Global Reporting
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Part 1: Introduction
 
Part 2: Pre-Planning
 
Part 3: Getting Started
 
Part 4: Structuring Stories
 
Part 5: Discussing Key Journalistic Themes
 
Part 6: In the Midst-Reporting
 
Part 7: Writing the Stories
 
Part 8: Coordinating the Series
 
Part 9: Editing the Stories Days
 
Part 10: Wrap-Up
 
Part 11: Maximizing the Impact and Follow-Up
 
Additional Resources
 
Summary
The multi-ethnic team reporting project requires extensive planning by the sponsoring organization working in concert with a local partner. Together, they secure the participation of the local ethnic media organizations who will loan reporters for the project and publish the series. Project organizers must select a working of-fice in the host city or country, draw up a budget, arrange salaries, and select a general theme. A qualified coordinator must be found who will lead the team of reporters through the preparation of the feature series. The coordinator will also organize follow-up activities.
 
The Breifing Book
If an outsider with knowledge of the local area is not available, it is helpful if the spon-soring organization or the local partner de-velops a project briefing book that explains the political, social, economic, cultural, his-toric, and ethnic make-up of the host loca-tion. This book might include newspaper clippings, position papers, think-tank re-search, a bibliography, a list of key individu-als to contact, and other information to help brief the coordinator prior to his or her arrival.
 
Day to Day
Ideally, the local partner represen-tative will be available on a daily basis to help oversee the project and provide guidance to the team and the coordinator. If so, he or she can work hand in hand with the project coordinator to resolve dis-putes and keep the project on track, with the two staff people playing "good cop, bad cop" if necessary to ensure that work proceeds space.
 
The Meaning of Numbers
Most economic stories that run in Mace-donian newspapers are dry financial ac-counts filled with statistics that make little attempt to put the numbers into context. With that in mind, the sponsors opted to produce a series of feature stories about the impact of the economy on the lives of ordinary people. The stories would blend number crunching with anecdotal ac-counts of how unemployment, inflation, and stalled factory production were af-fecting Macedonians in all walks of life. The participating reporters did not have a strong financial background: two covered cultural issues, one was a generalist, and the fourth was an assistant metro editor in charge of youth issues.
 
Realistic Expectations
The participant honoraria is a po-tentially volatile area, and it is ex-tremely important to agree upon this fee prior to the project. This will avoid unrealistic expectations about money and ensure that those who do participate are there to learn. Some questions to consider are:
  • Will reporters receive their standard salary for the length of the project.
  • If so, will it be paid by their em-ployer or by the sponsoring or-ganization?
  • If they receive an honorarium, will it be paid in addition to or in lieu of their regular salary?

Equal Starts
Ideally, each publication will begin run-ning the series on the same day, along with a box explaining the project's genesis, the participating reporters, and the unusual nature of the collaboration. This will ensure that no publication ap-pears to have an exclusive and be "favored" above the others. After the first installment runs, the papers can schedule subsequent stories either daily or weekly, as publication permits.
   
 
How to Conduct a Multi-Ethnic Team Reporting Project
Part 2: Pre-Planning
By Denise Hamilton
Center for War, Peace, and the News Media
Copyright © 1997 New York University
Choosing a coordinator
Choosing a local partner
Selecting a general theme
Money matters
Laying the groundwork
Picking reporters
 
Choosing a Coordinator
The coordinator can be a local person who has been trained by a media coordinator; he or she can also be an outsider who is familiar with the host country or city and understands the backdrop against which the ethnic tensions ebb and flow.

In searching for a project coordinator, the sponsoring organizations should seek an individual who is both a good journalist and a good people manager. The coordinator should be able to motivate reporters, instill pride and team spirit, and impart knowledge in a collegial, non-threatening fashion. Flexibility is also important, as plans often change once a project gets under way. The most successful coordinators give reporters enough freedom to do their jobs but can also step in and make executive decisions should a conflict arise or the project veer off track.

Equally important is finding a coordinator with a good bedside man-ner. In much of the developing world, journalists are justifiably sick and tired of Western "experts" parachuting in to tell them how to do their job. For example, coordinators should keep in mind that standard American journalistic tactics simply often don't apply in the absence of freedom of information laws or sunshine clauses requiring that gov-ernmental bodies meet in open session.

It is also crucial that the coordinator be a person who will respect the re-porters' abilities and the constraints under which they operate. Journalists may face obstacles in their work that Western reporters cannot imagine. In many countries, government critics face firing, imprisonment, or even death. Dozens of journalists have been murdered in Russia in the last five years, for trying to expose governmental and Mafia corruption, among other reasons. In China, dissident journalists have been sentenced to long prison terms or forced to flee the country. It would be ignorant and naive to insist on American standards in countries where they are impossible to achieve.

