Reporting a complex issue

I've been digging into physician shortages in Missouri from an ER perspective this past month. I'm getting a taste of what it means to report on a complex issue. I've been wrestling with the actual writing part for a few days now and it's by far the most amount of time I've spent writing an article this semester. I've noticed a few things about this type of reporting.

• First - Time flies. 
• Second - It's hard to stop reporting. 

There seems to be an endless number of sources and an endless amount of research I could be doing. I can learn so much on this topic. In fact, some of the people I've spoken to have dedicated their careers to reducing the physician shortage in rural Missouri. It feels strange to swoop in for a moment, shine a light and tell a story and swoop back out.

More on Ryan Ferguson

I did a follow-up article on the legal side of the Ryan Ferguson case last week. I spoke with Professor Rodney Uphoff, a legal scholar at MU, (again!) about the potential ramifications of the case. Much to my amazement, I was fascinated with the topic. I never really thought I'd enjoy writing a legal interpretation, but once the law is contextualized within a personal narrative, it comes to life.

I asked if Ferguson could be tried again, if double jeopardy applies and if any of the prosecutors could be reprimanded for making a mistake. I also wanted to know about Erickson. He said Erickson has a slim chance of being released, but that his confessions will make it quite difficult.

Reporting on the law is tricky because it's difficult to remove the jargon without losing the accuracy. I'm really glad I had two opportunities to write a legal article. I would definitely take it on again in the future.

Q&A: Could Ryan Ferguson be tried again?

remembering nyc

Back before I moved to Columbia, I lived in New York City. I rode my bike down St. Nicholas every morning at 9 a.m. and worked as a volunteer coordinator for a nonprofit called Harlem RBI.

Most of my work was monotonous and involved sitting in front of a computer. But outside the office, Harlem buzzed. I rode down streets named Frederick Douglass with Puerto Rican flags strung up between street-facing apartment buildings.

I ate mangu con queso frito (fried cheese with mashed plantains) at La Carnita with out-of-town friends before we headed south to see the Brooklyn Bridge and the Highline.

My best friend, Prospero Herrera, and I rode our bikes everywhere. I felt like a teenager again. Everything in the city amazed me. We saw Rockefeller Center at Christmastime. We played frisbee in Brooklyn Bridge Park. And, since I wasn't actually a teenager, we went to a dive bar in Harlem called 'The Duck' to drink pitchers of Rolling Rock on Friday night.

I spent my Saturday mornings running north to Fort Tyron Park. From the crest of the park, I saw the George Washington Bridge and the New Jersey bluffs. The green side of New York always surprised. I always imaged the concrete and steel would overwhelm nature. Surprisingly, I found nature everywhere.

Many people will tell you that New York City is one of the most expensive cities in America. I think that it can be true. But, discounting my Peace Corps salary, I made the least amount of money of my professional life while living in New York City.

As a member of AmeriCorps, I received a weekly stipend of about $250. Somehow, I managed to survive. It wasn't easy. Once I came down with a sinus infection and had to pay for everything out of pocket. AmeriCorps does provide health insurance, but it is so basic that it will only cover life-threatening emergencies, which this sinus infection was thankfully not.

Six months after my late September arrival, spring arrived and the ground started to thaw. I stopped biking in my fleece face mask, packed away my gloves and washed my long underwear for the last time that season.

Spring in NYC is like a roller-coaster ride through all the possible weather patterns. Sunny mornings are followed by rainy afternoons. Thunderstorms roll in and out with surprising consistency. Undeterred from the wild weather, I continued to bike commute nearly everywhere. My bike tires spat street grit onto the back of my neon bike jacket and I would often arrive a work with a long, thin black line down my back.

Slowly summer arrived. I weaved seamlessly through New York traffic and had memorized many of the streets in my neighborhood. The thin black line of street grit was replaced by a strip of slick sweat. I replaced my yellow bike jacket with a black tank, pink Brooklyn bike hat (a birthday gift from Prospero) and sunglasses.

The train lines still eluded me and I often lost my way when I ventured underground. But that didn't stop me from venturing down the subway stairs and grabbing a free New York Post on my way down. I read op-eds until local politics started to become familiar. I recognized leaders in the news and felt comfortable in this city that once seemed to tower menacingly above me.

By June, I no longer felt like a tourist. I felt like New York had been my home all along and I didn't want to leave.

