french chic(k)

What's Your Risk Tolerance? What it Takes to Become a Foreign Correspondent in Asia

2011-08-13T23:13:00.002-07:00

I really enjoyed the session, "Working Abroad in Asia or Middle East," because panelists openly shared personal, lengthy stories about cultural experiences in another country.

Panelists emphasized, first of all, that being a good correspondent means knowing the logistics of working in a rural combat zone: how to dig a latrine, building a fire with no matches, making sure you don't step in the wrong puddles to avoid cholera.

Beyond dealing with the physical risks of working in a different country, reporters must also balance their reporting with political implications. It can be a moral, ethical and professional dilemma, panelists said. Sometimes, there are road blocks, literally, with child soldiers holding Ak-47s. Other times, being an American during tense political situations can help you across borders or land you in jail.

Then, once you get around to writing the story, often it takes extra effort to stay relevant to American readers. For example, most Americans can relate to a story about China's emerging middle class. What could be fascinating to a correspondent could also drive away American audiences. Occasionally, however, the news value will trump that fear.

News organizations are looking for people who are culturally aware, bilingual (without an accent) and ready to sacrifice much of a personal life to remain committed to the job.

Even better, said Tomoko Hosaka, a reporter with the Associated Press, go to the country and establish yourself there rather than wait for a news organization to send you, since it's less expensive for them if you're already settled.

And surprisingly, foreign correspondence, though cut from many newspaper budgets, is a growing area of journalism.

"If you have those skills, it's a booming market," Hosaka said.

Watchdog Journalism 101

2011-08-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I also attended a workshop on watchdog journalism. I initially thought the session would discuss the ethics of watchdog and investigative journalism in a digital age. Instead, a reporter, editor and executive from The Detroit Free Press presented a how-101 class.

Jeff Taylor, a senior managing editor, said that even in an age where celebrity gossip generates thousands of hits on a news site, well-written investigative stories, too, draw high readership and high reader interaction.

Investigative journalism doesn't only mean watching City Hall. It could also include partnerships between a seasoned investigative reporter and one with an expertise in the arts and nonprofits.

Journalists often say they don't have the time to do watchdog. Taylor said despite writing daily news, journalists must also be creative and carve out the time to stay relevant to their community. You can chip away at a story, one find at a time, he said.

For Jennifer Dixon, investigative reporter, one story led to another. She started with a basic minimal story on how much pensions were costing the city, which led to articles on middle men hired to pitch deals that fell apart, the deal on the pension lawyer and a follow-up story one year later on how pensions ultimately cost the city $480 million. Her relentless pursuit of the issue led to another infamous one about Mayor Kilpatrick taking bribes.

In honor of keeping watchdog journalism alive, the Detroit Free Press offers a yearly $5,000 award for original watchdog and digital innovation stories, open to all.

Mobile News: Getting News Now and On-the-Go

2011-08-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

Today I attended two workshops on digital journalism: the first, about tools for mobile news, the second, on watchdog journalism, which will come in a later post.

In "The Future of Journalism: Going Mobile," the presenters emphasized tablets similar to the iPad. "The only game in town is the iPad," said Paul Niwa. He sought to dispel the enigma of programming and codes, saying any and every journalist now has the tool to create their own mobile applications.

"You don't have to be a geek to embrace the ability to make some of these new things," said Gil Asakawa.

For example, some tools are useful: Adobe InDesign offers a free plugin for its publishing suite. Newsstand, an iPad app, centralizes news and magazines. Sophie: provides an open source publishing platform in html5, without the complexity of Flash script. Niwa also mentioned Android app inventors and Push Pop Press, an app publisher recently bought by Facebook that makes books interactive. Layar is another tool of "augmented reality," allowing consumers to pull up information on their phone just by pointing their mobile device at an object.

The advantage of creating applications is its compact nature. An entire multimedia package can be created and read on the go, on your phone or on a small screen. And now, more than ever, people want to see that information, in a contained, easy-to-digest story, from wherever they are.

"People want to see their media immediate," Niwa said.

Just Landed in Detroit

2011-08-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

West Coast gal, meet the Midwest.

Just arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Dwayne County Airport. It's 6 a.m. I'm dreary eyed, sleepy as hell. But, pumped full of excitement and coffee.

I've never had the desire to visit Detroit -- a faint call of Chicago, maybe -- but never Motown, the Motor City, birth place of music legends like Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, and, what, techno artist Derrick May?

