Whether you’re the type of journalist who relishes calling up sources or entirely dreads it, the end of the reporting process can be a huge relief. But knowing when you’ve reached that point can be tricky. It can feel as though there’s always one more number to dial, one more email to send, even under tight deadlines—and whether that instinct is correct can be the difference between nailing a scoop and overreporting yourself into a writing bind. Here are eight ways to know that a story could benefit from more reporting, if time allows.
1. You keep learning new things in each interview that shift your perspective on the topic at hand.
This experience is natural—and needed!—in the early stages of reporting. But if you’re still surprised or confused by what sources are telling you, it’s probably worth continuing to reach out, either to new people who can clear up the apparent discrepancies or back to sources you’ve already spoken with, to ensure you’ve interpreted their statements correctly. The inverse—when the answers to the questions you’re asking confirm what you’ve already learned—can be a great sign that you’re close to done.
2. You realize there is too much homogeneity in the perspectives you're getting.
With the above in mind, it is possible to conduct a series of interviews that sound far too similar. Pause throughout the reporting process to ensure that not all sources are from the same demographic. Expertise can and should include a variety of voices that enhance understanding of a subject. For example, consider including a patient with the rare condition you’re writing about, or at least a healthcare worker treating it; or speak to a grad student or a technician who’s done fieldwork that a tenured professor might not have. Activists, historians, and lawyers can add color to stories about controversial subjects.
3. You still have more questions than answers.
Not all stories can offer definitive answers, of course, but journalism aims to inform and clarify. If you are filing a draft overstuffed with question marks and uncertainties, readers are likely to feel frustrated and mystified, too. Keep digging until you feel as though you’ve answered at least a core set of questions—enough to complete the story you’re telling and make the reader feel as though they’re coming away more knowledgeable than before. Remember that “nobody knows yet” can be an answer.
4. There's controversy in the story and you're not sure why.
It’s natural for scientists to disagree. But if your reporting repeatedly returns to a topic that surprises you with its thorniness, it’s usually worth digging into, even if the conflict isn’t a central focus. These sorts of controversies can reflect fundamental misunderstandings or misinformation, which are worth correcting with a definitive story, or turn up an emerging rift in a field that you may end up being among the first to report.
5. You’re trying to describe a scene and are grasping for details.
If you have the resources and time, return to your notes and sources, or review images or video footage, if relevant, to nail the specifics. You don’t want to accidentally mischaracterize something—and if you probe a person for an additional set of details, there’s always a chance they’ll remember something you would never have thought to ask.
6. You can’t distill the story into something clear and brief.
This can indicate that a story doesn’t yet have a point—which is to say, perhaps it’s still a topic and not a story or there are too many tangled threads that must first be teased apart. If you’re struggling to put together a clear pitch or write a tentative headline or dek, keep researching and talking until a throughline stands out. Similarly, if it’s too hard to explain the premise of your story to your editor, partner, or friends, you’ll likely have a tough time writing your draft without first doing a bit more research.
7. You can’t imagine a rough shape for the story.
Not all stories lend themselves to an obvious outline—but in the same way that a story can feel too cluttered to be written, a story can also feel far too thin. At the very least, you should be able to cobble together a rough sense of how you’d like to guide a reader from a logical starting point to a logical ending point and have a sense of what connective tissue is needed in between. Use the gaps therein to write a new list of follow-up questions, and chase them.
8. The situation on the ground is changing rapidly.
This can be a tricky one: If a story’s remit is simply to update readers with a daily story, it’s fine, even desirable, to recap the latest events and note for the reader that the situation continues to evolve. But a story that takes a bigger swing at an issue may benefit from breathing room—time to let a situation unfold and for participants to react. In the rush to publish, mistakes can easily happen; a story may also end up skirting a crucial plot point.
Design by Kate Fishman.
Katherine J. Wu is a staff writer for The Atlantic. Before that, she was a science reporter for The New York Times, an early-career fellow at The Open Notebook, and a AAAS Mass Media Fellow at Smithsonian in 2018. She holds a PhD in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University. She won a 2022 Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communication, a 2021 Science in Society Award, and the 2020 Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists.
