Philadelphia, goodbye

I basically devoted the last week to have a last taste of american and philadelphian culture. I tasted Geno's cheesesteak, I went to a Phillies (baseball) and Flyers (hockey) game, knew Gettysburg and the Amish area in Pennsylvania. The last story I was working on didn't work out - I was writing a profile of a liberian kid here in Philadelphia, but we couldn't have enough meetings, he got out of reach and suddenely I ran out of time. Although a little disappointed, I didn't mind. I hope another reporter get this story eventually.
This last week in Philadelphia is going both smoothly and bluesy. I already miss this beautiful city and its crazy people. I walk most of the time, trying to get the last images in my mind. I photograph a lot, and probably will never get to see all the pictures. But I just don't want to forget this place easily. I'm sure I never will.
Philadelphia has a thick social and racial tension in the air and it has a lot of problems, but I'm always surprised when people complain about it. And boy, how they complain. It's hard to find someone who doesn't laugh when I say that I like this place a lot. They criticize Philadelphia every chance they can and always talk about the past, which gives me the feeling of living in a decadent city. Please note: I don't think this place is decadent; people here seems to think that. Although they have great colleges and a lot of things to do, many of them want to get out of here. Maybe the recession provoked this mood of hopelessness. Maybe is the political situation, with people realizing that Obama is just a president, not a savior. I hope it's just my impression and this city continues do grow. Because in two days I'll be leaving for good in a train (cool), but I want to come back some day and see the city as good as now.
I just have one thing to say about Philadelphia. Living here was really fun.

2 weeks in September

Some emotion in the last 2 weeks. I decided to embrace the multimedia and teamed up with an intern, as I told you in my last post. That was a good learning experience, because almost everything went different from the planning. I would say "it went wrong", but the final result was a good story wrote by Naomi that helped me to put one of my photos as the center element at the cover of the local section last Saturday.
The most interesting part for me was to work on an interactive map. I faced a lot of technical problems and had a lot of doubts on how to tell the story in this different way. The editors here helped me to choose the information I'd put in the map and correct the writing, but no one really had any thoughts about the storytelling. I'm not sure even if someone around here, including the online people, thought about it as a story instead of a graphic. But I have to concede: they liked it and putted it as the main element online, which I took as a compliment. You can see it here.
I also tried two different projects with the other fellows. The first one was to set up a blog with stories produced collectively. The project didn't see daylight, unfortunately. Not too many other fellows could afford to put their efforts on that, probably because of our busy workdays. And I proposed it too late in the fellowship. Nevertheless, I learned a great deal about how to get people engaged by failing in doing it.
Now I'm working with Marc to get some thoughts of other newsrooms in the country about the crisis and to see what new is happening. This can be useful to my newsroom in Brazil, too. Let's see how this works. I got some cool thoughts when me and Rodney visited the New York Times, last week. Rodney's day here at the Inquirer also made me talk with a lot of people I don't usually talk to, which was great.
Another awesome experience was to help in the coverage of a shoot-out in Philly, when a cop was shot by to criminals in the morning. I was sent to the hospital to talk to policemen, got information and passed it through the phone to a reporter in the newsroom. I spent the entire afternoon hanging out there - nothing too exciting, but it got me a byline in front page. More important, I talked to a lot of TV reporters, had a long talk with the photographer and exchange ideas about this kind of coverage, comparing it to Brazilian way.
In a personal note, I'm getting a little blue with the ending of fellowship. After months struggling to find good story ideas, now my head is filled with them -- and I don't have enough time to do it anymore. On the other hand, I'm glad to go back and see my friends, family and girlfriend. I miss them, as well I miss to play with my band and to have a beer in the streets without worrying to be arrested.
I'll try to accommodate one more good story and all the other things to do - fellowship's final assignments, packing, last-minute shopping - in those 2 last weeks. Time to get busy!