South turns a thorough Conservative into a 'Democrat'

Midterm at the Missouri University, Columbia was a great experience for me as a journalist. I had introduced to me so many new but very important journalistic tools.

It was great feelings when I used a professional camera for still photography. Recording sound bytes on a digital recorder and working on video camera were also worth mentioning experiences. But editing sound bytes and video recordings was something I could never imagine. I am a kind of anti-technology guy and I don’t believe that I have done it.

Spreadsheets were always a no go area for me and making maps- absolutely out of question. But now, I love them.

I am a thorough conservative when it comes to try and apply new things as a journalist. I always used to think that I was a dumb when it came to use technology mainly because I had never got a chance to gain knowledge of it.

I know that I may not be able to use some of these new tools in my newsroom back in Pakistan but it is OK. It gives me tons of confidence that technology is not out of my reach. I can learn it.

Midterm was also a great opportunity to see all the colleagues and friends. It had strengthened our relationship with one another.

I don’t have great news to share with you people from my newsroom. I have started understanding that my story on Hilal food in USA is going nowhere as I haven’t been able to get some good quotes from the companies working on Hilal food here. Luckily, there are no Hurricanes, so routine stuff is going on.

This is also vacation season here. Every week a colleague is going to beach or hills with his/her family. One of our colleagues has resigned while one has transferred to DC, so we are quite a few people here and it is really big place. Sometimes there is voice at all the whole day.

NY

Betsy McKay informed in the last week of April that I had selected to attend Dow Jones News Fund’s one week training workshop on the business reporting in New York. It was surprising for me as I was never interested in covering business or finance and she knew it. I was pretty much sure that no training could develop my interest in business reporting but at the same time I did not want to waste opportunity to visit New York.

So, on May 23 I reached New York to attend the one week long workshop. I was, in fact, terrified of the idea of ‘wasting’ one whole week on the issues like earnings, layoffs, mergers and bankruptcies. I had never done a business story in my professional life. The first two/three hours of first day of training were terrible for me. Reading the financial statements of the companies and the press releases on their earnings were pain… Then there was a mock press conference by CEO of one big company which had lost some cents on a share during the last quarter of 2009. I did not ask a single question.

We were supposed to write a story on the basis of the original press release of the company and the mock press conference. We were given 40 minutes for the exercise.

After playing with the papers and pen for 10 minutes, I went to Michelle LaRoche, program director and training editor at Dow Jones Newswires and told her that I couldn’t do it and wanted to leave the training workshop. She convinced me to give a try to write the news story and to spend one more day before making a decision. Her friendly behavior helped releasing the pressure on me to some extent and I wrote the story.

After the lunch Chaz Repak, the principal instructor made the critique on the exercise and surprisingly he liked my attempt. It gave me confidence and I started showing interest in the afternoon session.

The next day, Dick Levine, DJNF president visited us and shared the philosophy of the fund and his experiences. He was attached with the fund more than 25 years. His disclosure of being a war reporter who covered the Vietnam before becoming a business reporter was shock for me. “How could a war reporter become a business reporter” I couldn’t stop myself to ask the question. “Only training and reading can help” he replied. He also helped me a lot to come out of my shell of anti-business reporter.

The next few days we constantly worked on writing leads and nutgraphs for range of business stories. The main focus of the training was writing shorter and faster like the wire service reporters. We also discussed range of story ideas and made plan how to do it.

At the end of the day, I realized that workshop gave me a lot of confidence as a reporter helped me a lot to become a diversified reporter and in writing shorter. Later, during my trip I visited Bloomberg head office in New York and found that I was asking some typical ‘business reporter’ questions to Peter Young who gave us a guided tour of the office. The two hour tour helped us a lot to understand the working of Bloomberg and its business model.

During my stay at New York, I also visited head offices of the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Propublica. I attended the meetings of both foreign desks and executive editors at WSJ and NYT. It was a great opportunity for me to understand what made a story to become a WSJ or NYT story.

It was great honour for me to sit among the editors of WSJ and NYT and it was mainly because of AFPF and Daniel Pearl Fellowship. Thanks a lot for providing me such a gigantic opportunity. I am pretty much sure that together we can bring the change. You have done your part, now its my turn to deliver. I promise you guys that i will try my level best to share this experience and exposure with my colleagues back home.

New York World

Monday, May 17, 2010 was a usual day. I reached office around 10 in the morning and started working on my terminal. In the afternoon, Judy announced that party was ready and in a few minutes all of us had gathered in front of Mike’s desk- a usual place for having parties at the office. Surprise, surprise! It was organized to honor me. What? I saw Judy coming with two big metal plates and handing over them to Betsy. She asked me to come forward and got the special gift.

I literally screamed after seeing the plates; they were the printing plates of my first two stories published in the WSJ. It was really a great gift and meant a lot to me. Katie also visited me at Atlanta in the same week.

