your expense account.

But you gotta be careful you are not victimized by a lousy leak or sunk by a loopy leak. The former is meant to do harm, the latter is just plain stupid, stupid. And this is where double-sourcing comes in. And that means more dinners, more shows, well, you get the ugly picture.

Finally you must convince your bosses -- editors, bosses, twit-brained management -- that your story is rock solid, a sure-fire Pulitzer or Peabody, righter than the Ten Commandments, and that CBS is right behind you and if this is not put on the network within the hour, we will be the journalistic Dan Quayles of The Convention and all of America that reads and watches TV. Do you, you ask the editor/producer/twit, do you want to be the executive that killed the story proving President Bill Clinton wears a toupee? Watch 'em crumble. Oh, and next time, invite the poor exec along to one of those dinners. It will give them something to chat about on the Internet.