RULE 30 Live Off Peak

As chief national correspondent and anchor of John King USA, King makes about 100 telephone calls a day to Washington, D.C.’s movers and shakers. His calls, according to the April 1999 issue of Brill’s Content, are often brisk and to the point: “Hey, this is King — anything going on?”

What’s fascinating about King’s work philosophy, however, is not how many calls he makes but when he makes some of his most effective contacts. Among his “tricks of the trade” is a technique for getting people to open up at the end of a long day and share what they know. King learns as many of his sources’ car phone numbers as he possibly can. He then calls them during the evening rush hour, when there’s nothing much to do. Nothing much to ...

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