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I wrote this article recently for Phil Castle, a lecturer in journalism at the University of Queensland as one of a series of abstracts on police reporting.

Former police reporter Peter Clack said the worst pitfalls and difficulties for a reporter covering a police round had very little to do with crime and police. This was not to say that covering police and crime wasn’t among the most demanding and rugged of any possible newspaper round, apart from covering war zones.

“The biggest challenge for any police reporter is winning the battle of the newsroom,” Clack said. “This is where news editors or sub-editors accustomed to a comfortable and sterile daily routine pick and choose news stories in a formula that resembles trick or treat.

“News choices are made several hours earlier and usually based on news stories that come through the wire services, news that is easily available and that someone else has already given news value. This downgrades local police reporting, which usually is produced as breaking news on the late shift. Wire services almost always provide the safer alternative.”

Clack said that building the skills and ability to penetrate the police defences in order to pick their brains for news stories took many years and endless drive and enthusiasm to see your by-line in the paper. But this could be achieved by the right approach and by having the right plan.

“When I became police reporter for the first time in 1990 I was very green as a journalist but I had some things on my side. First, I was male and second I was in my early forties. But the thing that sustained me and enabled me to break through into the police inner circle was something that is much harder to define.

“The easiest way to describe what I think it takes to be a good police reporter is to be able to be trusted. Whatever else you do police can forgive; they will never forgive a breach of trust.

“You have to be the real thing,” Clack said. “There is no fall-back position. There is no substitute. This is a two-edged sword that can make you or break you and it can happen with a single bad story.”

Clack said he never crossed the line with police and tried to become friends or socialise with them.

His personal experiences and overseas studies for a Churchill Fellowship in crime reporting reinforced this view. “If you win over a single police officer, then others will follow,” he said. “Journalists who will respect police confidences and secrets are so rare that today’s police have a built-in radar and they will lapse into police speak as soon as a reporter gets in range.

“But once they see that you are the real article, they will accept you and allow you to tell their stories for them. But they will never let you into the inner sanctum, and this is dangerous territory for losing trust.”

Clack said jealousies and pettiness by newsroom’s plodders, people whose nights are spent gazing into computer consoles while he was out all hours in all weathers, living by his wits, ultimately decided whether his stories ran or not.

“This is the lot of police reporters. They must develop incredibly sophisticated and intuitive skills and strategies to break through the police veneer and to devise ways to get news stories. “It is ironic that newspapers are the villains, not the police.”

Clack said that his experiences covering the Australian Federal Police over almost 14 years had refuted most of the myths he had ever heard about police reporting.

“For a start, a good police reporter does not need to have lots of police sources,” he said. “Usually, you need only one. A single officer in the right job can tell you everything, as long as you don’t burn him and the police. This will build helpful relations with other police. If you can find one who will tell you the facts, then you don’t need the others. After a while, police I had never met would tell me anything I asked.

“The other myth is that long-serving police reporters get too close to the police. This is the slur used against you in the newsroom, because if they can break down your credibility for reporting and honesty, then your copy (and your reputation) can be downgraded.

“Success or failure on the police round can be synthesised down to a single barometer. And that is whether or not you can be trusted – and whether or not others believe you can be trusted. However, your integrity is the weapon that ultimately will be used against you.”

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