Everyday work

In the last two weeks I tried to get more into the newsroom routine, as well as keep reporting and writing in a regular beat. Things got a little slow, though. I finished one story about a mentoring program held by the Hispanic Commerce Chamber in Philadelphia area, and the story is in the cue to be published – in the last couple of days, the paper was short of space, my editor explained me.
That story gave me some new experiences, directly related with my goals in the fellowship.
1- A stakeholder suggested the story to me. People at the chamber realized I am writing about minorities because of my stories about Brazil and about soccer, and sent me an e-mail. I wasn’t really expecting to be recognized as a reporter here at any point, because this usually happens when you got into a specific beat, and after a while. I liked to experience that; dealing with stakeholders is an essential part of our job. How do you deal with their biases? What they can provide you and, more important, is the information they give you reliable? Those questions lead us to the second point:2- Figuring all this out with my editor’s help. I bothered my editor with questions about verification and number of voices in the story. It was challenging; the editors around here are always really busy, as well as the other reporters. There is much more work to do in this newsroom, and they simply have no time to coach me. But I figured the best time to approach them and tried to anticipate their questions the best I could.
3- I dealt with some businessmen and executives. I’m avoiding suggesting stories for the business section just because I’m a business reporter for too long now. I want new experiences. However, it was really good to meet business people and talk to them – that was a way to see some differences between businessmen in Brazil and here. I’m used to have more formal, serious conversations with executives in Brazil, and Americans seemed more comfortable with talking to me. I’m sure they wouldn’t be as open as they were if I was writing some story that makes them look bad, but anyway, it was really different.

I also shadowed two reporters in the last 2 weeks. I went out with Robert Moran to cover a protest at Rittenhouse Square against the Iranian government. They were demonstrating with signs and chants, and it was right in the beginning of the developments in the Middle East. That was a little story, but showed me 2 things.
1- The concern about localizing stories. This is a big trend in my newsroom for several years now, and it’s interesting to see it happening in big American newspapers, too.
2- He took some pictures with his camera, although there was a Inquirer’s staff photographer there. He also took some other pics with the iPhone, and promptly posted it on Twitter. Right after he talked to people there, he wrote the story in a netbook, while we had a coffee in a café with wi-fi. So before we left the site, the editors already had the story filed and could call him to ask for further doublechecking.
I was really impressed by his attempts to multimedia the story, and the twits he made from there were really good – Twitter played an important role in all the Iran coverage. And while it was a pain to carry all the equipment – a camera, a netbook, a vintage reporter’s notebook, an umbrella -, he didn’t seem to bother.
The other experience was last week, shadowing Maria Panaritis to a union meeting in a traditional sports court in Philadelphia. The story was about a deal to change benefits that was offered by Acme – a supermarket chain – to the employees. She went to interview the employees and got some good quotes. I was surprised with the way they express their opinions to the media in a situation like that. In Brazil, it’s hard to find non-union voices to speak up for their rights in labor disputes.

Watching them working, I learned some techniques to approach people and to get good quotes. They tried to keep people comfortable to talk, but they didn’t give up of the tough questions. Maria acted as a “devil’s advocate” several times with the workers, telling them the company’s arguments and asking the workers to answer to them. That was really interesting.