Choosing a Local Partner
The sponsoring organization may already have lined up a local partner in the host city or country. In some cases, sponsoring organizations may want to name their branch offices in the host country as the local partner. If none exist, the sponsoring organization might seek out agencies that share similar goals in terms of journalism education or democratization.

In general, the sponsor should seek a local partner organization that can provide logistical planning, staffing, and initial contacts with local media institutions. This will be very important since the team will be swamped with calls once reporting gets under way and will require administrative support.

It would be ideal to identify a local sponsoring organization that can free up a staff member for the entire month to aid the reporters and the coordinator in executing the project. The representative of the local partner can then work hand-in-hand with the project coordinator. If this is the case, the qualities of the local partner staff member should mirror those of the media coordinator. These includes flexibility and the ability to motivate reporters, nurture team spirit, and keep the project on track and on time.

The local partner organization should be known and trusted by all the racial and ethnic parties involved and be perceived as objective and fair. This is important if the project expects to gain the trust of the par-ticipating publications and reporters.

In choosing a local partner, the organization can consider non-governmental organizations, foundations, other nonprofits, and any other group with broad credibility in the community and a record of and reputation for objectivity.

The local partner staff person should understand the dynamics of the political situation on the ground, especially if the coordinator has just arrived in the city or country. The coordinator can also tap the local partner for background, perspective, and contacts within the commu-nity.
 
Note: To retain maximum control over the project, the sponsoring or-ganization should choose both the project coordinator and the local partner. The two may be done at the same time or separately, de-pending on time limitations. Regardless of which comes first, the spon-soring organization should offer as much information as possible to the local sponsor and to the project coordinator so that they can make informed decisions about whether to participate.
 
Selecting a General Theme
With a coordinator and a local partner on board, the sponsoring or-ganization may want to schedule a meeting to discuss the project and select a general theme such as environmental pollution, the black market, unemployment, health care, or privatization.
In Macedonia, the organizers wanted to avoid overtly political topics for fear that reporters of different ethnicities would clash on coverage and doom the project before it even got off the ground. They decided that the inaugural project would look at the country's economic woes, a topic of common ground for all Macedonian citizens regardless of their Slav, Albanian, Serb, Bulgarian, Turkish, Roma, or Vlach ancestry.
 
By its very nature, choosing an issue that crosses ethnic and racial lines helps defuse conflict and promote understanding. There is no one in Macedonia today who has not been deeply affected by the country's shifting economic status as it moves from a centrally planned and controlled socialist economy into a murky capitalism crippled by war and United Nations sanctions.
 
As a result, interest ran high, both among the reporters and the people they interviewed, to illustrate and explain these changes in concrete terms. The examples unearthed by reporters ran the gamut from elderly pensioners who found their savings wiped out overnight to middle-class, middle-aged couples who still lived with their parents because they couldn't afford to move into their own apartments to black market millionaires who smuggled goods into Serbia despite the UN-imposed sanctions. All these individual snapshots formed part of the larger picture of the national economy.
 
With a general theme in place, the coordinator can focus on planning a strategy and assembling background material, such as collecting arti-cles from other newspapers. Picking a general theme also gives the host media institutions in the target city or country enough informa-tion to decide if they want to participate and if so, which reporters would be best suited to cover the topic.
Once the project gets underway and a general topic selected, the re-porters themselves can select specific topics that are relevant and timely. Allowing the local journalists to write about what interests and inspires them gives them a vested interest in the project from the be-ginning. They should feel that the project is their own creation, not that it is being imposed from outside.
 
Money Matters
The sponsoring institution draws up the budget. This will vary from country to country and city to city, but it has certain fixed components. The most expensive item will be the salaries of the project managers and the participating reporters.
 
Here are some possible costs to consider when preparing a budget:
  • Salary of Project Manager of Sponsoring Organization
  • Salary of Team Coordinator
  • Local Partner Staff Support Salaries
  • Participant Honoraria
  • Travel (for project organizers)
  • Reporting Expenses (which may include meals, gas and travel)
  • Translators
  • Office Space
  • Community Roundtables
  • Telecommunications
  • Printing of promotional materials and packages of final stories
  • Office Supplies (including film, film development, photocopy-ing, postage, etc.)
Laying the Groundwork
A representative of the sponsoring organization should conduct a re-connaissance visit to the host city/country several months ahead of time, assuming the sponsor is not already a presence there. The repre-sentative will meet with the local partner. Working together, the two organizations can lay the project groundwork.
The local partner can take care of day-to-day issues in the host country while the sponsoring organization hires and briefs the project coordi-nator (if that person not already in the host country).
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the sponsoring organization to en-sure that the project move forward as planned. This includes two ma-jor tasks. The first is identifying journalistic institutions interested in par-ticipating. These might include community newspapers, the ethnic press, metropolitan daily newspapers, and alternative papers. The goal is to bring together journalists from different racial and ethnic com-munities who usually do not interact on a regular basis.
 
