Scoring With Gol

One of the biggest differences between working in Mexico and Brazil has come in my relationship with local journalists.

In Mexico, I had very little contact with the reporters at Mexican papers and they were universally unhelpful when I sought them out to ask for contacts. So I was very pleasantly surprised when I got to Brazil and local reporters opened their contact books for me.

One of my first stories involved tracking down a Brazilian political campaign manager. I had no idea where to find him and so called Folha de S. Paulo. The reporter there, whom I didn’t know, couldn’t have been more helpful. He even gave me the subject’s home and mobile numbers.

For that reason I always try and help out local reporters when they need a quote or a photo of a foreign correspondent.

It happens quite often and has become more and more frequent recently, I think because I am in São Paulo, which is more cosmopolitan than Rio. (I was rarely asked to help out by O Globo.)

Last last year, I was featured in Folha’s Sunday magazine along with three colleagues from the foreign press corps (where we mostly complained about how expensive Sao Paulo is).

But my most recent experience was with January’s Gol inflight magazine. The magazine interviewed five foreigners living in SP and asked them what they most like doing in the city (click on the pdf above right to see the entire page).

The Gol reporter vetoed three of my suggestions of cycling, visiting cemeteries, and going to farmers’ markets and instead choose more mainstream ideas such as browsing English-language books at the Livraria da Cultura and visiting the dive bars of rua Augusta.

I’m not a huge fan of seeing my picture in the paper. But I learnt my lesson early. It’s not fair to ask local reporters for help if you won’t help them.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today…

December 30 is a special day for me as a journalist.

It marks the 20^th anniversary of my first ever published article.

The piece, which I’ve scanned here, appeared in the Mexico City News. I got my start there as an editor in November 1990 after meeting two of the paper’s editors at a party.

(More on the history of the Mexico City News at this not very good wikipedia page.)

I asked if I could write a story and this was the result, a look back on that year’s World Cup, at which I’d seen Scotland make their customary agonizing exit at the first round stage.

When I look back on the piece I recall writing it by hand, and a colleague laughing at me for not using the computer. (I was even less computer literate then than now).

I remember the oldest lady on the staff, the lovely Irene Sayago, giving me advice afterwards on how to round the piece out.

And I distinctly remember feeling that this was all a dream and that I would never realise my ambition of becoming a real journalist.

As it turned out, I wrote another piece in January on the birthday of Scot’s poet Robert Burns and then covered the INXS concert, which was big news at the time because back then foreign bands didn’t come to Latin America.

I then began to pen a regular column on European football, updating the weekend results. (Back then the internet didn’t exist and it was the only way for many fans to stay informed.)

In early 1992, after a year and a half at the News I moved on to UPI.

But that’s a story for another day.

My Three New Priorities: Education, Education, Education.

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.