I'm here at the AAJA National Convention on a Henry Ford fellowship to study new journalism tools. I'll be regularly blogging posts about people, observations of the city and reporting workshops.

We all know Detroit is the sad, once-popular big boy on campus. It's a city burdened with the stigma of the auto industry crash compounded with white flight and lax public infrastructure.

I'm not sure what to expect. I have no preconceptions of the city, as my upbringing has been very coast-centric. From what my friends tell me, hipsters are edging into the arts districts of Detroit. I'm here with an open mind, ready to network with fellow journalists and -- this would be my wish come true -- hopefully hear some good live music.

Food Cart Frenzy: Finding Portland's OG Food Cart

2011-03-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

Food Cart Frenzy Day 1: The quest to find Portland's "original gangster" food cart

The chicken and dumpling treat from Awesome Cone

Checklist

Awesome Cone: chicken and dumpling cone
Herb's Mac and Cheese: mac and cheese with spinach, mac and cheese with bacon
Koi Fusion PDX: bulgogi taco, bulgogi burrito
Samba Shack: Brazilian quindim

We began our gluttonous journey with my wild, unfact-checked guess of the ground zero of food carts: Korean BBQ beef fusion tacos.

After all, the food truck that popularized mobile street food fare via Twitter was Kogi BBQ in Los Angeles. The success of Kogi inspired the birth of Koi Fusion in Portland, so we headed to the food cart pod off Southeast Division Street and Southeast 32nd Avenue.

Did the guy behind the sliding window know what might be the original food cart?

Nope. No clue.

I can see why. It's hard to say which one came first. There's more than 200 of them, and new ones pop up all the time on the Portland Food Cart Directory and Food Carts Portland websites.

We moved on to Herb's Mac and Cheese and met Herb, who said he sampled every place in Portland that served the dish before he opened his space ship-chrome shop. Some, he said, were so awful they were "an offense to nature."

I thought it would take a deliberate dimwit to botch mac and cheese. But Herb took his duty seriously, offering us samples drizzled with melted cheddar, asiago and parmesan cheese. No complaints there.

Nearby, I dipped into a Brazilian quindim, an egg custard dessert laid on top of a layer of coconut crumbs. Samba Shack is a newbie. The founders passed their inspection March 3 and officially opened March 5.

Then we made our next delicious mistake. The orange-and-turquoise Awesome Cone cart leered at us, daring our comatose stomachs. Their specialty is serving scoops of hearty meat stews into a thin, crisp waffle cone.

I couldn't resist its wacky humor. The special of the day: "Fat guy wearing shorts in a snowstorm."

"You need a picture to go with that," E said.

"Yeah, think of how many more 'fat guy' specials you'd sell," I said.

I would have given the fat guy a chance if I wasn't already stuffed with pasta.

E spoke up to the guy with a bandanna serving us: "Sooo... Do you have any idea of which food cart is the original?"

The guy with the bandanna tipped his head to the side.

"I've been here 10 years, and there were already 20 or so food carts... There's this little old Chinese lady off 9th and Washington who sells crepes. Called Snow White House Crepes. It's super cheap. Back then I was pretty f-ing broke... She'll talk your ear off. I don't think she's the first, but she could probably tell you who is."

Bam. Our first lead.

"Wait, you said 9th and Washington?" E said.

"Oh wait, no! It's 10th and Alder," the guy with the bandanna said.

Next stop: Snow White House.

About Us
We are the two pen-and-notebook-wielding musketeers: D, the daredevil, who likes to challenge the limits of her taste buds and stomach, trying new and unusual eats, and E, the swashbuckler, who likes to make a grand show of his meals, attacking the heartiest and largest of menu offerings. Together, we've taken on the epicurean call of the gut, tackling each and every Portland food cart. We pledge to fill our bellies with only the best of street fare.

-- Dominique Fong; @dominiquefong

Finding Portlandia

2011-02-06T14:29:00.000-08:00

In Portland, the drizzle is like a person who smacks their lips while they drool, unexpected wetness that I’m resigned to endure.

But Saturday afternoon seemed promising of at least one dry hour.

After buying chicken curry, bay leaves and extra hot pepper at India Connect in Beaverton, I drove to one of Southeast Portland's cores, a strip of shops around Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard.

First stop: House of Vintage. A dinky shop that opens into a Neverland of more warehouse rooms, each bigger and messier than the last, piled with mid-century furniture, candle-snuffers, old records, glittery sweaters and old shoes.

