Years ago I had a student who was a real chatterbox. From the time she walked into class each morning until the moment she left, she was talking, talking, talking.

There's nothing wrong with that per se. Some of the best reporters have the kind of gregarious personalities that go hand-in-hand with chattiness.

The problem was, her articles for the student newspaper were under-reported efforts that usually couldn't be published.


She wasn't a bad writer, but the information just wasn't there.

You've probably guessed the problem. Good reporters need to be - have to be - good listeners. Whether they're covering a speech, a school board meeting or doing a one-on-one interview, reporters have to listen closely to what's being said, then get what they've heard - quotes, background information and so on - into their notebooks or recorders so they can eventually put that material into their stories.

But the chatty Cathy in my class was too busy talking to ever stop and listen. The result was that her stories, instead of being a rich stew of solid reportage, were more like a thin gruel a la Dickens' Oliver Twist.

Unfortunately, there aren't many good-listener role models for young journalists to emulate. Too often, especially on the cable news channels, it's the loudmouthed interrupters - the Bill O'Reillys of the world - who grab all the attention. They're more interested in the sound of their own voices than in really hearing what someone else has to say.

Lately, our national discourse has become more of a shoutfest than a conversation. The give-and-take of thoughtful discussion has devolved into a kind of competition in which everyone is simply trying to make themselves heard above the din, whether it's the TV ranters or the Internet trolls.

But a reporter needs to turn off, at least temporarily, the urge to make his own views heard, and remember that it's his job to listen and, most importantly, to learn from the people he is writing about.

In other words, the story isn't about you. It's about the people you're writing about. And you can't listen and learn if you're constantly interrupting instead of interviewing.

I said earlier there aren't many role models in this mold, but they're not non-existent. Want to observe an interviewer who really listens? Cue up an episode of NPR's "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross. Or watch some old clips of Ted Koppel on "Nightline," or more recent ones of "60 Minutes." The exchanges range from the touchy-feely (Gross) to the confrontational ("60 Minutes") but whatever the tone, you'll notice that the reporter in question isn't trying to talk over the interviewee.

The other component here, one I've written about before, is curiosity. The best reporters are naturally curious about the people and the universe outside their own little world. That, in turn, means they're more likely to be good listeners.

Sadly, I don't think curiosity can be taught - you either have it or you don't. Some students are interested mostly in themselves.

It's a kind of narcissism that's often aided and abetted by English classes, in which students are trained to keep journals or write personal essays about their thoughts and emotions. "How does your driver's license photo make you feel?" was an essay topic I came across in one composition class.

Such assignments do little more than promote a kind of self-absorbed, navel-gazing egotism. But years of English classes have drilled this facile association between narcissism and writing into many of my students, so maybe it's no wonder some lack the capacity for curiosity, or the ability to listen.

My remedy? Early in every semester I tell my students, in so many words, the following:

Want to be a journalist? Shut up. Listen. Learn. Repeat.

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