Why do journalists sometimes call around unannounced?

Aoife-FM104

Why do journalists sometimes call around unannounced when they could have just sent an e-mail or made a telephone call?

Is this a technique journalists use?

Is it odd?

flogen

In what context are you talking about?
In some cases, particularly if a journalist is trying to get answers someone doesn't want to give, they need to approach the person head-on, otherwise they might get fobbed off or ignored (it's easy to ignore an email, easy to tell someone you'll ring them back, harder to avoid them if they're standing right in front of you)

Perhaps they're trying to catch someone off guard, or perhaps they have another reason...

Santa Claus

Aoife-FM104 wrote:

Why do journalists sometimes call around unannounced when they could have just sent an e-mail or made a telephone call?

Is this a technique journalists use?

Is it odd?

It's called "doorstepping" and it's an old technique.
The idea is that people are more gaurded on the phone or can hang up where its very difficult to ignore someone in your face asking awkward questions (and if you don't answer them then they might have a photographer with them to take some snaps of you refusing to comment)

jdivision

OP do you work in FM104?

Dundalk Daily

Ah good old door stepping you cant beat it for catching someone off guard.