The loot: Samsonite luggage ($15), belt with Guatemalan pattern ($7)

The trend: Detailed hardware, brass-colored clasps, buckles, engraved metal

The loot

I felt like a fool when I had to ask the cashier how to unlock the suitcase, which requires pushing the buttons sideways, lifting the clasps and unhooking them. The complexity of it is what sold me.

"Is this belt really from Guatemala?" I asked. "Of course," the cashier said. "You've never seen a Guatemalan pattern before? This is what it looks like."

Second stop: Global Exchange Fair Trade. A store selling handmade beanies, lanterns and jewelry made by people protected by fair trade policies.

The loot: A green Bambootique scarf ($22.50), made by artists in Cambodia.

The trend: Tiny checkers.

As I reached my wallet to pay for the scarf, I pulled my own Portlandia act a la Carrie Brownstein, star of IFC show "Portlandia."

I cocked my head to the side: "Did people really make this in Cambodia? Like the cotton or whatever it's made of wasn't just shipped to the U.S. and then made by people here? It was actually made in Cambodia, right?"

"Oh yes," said the cashier. "You can go to the website on this card here," she pointed, "and see which artist made the scarf."

The cashier with long wavy gray hair and thin-rimmed glasses looked ready to answer more questions.

"And... What about that lantern over there? On that top shelf?"

She arched her back and toes to pull the lantern off the shelf, looked at its belly to sell me on the price.

"It's made in India. Sixty-eight bucks."

Crossing Jefferson and McClintock

2010-04-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

At peak rush hours, hordes of bicyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians charge through the Jefferson Boulevard and McClintock Avenue intersection. While the streetlight timer counts down the seconds, a young woman strolls and chatters on her cell phone, people on cruiser bikes zoom in every direction, and students late for class dodge traffic. Light after light, people repeatedly break into their chaotic paths, and, except for the rare collision, no one has ever been injured, according to DPS Capt. David Carlisle.

The willy-nilly patterns of the junction demonstrate a shared defiance of authority. Official California law requires bicyclists to walk their bike in the crosswalk. But they hardly ever do. Most keep pedaling and ignore common courtesies of yielding to a mother and her child or slowing down before a large group.

Ashley Dotterweich, a junior majoring in English, meanders through the intersection at least four times a day to and from the USC campus. “It’s mostly making big arcs around everybody. People on bikes forget how to steer. They do this thing—” Dotterweich gestures like she is swiveling handlebars from side to side, “—like they don’t know where they’re going. It’s like, just choose a direction, already.”

Pedestrians concede the right-of-way to bigger, faster clusters of bike riders. Gliding off the curb like a flock of birds taking flight, the bike riders’ feet seldom touch the ground. Elevated on their seats, few yell out warnings to people in the way. In the absence of language, subtle gestures – a nod of the head, a slight shift to the right to allow someone to pass on your left, a sudden decrease in speed – govern the arena.

American intersections are masculine: one street joins another at a perpendicular angle. Unlike roundabouts in France, which guide pedestrians and cars in a circle, square intersections foster aggressive movements. Slower people shrink their strides, never straying outside the white parallel lines, while faster people cut careless swaths. For those who travel at medium speeds, navigating between slow and fast crossers requires flexible decision-making.

“You’re going, you’re flowing, letting someone by,” said Amanda Ashley, a senior majoring in communication who rides a neon green cruiser bike. “Everyone has formed their own mini-lane.”

The unpredictability of the intersection, the flirting with the “possibility of improvisation” as Richard Schechner wrote, is a charged field of free expression. People rumor that at the end of every month, police officers, looking out of place with their strapped helmets and tight-fitted navy uniforms, monitor the intersection to ticket and fine bicyclists who do not walk their bikes. Seeing someone walking their bike could signify the presence of a cop – common street knowledge. After the police arrive, everyone walks their bike. When they haven’t been seen for weeks, bicyclists resort to familiar law-breaking habits.

Skid Row Easter Celebration

2010-04-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

Six rows of metal folding chairs, each inscribed with names in faded paint, were lined in perfectly straight queues in the center of Gladys Park, Skid Row at a Saturday morning Easter celebration. While the jazz band jammed to bluesy beats, hardly anyone sat in the chairs, except for one or two passersby or the occasional charity volunteer.

The real audience stretched out on the cement ground. Around the outskirts of the park, a woman with a bright red bruise on the left side of her face reclined on the legs of her partner. Other homeless people rested in disorganized groups, most curled in sleeping positions, the lullabies of the jazz band echoing over their heads.