Part of what makes living in a place so great sometimes is knowing that your time is limited. This happened in Turkmenistan my last few months there. I savored every piece of manty (traditional Turkmen dumplings) like it would be my last. But it seems to me that all good things eventually come to end sometime. And I think that's what makes them so good.

I know that Harlem is still buzzing. The ground is freezing up right about now. Rockefeller Center is covered with lights. Prospero is biking like a madman through midtown.

Life is filled with mostly ordinary moments. But that's not what I remember best. I remember the bike rides through a torrential downpour and the endorphin-filled view from the crest of a hill I've never run before. I remember the Prosperos and the immense pleasure of finding new friendship in a new city.

Now that I'm in Columbia, I can't help but wonder what my next mangu con queso frito will be or who will be beside me when I have another Brooklyn Bridge moment.

Often times, these poignant memories do not even surface until I've already left. And, that's the reason I've always believed it is important to leave in the first place. Otherwise, how will I ever know what I would have missed?

What I'm reading

We've been talking a lot about context in all of my journalism classes. In my opinion, it's a topic that simply cannot be over-taught. In reporting, context is everything. It orients the reader and often times, even influences how the reader will understand the story. I read a Missourian article over the weekend that includes just the right amount of context. Kudos to reporter Tess Catlett.

Students say college loans necessary for success after college

Reporting on the law

Big news broke last week in Columbia. The Western District Court of Appeals determined that the prosecutor's in Ryan Ferguson's trial had not followed the proper protocols. The judges did not say they think he is innocent of the murder he was convicted of committing. But, they did say they cannot be sure that with the evidence that should have been provided to the defense, that the jury would have found him guilty.

I was in the newsroom the day the news broke because my mass media class is no longer meeting. I had planned to start my literature review that day, but heard about the news and couldn't help myself.

I really wanted to be in the newsroom to watch how the story would be reported. Around noon, my editor asked me to write a legal interpretation of the appeals court's decision. She had interviewed an MU law professor and sent me two and half pages of interview notes. As I read, I realized that my comm law class has actually helped me better understand the law in general.

The content of this particular legal issue was dense and the subject not really easily explained in bullets like I had hoped. Seven hours, two phone calls with the law professor and one missed cross-cultural class later, I finished the article. It is by far the densest topic I've covered so far.

Ryan Ferguson appeals court ruling complex, focuses on Brady Violation

research paper time

I'm currently working on three large research papers. That's three times more than I've ever written before. In college, I remember writing a 10-page double-spaced paper and thinking that it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. My first semester of grad school has already surpassed my undergrad capstone. But, as my roommate says, 'It'll get done. It has to.' She's right. Somehow, I'll find the time to read the articles, do the research and synthesize the information. So far, grad school seems to be about stamina, reading and thinking critically. It has been an amazing, yet intellectually demanding experience. I'm glad I decided to come to MU and test myself in this way. I don't think I'll ever regret it.

Amazing article

Several people have recommended I read a New York Times article entitled Snow Fall. I finally sat down to read it last week and am still thinking about it. The reporting was powerful, thorough and incredibly heartbreaking. As I read it, I felt like I was there. It reminded me of home and of my college snowshoeing days. The leaders of those Mt. Rainier treks always carefully considered avalanches and would communicate with one another about them while we traveled around the mountain. I remember feeling safe as they guided us and awed at their depth of knowledge. At 19, I remember wondering how they sharpened those avalanche instincts. This article is a good reminder that nature is beautiful, but can also be unpredictable and tragic.

Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

Working in difficult conditions

Aye Aye Win came to speak to our cross-cultural journalism class last week. Win is a tiny, unassuming Burmese woman. Her voice is kind and patient and she exudes both wisdom and a quiet confidence. She traveled to Missouri to receive recognition for her work as a journalist in a highly censored country.

Stories like hers have a long arc. Bursts of progress occur, but most of the work is done in slowly over many patient years. The excitement I think most Americans expect from a censored government, like midnight arrests or tailing cars, does exist. But in general, life involves low-grade frustration and worry mixed with normal daily tasks. Success occurs in small steps over many months and years. Sometimes, the changes are undetectable to someone who does not live in the community.

