What I Learned from Lillian Ross

By Kenneth Kirshner

I learned a lot of useful information from “Letter from Lillian Ross” and her guidelines to reporting. Almost all of the facts and information in the piece are useful in one way or another. 

I was pretty shocked when Lillian stated that journalism teachers and even editors nowadays ask reporters to be a “fly on the wall” when doing different stories. I believe that is foolish because like she does, I believe every writer’s style is completely different, you cannot just teach how to report/write in one particular style. One must report a story in the way that feels most natural and comfortable to them.

The part of her letter that drew me in was her “working guidelines.”  The main points I took away from her guidelines were to write with clarity and simplicity and that reporters must get straight to the point and not “beat around the bush.”

She also states she doesn’t like writing about people she doesn’t like. I feel reporters need to write about people they do like because they can get creative with that particular story if it is one of their own personal interests. A reporter could sound negative when talking about a certain person, and possibly give a bad reputation towards that person. 

Another point I took away from her guidelines was that when given permission to interview someone, you are being given a responsibility towards that person’s life, almost obtaining a friendship with that person. You can become close with the people you interview throughout your career, so you need to protect their reputation as best you can, so you could protect your own reputation for future interviews to come or else nobody will give you permission to interview them at any point in time.

Finally, I believe in this statement from Lillian, “I resist taking a writing assignment for financial reasons.”  Everybody in society should work because they love what they do, not just for the money they obtain. This is with any job, whether it be teaching, reporting, professional athlete, or electricians. One must love what they do and be happy at what they do over the financial aspects of a job.

This was a well-written report by Ms. Ross that provides a lot of influential guidelines for young, aspiring reporters.