Gary Brown, the solo alto saxophone player, belted melodies unfamiliar to my classically trained ears. His accompanists, two percussionists and a keyboardist, provided steady patterns of beats while he improvised unusual rhythms to no particular sheet music, in no particular major or minor key. The free flow of his performance, unconfined by written music notes and scripts, was jarring.

I was used to audiences filing into striking concert halls, sitting in evenly spaced cushioned seats and focusing their undivided attention to the show. Viewers were not allowed to talk, and profuse coughs drew glances of annoyance. The enforced silence mystified the musicians onstage, a scene removed from daily life. The conductor and orchestra were a spectacle of talent that I paid high ticket prices to watch.

I identified with the musicians for their classical training and strict discipline. They too, endured hours of music theory, scales, practice and rehearsals. Because I believed in the lifelong devotion to perfecting a traditional craft, I valued European classical music above all other music, and I carried an air of elitism.

Skid Row was a different kind of spectacle. The fluid spontaneity of jazz music reflected the disorder of homelessness. Jazz is not bound by the lines on centuries-old sheet music created by a famous European composer. The genre encourages the freedom to play according to your sense of timing, tempo and melody. If the notes keep coming, then keep playing. “You never run out [of keys] or anything,” said Brown, who was homeless for nearly 10 years but now lives several blocks away from Skid Row. He practices with another band every Saturday afternoon and sometimes performs at a pizza parlour down the street.

On a day meant to celebrate a figurehead symbol of suffering and resurrection, there is certainly suffering at Skid Row, but there is also life. Basketballplayers grunt groans on the court, two friends wearing boxing gloves jab at a bag, and the police blast reprimands over the megaphone about jaywalking. Amid the cacophony, Brown blows smooth sounds from his saxophone with the persuasion of an orator. I take a seat on a metal folding chair painted with the words “Skid Row Gladys Park” and listen.

Staying Optimistic as a Journalism Student

2010-03-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

This post was originally published at Free Press, an organization promoting new public policies for journalism.

When I walked into my arts reporting class, statistics from the latest "State of the Media" report were written on the whiteboard like an epitaph on a tombstone.

“That’s depressing,” one classmate said in a defeated tone. My professor, Sasha Anawalt, director of the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program and former dance critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, turned around with a grin on her face. The statistics were, in fact, uplifting news. “Wanna know why?” Anawalt asked our confused class.

We had heard the gloomy facts so often, we were jaded. A report about newspaper advertising revenues falling 25 percent from 2008 to 2009 was no longer astonishing. But as my professor pointed out, there are reasons to be optimistic. Chaos creates new order, and we’re seeing opportunities for growth even in a crumbling industry.

Consider this: More than half of Internet users are also involved in social media, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. And now, the dominant form of communication is the cell phone. These evolving cultural phenomenon are paving the way for an emerging media era where new and innovative forms of journalism are possible, and as a student and growing journalist, I’m excited.

Larry Jinks, a McClatchy Company board member, said that the answer to creating order will be young reporters who understand technology and have a passion for the craft of journalism. I know it will be tough during the transition, but I think people who are truly passionate about reporting the truth will survive and help pioneer new business models. They will be able to adapt to new styles of journalism – professional and amateur, commercial and nonprofit, public and university-supported. Some professional news organizations are partnering with universities for content. For example, USC Annenberg graduate students partnered with California Watch to produce an interactive series on hunger in California, which will air on KPCC 89.3 FM radio.

I’m also planning to survive by diversifying my knowledge. In a globalizing world, it’s important to understand issues from many angles, or what author Thomas Friedman calls having a “six-dimensional” perspective. This multifaceted lens includes understanding the intersections of politics, culture, technology, finance, national security and ecology. In order to understand the news industry right now, finance is especially relevant. I have a minor in entrepreneurship, and I completed courses in feasibility analysis and small business management, both of which challenged me to consider myself as a personal brand. Journalists need to be entrepreneurial. They must be resourceful to establish a reputation for credible, high-quality reporting, which will bring value to their work and differentiate it from the blather on the Web. I encourage my peers to take classes in business and technology. This knowledge will come in handy when the baby boomer generation -- including rigid senior news executives – passes the reigns of the world to younger leadership.

I’m already excited by early signs of growth. Alternative news media models are popping up, such as Spot.us, which supports community-funded reporting; Patch.com, which focuses on hyper-local reporting; and FLYP Media, which experiments with different interactive digital layouts. Though I’m graduating in May, I’m full of hope for my future and the next generation of student journalists.