By Sally Dadisman
University of Maryland

    Thanks to Connie Schultz, the coat check clerk at a Cleveland banquet hall gets to keep her tips.     A syndicated columnist at The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Schultz found out the woman behind the coat check counter at Windows on the River, tired from a long day of work, couldn't even enjoy the benefits of her labor. Many had dropped money in the tip cup, but she would never see it. The money, instead, went to management. She used this woman's story for a column.
    Schultz, who opened her session Friday at the AASFE conference with this anecdote, is known for columns like these that champion the underdog, are educational, and empower the reader.
    "It's not enough to say what's wrong," she said. "But we have to say how they can fix it."
    Schultz finds her stories in ordinary places like airports, where she talks to those who push wheelchairs for $3.50 an hour and are supposed to get supplementary wages from tips. But no one knows to tip them. Or the flight attendant who asks patrons to clean up after themselves, otherwise she'll have to do it because the airline cut cleaning crews to cut costs.
    She gave these tips for getting stories:
To get people to talk to you ...

•     Give them as much information about you as possible
•     Give it time -- the more you do stories like these, the more they'll start to believe you're trustworthy
•     Use others.  If you're working on a story about a restaurant chain's unfair practices against their wait staff (which Schultz is, but welcomes anyone to steal the idea), make a contact with one waiter who can lead you to others.    
•     Let the subject know they have some control. They can stop speaking to you at anytime.
•     As any good journalist should know, stick with it.

•     Focus more time on cultivating writers
•     Bring in outside experts
•     Have more free-form brainstorming sessions
•     Confront a reporter's fear by asking them "why are you afraid?"