I’ve knocked more doors in my time than I can count. When I was a reporter on the road, I knocked hundreds of doors both in the UK and overseas. (Yes, that’s me in the picture above.)
The worst is the “death knock” after somebody has lost their life
It’s not always comfortable. It’s the moment of truth where you get a few seconds, if that, in front of a potential source. You need to have your wits about you and the capacity to think on your feet. Often, you’ll have been waiting outside the property for hours, even days, before your moment comes. Often, you simply get told to fuck off. And off you fuck.
Sometimes, you feel morally compromised. The worst is the “death knock” after somebody has lost their life. You approach respectfully, knock once, ask if the family would like to offer a tribute, and leave. Sometimes, when it feels ethically wrong – like if it was a child victim of a terror attack, for example – you put a note though the door and tell your editor there was no answer. (The cat’s out the bag now!)
All of this might seem unpalatable to many readers on a day like today, in the current febrile climate. But it is important to remember that there is a difference between doorstepping and hounding. You speak to the source once, you try to form a rapport, and either you succeed or fail. You are always polite. If you are told to leave, you don’t come back.
The one lesson I learned from knocking doors is that what happens is always what you’d never have predicted. Sometimes it’s the wrong person in any number of ways. Sometimes you are convinced you’ll get told to fuck off and you end up being ushered in and given a much bigger story than you bargained for.
Sometimes it produces an exciting lead that turns out to be bollocks, or a seemingly meaningless piece of information that takes on great significance later. It’s always an adventure, and you’re always acting in pursuit of a story in the public interest.
This is a vital part of a democracy. In our free society, journalists should be allowed, within the rules and customs of decorum, to knock on anybody’s door they like. There’s no obligation to speak, of course, and they must leave when told to leave. But it is a vital tool in the toolbox of getting at the truth; and as George Orwell famously said, the only news worth printing is the news that somebody doesn’t want you to print.
The Ipso code is clear. “Doorstepping, also known as doorknocking, is when journalists approach people at their homes or workplaces to seek information or comment, or build relationships,” the website says. “It can serve the public interest by allowing journalists to verify facts and give people a fair opportunity to respond.”
There are rules and caveats, of course. But properly observed and respected, we are talking about a free society. Do you want to live in a world where journalists are hamstrung? Where doors cannot be knocked? What are the implications of that?
When political leaders demonise journalists for doing their jobs in the public interest, our democracy is in even more danger than it was already.
A version of this article originally appeared on Jake Wallis Simons’s Substack
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