I’ve been posting less frequently than usual over the last few weeks because my filing routine has undergone a major change.

That’s largely down to my new employer, The Chronicle of Higher Education. They recently hired me as a freelancer to write about Brazilian academic life and the work involves writing longer and more detailed pieces than I had become accustomed to.

For several years now, newspapers and magazines have been asking for ever briefer stories and I did more of them to make ends meet. The Chronicle want in-depth stories that can take weeks to report. As I’ve spent most of my time working on those longer pieces, I’ve filed fewer shorter pieces and so had less subjects to blog on and pieces to link to.

The Chronicle is described here on Wikipedia as ” a newspaper that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty members and administrators.” It is called ” the major news service in the United States academic world.” What I know from a couple of months there is that it is a serious publication, in a world with fewer and fewer serious publications.

The reason I am spending so much time on the Chronicle’s stories is not only because it demands detailed reporting. It is also that reporting about university education is a completely new topic for me.

I’ve been in Brazil more than 10 years now and I have half the reporting for most stories I do already in my head. I have the basic background information there and if I don’ t then I certainly know who to call to get it.

With education, just as when I write on economics and business, I am starting from scratch. That means stories take a lot longer.