Residents of the Makana municipal area regularly supply tip-offs to the Grocott’s Mail newsroom. Many
of our most interesting articles in recent years have come as a direct result of these.
Residents of the Makana municipal area regularly supply tip-offs to the Grocott’s Mail newsroom. Many
of our most interesting articles in recent years have come as a direct result of these.
People send in emails, letters, and mysterious brown envelopes containing documents, we get anonymous phone calls and every week concerned citizens take the trouble to come in and visit us personally with some valuable information.
Our reporters and even administrative staff members are approached, (while going about their daily business in town), about some significant development that should make the front page of the newspaper.
We are always grateful for these tip-offs because without them this newspaper would be so much the poorer.
It is Grocott’s Mail policy to follow up on every single tipoff or story idea that we get from members of the public. This policy does not mean, however, that every tip-off will necessarily result in the publication of an article in the pages of this paper.
Many generate valuable stories in the next edition and some a few weeks later after lengthy investigations, but some never make it to print.
The reasons for a tip-off not generating an article for Grocott’s Mail are varied, but it could be that a story is too trivial for a community newspaper, perhaps the facts are wrong, or sometimes we are just not able to substantiate the facts.
This sometimes happens when a person tells us about some kind of wrong-doing, let’s for argument’s sake say an irregularity in the municipal offices, but the accuser then refuses to go on record.
In other words the whistle-blower will say that an office bearer is corrupt but will not allow us to attach
his or her name to the story usually for fear of retribution.
When this happens, we investigate the circumstances and try to substantiate the allegations through other means.
We try to find someone who is willing to be quoted, or we search for documentary evidence to support the initial claims.
In some cases we are successful in finding other sources, but unfortunately, there are a few stories that we just cannot print because we cannot substantiate the allegations made during the initial tip-off.
