Michaela’s Muses: Getting both sides

Since I joined the Rio Rancho Observer in June 2022, both conservatives and liberals have taken to insulting my integrity as a journalist and saying I do not get both sides.

This is my opinion, but I feel that because I hear from both sides that this is what they believe, I must be reporting both sides.

In this industry, unfortunately, the only way to know if you have done a good job reporting on a politically polarized story is if both sides are angry with you as a journalist.

People often take to insulting my career, my writing, my age, my gender and sometimes my physical appearance or my voice when they are displeased with an article. This happens to almost every agent of the news. We all collect “haters” throughout our careers.

I do not take it personally unless it is a personal attack or a threat because I am aware that most of the insults people throw my way are just opinions. If I am threatened in any way, I would take it to my editor or local law enforcement. Luckily, it hasn’t ever come to that. In my line of work, the only opinion I care about is my editor’s. If she tells me the story is one-sided/biased, it probably is. If she tells me I need more sources, I go out and get them. If she tells me the story just doesn’t cut it, I rework it. If she says the story can’t be published, it doesn’t publish.

However, in order for me to get those sources, they have to be willing to say something to me. There have been numerous times when I asked for an interview and the person said, “No thanks.”

What happens most often, though, is the person I am trying to get in touch with doesn’t respond at all. Most of the time I can just say in the story that they failed to respond, but sometimes that person’s comment is what makes or breaks a story.

The collaboration it takes to get a story out is far more difficult than it seems. It takes the journalist and the quoted person cooperating to get a story out.

I find that getting all sides to cooperate is most difficult with government entities. Some are better at it than others. Some are definitely more polite than others. But at the end of the day, if I don’t get a quote from anyone, the story doesn’t exist.

I am not in the business of public relations, as some would believe; I am in the business of facts. Facts are often what make people angry because they can’t do anything about them.

Transparency is what I rely on for a story. The facts are sometimes not a good look for whomever is subject to them. That is not my problem. I am not here to save your face.

I am also not in the business of defaming people, slandering people or gossiping about people. Everything I write is either said by another person directly, written on an official document or said in a public setting.

Lastly, I just want to say if you have a problem with something, send my editor or myself an email rather than publicly posting about it on Facebook or gossiping about it with your friends.