'Five Things Journalists Never Want to Hear While on Assignment'

"Hey, did you hear the intern's pregnant?"

 

heard that during my TV days once, on the day I got back from my vacation and drove 2 hours to get to a high school hockey game, then got to drive back through a blizzard.

 

"Hey, that was off the record. Right?"

 

That list was trite and humorless. One reply into this thread, Moderator1 had topped it.

 

Dude, that's the first one (a slight variation thereof).

 

Incorrect.

 

Leader in the clubhouse.

 

I'll bet folding money that "Someone from your paper already did this story a month ago, but you can do it again" doesn't get said nearly enough to be in the top 200, let alone the top 5.

 

It's more like:

"Hey can you do a story on this?"

"We did that story a few weeks ago."

"So?"

 

Truth.

Also one of my favorites: "Do you mind to localize this national trend story about how teenagers like to send each other text messages with their phones? It's our A1 centerpiece!"

 

"So you'll call this score in to the Major Metro?"

 

You ought to write on...

After a game lost by the local team, that's usually followed by "how the referees sucked" or "the coach is stupid".