I am easy to please, but could you answer your phone!

When excelling in my job largely depends on conducting telephonic interviews, it is always a frustrating obstacle when newsmakers and their media camps refuse my calls.

I am easy to please, really, but we journalists speak the language of deadlines. Subsequently, when sources and commentators are not reached ahead of the deadline, we become somewhat inefficient. A journalist who can’t get a story is as good as one without a job.

While it is true that these people have meetings to attend and other duties to complete, they in the same breath have other aspects of the job to satisfy, including communicating with the media. And I mean effectively and professionally.

New spokespeople almost always answer their phones in the beginning. Those who start off well in a new portfolio sometimes become tedious and non-responsive, making you wish to somehow travel to their destination, press the answer button on their behalf and then press the phone against their ear.

Some people are 'helpful' in to the extent that even before you even pick up the phone to dial their number you are 80 percent certain that they won't answer. I love days when the 20 percent reigns.

Sure, I understand just how much of a pain it must be when I call people as early as 6am to request a soundbite or interview. Do I have a choice? No! Some have even protested that I never again call them at that "ungodly" hour.

It is not as if they have a don’t-speak-to-the-media agenda, perhaps they just genuinely can't help when they are needed.

Without doubt, in overcoming these challenges, it is imperative to develop good working relationships with the people you need in order to be effective in your job.

That being said, not all news sources can be classified in the same depressing category.

Some people help make my job a bliss as well as a profound pleasure because they not only grant interviews, they execute them in a clear, concise and crisp manner - nothing ambiguous - to the delight of editors. Kudos to them.

Like many other professions, journalism comes with its challenges. This is just one of them, but don't be discouraged. I know I'm not :-).