The second major task is meeting with key editors to explain the multi-ethnic team reporting project and to obtain top-level support from their newspapers. It is critical that the sponsoring organization and the local partner ob-tain the approval of top editors before the project gets off the ground. Without this key element in place, the series may get written but it will not get published. Now is the time to establish a clear line of commu-nication at the very top of the chain of command so that no one can claim that there has been a misunderstanding or that they were not in-formed of the project when it comes time for publication.
 
Likewise, knowledge that the top brass are behind this project and will scrutinize it closely will ensure that the reporters do their best to turn in a professional, well-researched series of articles. A well-connected local partner can help make introductions and recommend the project.
 
To fulfill this task, organizers should gain the support and commit-ment of media institutions to:
 
1. Loan a reporter full-time for the duration of the project: This may be a stumbling block for small operations with a skeleton staff. However, one way to sell the project is to explain that while the editors are losing a valuable reporter for one month, they can publish a prestigious series of articles as part of a groundbreaking journalism project. If this does not convince editors, the sponsoring organization and the local partner may want to explore a part-time agreement, with the reporters loaned to the project several days a week over a period of several months. This may prove more realistic if the project targets smaller publications outside big cities or independent, as opposed to state-owned, media, which tend to have fewer reporters and resources.
 
2. Possibly provide meeting space, staff photographers to take professional photos, transportation for day trips via company cars, and secretarial, graph-ics, or translator support. If the project is in the former Communist world, bear in mind that many large state publishing houses are greatly over-staffed by Western standards. In Macedonia, editors ex-plained that, with advance notice, they had many employees who could provide such services.
 
3. Publish the finished series. It is crucial that each media outlet agree to publish the series. Without an agreement negotiated beforehand, the project is at grave risk of failing and becoming yet one more classroom exercise that is not moored in the real world. Failure to publish the se-ries means the loss of credibility and immediacy, both for the reporters involved and for the sources who were promised that their voices would be heard in the pages of their national media.
 
4. Set up an office for use as a project headquarters. Some options include renting an office, using space provided by a local non-governmental organization, or turning to a participating journalism institutions with extra space. The office should be centrally located and have access to phone lines, translators, transportation, and message takers. In coun-tries or cities where ethnic tensions run high, select an office with a neutral affiliation so that all participating reporters feel comfortable meeting, speaking candidly, and working in close quarters for one month.
 
5. Hire a translator for the duration of the project if needed. It is crucial that the coordinator and the reporters be able to communicate clearly and effectively. Likewise, the coordinator needs to understand what goes on during interviews he/she attends with reporters as well as during meetings with editors and at press conferences after the conclusion of the project. This may mean hiring an interpreter to "shadow" the co-ordinator for the project's duration.
 
Even if a translator isn't needed each day, the coordinator may require one if reporters turn in stories written in a language other than Eng-lish. Also, these stories may have to be translated two and three times if they go through first and second drafts. For this reason, the coordi-nator should ensure that he/she has access to a high quality interpreter who can quickly produce clean translations of the reporters' work.
 
Working through a translator will take more time than might be imagined, which means less time to discuss stories. However, for the good of the project, it is imperative that the reporters and the coordi-nator understand each other clearly. That may mean hiring an excel-lent translator and scaling back ambitious schedules slightly to ensure that everyone understands and feels comfortable with the project on a daily basis.
 
Picking Reporters
Project organizers should convey to the participating journalistic in-stitutions that reporters must be willing and able to put aside cultural, religious, and political differences to work together for a greater good-that is, the completion of the series. For example, reporters should be willing to visit communities dominated by other ethnic groups and conduct interviews of individuals in those places and give equal space to their comments in the stories. Reporters should be en-thusiastic and willing to work hard. They should be open to learning and trying out new journalism techniques. They should include mem-bers of both sexes wherever possible.
 
The reporters should also include a broad cross-section of ethnicities. The Macedonia project had four reporters, an ideal number because they could pair up for interviews. Also, four reporters provided enough input for lively conversations, but it was not so many as to be unruly when it came to organizing trips and meetings. The exact num-ber of reporters should reflect the realities of that country, its journal-istic institutions, and the availability of its reporters.
 
Likewise, the background of the reporters should depend on the specific project undertaken. They might be seasoned pros or rookies, fea-ture writers or environmental specialists. The Macedonia project in-cluded a mixture of all these backgrounds and the individuals worked well together.
 
In addition, a highly desirable although not essential, element, is that they all speak English or that the coordinator speak the national language of the host country.
 
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