I understand Win's censorship experience because I lived it for two years in Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps. The Turkmen government slowly wore me down. They consistently monitored my work and would step in to prevent me from hosting clubs with too many students or conducting camps they considered beyond the scope of the program. In a country with children hungry for a new experience presented to them in a foreign language, I felt the need was insatiable. From a community development perspective, it was. But the Turkmen government saw big projects as risky and threatening to the status quo.

Occasionally, I looked over my shoulder on my way to work in the morning. I knew the minders were there. I didn't have to check for them. I could sense them. I knew they watched me from afar. They watched as I left my house, as I ate my lunch and took note when I got into a taxi and left town.

When projects approached, I got nervous and hoped they wouldn't bother me or my students. Sometimes, the phone would echo and I would speak faster hoping the person listening in didn't speak English well enough to understand us in "English on fast forward."

The fear and anxiety became part of daily life. I knew I could lose everything if I made one false move - not enough work, too much work, talking to the wrong people, talking to the right people, traveling out of the region too far - any of these actions could be the end of my Peace Corps service.

My most intense fear was that I would lose my students. I worried that the government officials would come to their homes and threaten them. I had heard stories about volunteers who were told they couldn't teach anymore. Their students said the government officials told them they wouldn't get into university if they spoke to the American. All of my struggles to learn the language, bond with my family and make an impact on my community, could be lost with just one false move. This is what it is like to live in fear. It happens slowly over time. I can say now that the anxiety did not drain me initially. It happened gradually as the days and fear built up over the months.

Near the end of my service, I made arrangements to visit a city in the northern part of the country. The morning of my trip, my family received a call from the migration office. They asked me to stop by with my passport. The man took it because he said he needed to make a photocopy. But once he had it, he did not turn around to make a copy. He held it in front of me and told me I wouldn't get it back without a $500 fee (ie: bribe). I reached out to grab it from him and he threw it on the counter behind him.

A self-satisfied look crossed his face as we both realized he had won. I became enraged. All of the frustrations I'd internalized over the months emerged. The frustrations I had repressed in the name of being strong and doing my work, broke through the filter I thought I'd successfully created and I started screaming at the man who had just stolen my passport. I told him that Turkmenistan is not in a golden age, as the government promotes daily on the front page of the paper and that in the U.S., we have real freedom. We don't steal passports and demand bribes. I told him we don't follow around our foreigners and harass them as they do their work (Although now that I've read more about the NSA, I'm not sure I would say this. But, this event was pre-Edward Snowden.)

I wish, in that moment, I'd had the wisdom of Aye Aye Win. Instead of seeing this harassment as part of a larger and very complex story, I poured all my rage into the man standing before me. But he was just a pawn following orders. He couldn't have changed the situation even if he'd agreed with me. I fought him with words and tears and lost a lot of energy fighting a battle that simply could not be won - at least not without $500.

If I could transport myself back to that moment, I would hold back the tears, speak to the man with compassion and go home to have tea with my family. I would seek my host grandmother's advice because certainly she would have had much to offer. And then, I would calmly call the U.S. embassy and report the extortion.

This particular situation would have had the same result regardless of my actions. Whether I screamed at the man or calmly told him to have a great afternoon, I would not have gotten on that plane.

What could have been different is the opinion this man held of me. That interaction must have led him to believe that American women are embarrassing, spiteful and stupid.

In the end, the Peace Corps did pay the bribe and I signed the document falsely claiming that I had broken the law. I suspect my admission was one of many false admissions the Turkmen government later used to expel the Peace Corps on the grounds that its volunteers are irresponsible and unsuccessful.

I see now that rage doesn't really solve anything and in fact, it can make life worse. Win shared a story about the police coming to her home at midnight to take her husband in for questioning. She began her story by talking about the knock at the gate after curfew. She saw the police and knew they had come for one of them. Win, when faced with a similar situation, handled it quite differently than I did. She packed her husband's toothbrush and toothpaste and he went with the police to the station. There was no screaming involved. But, even if there had been, the result would have been the same.

Win's lecture helped me process an experience that I'd always viewed as a traumatic event in my Turkmen story. I think after this lecture, I'm starting to view it differently. I think, even two years later, I can still learn from that day.

Looking back, I understand that an experience like this holds value because I can carry the lessons forward. If I can learn this patience and remain calm in the intense moments, I might then carry the same quiet confidence and wisdom as Aye Aye Win.