I left for New York on May 23 to attend Dow Jones News Fund’s one week long training workshop on business reporting. It was a great learning experience as I had never covered the business stories. The main focus was on covering business stories for wire service and to learn writing short. The best editors and reporters at WSJ and Dow Jones newswires shared their expertise and experiences. We also visited the main news room of WSJ.

The next week, I stayed with some Pakistani friends at Coney Island, Brooklyn. The very first night, they took me to the Atlantic City. We gambled and had ‘fun’ there the whole night. I lost $150 but they (4) lost more than $9000.

Next day, a party was organized ‘in my honor’ by the Pakistani friends. The food was really good but all of them wanted me to eat more as I am ‘too slim to survive the American tough life.’ Their ‘love and generosity’ ruined my stomach. I was supposed to visit WSJ head office on Tuesday, June 1 but could not do it till Thursday.

I attended all the important meetings of WSJ editors on Thursday and also met Deborah Brewster, managing editor, Matt Murray, deputy managing editor and Dagmar Aalund, deputy editor international. Deborah offered me that I could work at the metro section at the head office for two weeks. She also introduced me to the editor of ‘The Greater New York section.’

The same day I visited Bloomberg head office along with Nasry Esmat. Katie had arranged it for us.

Next day, I went to Proppublica and The New York Times. Kirk Kraeutler, enterprise editor foreign desk at NYT made it possible that I saw maximum during two and half hours visit. I attended two very important meetings of the decisions makers at NYT. It was great week and Katie played very important role and worked a lot to make it special one for me. Thanks.

Career is a baggage?

I am feeling lonely and down today and it is not the best of the times to write a blog about the last two weeks. But deadline is approaching. There is no choice but keep on writing.

I know I have done a remarkable job on professional front during first week of May; my four bylines have been published in WSJ in one week which, according to Randy, is a record. It is peak of my career. According to one of my friend it is a miracle that a person from a small village of Pakistan who started learning English alphabets at the age of 14 has got four bylines published in WSJ in one week. Yes, it is incredible but, I am not happy; at least at the moment. I am missing my family, friends and country.

I belong to a big family. It is exhausting to live alone in a small room. There are many options available to make one busy but they don’t work all the time. I can’t spend the whole time watching TV, surfing internet or reading a books and newspaper.

I can’t live without talking to people. But here, it is the toughest job to find somebody to talk about. I have also tried to make some friends in the neighboring apartments but most of them are not interested in an ‘alien.’ The evenings and weekends are the worst time. Talking to friends on phones and family for hours and hours and wandering on the streets are the only alternatives.

During last two weeks, I also have many problems on the health front; first there was a problem with my wisdom tooth followed by sore throat, stiff neck and fever. It seems my body is not happy with my decision of coming here and has decided to give me a tough time.

May 7 is my birthday. I was away from family on the day for the first time in my life. It was tough but my friends at office especially Judy Dixon made it memorable for me. Thank you all.

I can't forget this birthday the whole life. My wife has given me the most precious gift on the day. Yes, she is pregnant. She knew it even before I came to America but did not inform me because she did not want me to miss the opportunity of availing the fellowship.

Sometimes, it feels that career is a baggage.

For me, the things have moved forward at a decent pace during the last two weeks. I have learnt a lot both at professional and personal levels.

There were the challenges on every day. I would have to find out the ways to face them and overcome them and I have done so.

My mentor is a very nice human being and a great help but I wanted to try myself this time. It was a deliberate effort and you guys will have to tell me, it has worked or not.

I was having a difficult time to call the sources for getting the information and quotes. I could not pick more than 65 percent of the telephonic conversations with people mainly because of their style which was very fast for me and the accent.

To get away from the situation, as the first and most viable resort I took refuge behind e-communication. I started requesting the people to reply my questions via emails. It worked but shaken my confidence as a journalist. A journalist can’t be successful with such fears and they make his/her scope of work very limited.

It is not the solution; I told myself the other day. Overcome it, start working on it. It is always a great help to talk to oneself during the lows. Nobody can tell you better than you how to shed the fears.

I picked up the phone with a mission and started having long conversations with the people. It started working the third or fourth day as I started picking easily around 90 percent of the chat.

I have got my first byline published in WSJ today and all reporting for the story I have done through telephonic conversations.

For me it is more important that I have overcome one of my shortcomings to a greater extent while working in a new culture than getting published. Yes, I am no more hesitant to give a call to anybody in America for my stories.

I also learnt during these two weeks that only having good ideas is not enough to talk to your editors. One needs to be totally prepared and knew most of the aspects of the issue, he/she is going to discuss with the editors.

You need to do a lot of research and talk a lot of people even before pitching your idea. It was a whole new scenario for me, how can I talk to sources if I am not sure whether I am doing a story or not. But, no you will have to. Finding maximum and talking to maximum sources before pitching the ideas is the most common practice in American newsrooms.

At present, I have been working on three ideas simultaneously, during last two days I have talked to more than 20 people for my story ideas and have read more than 100 pages to get hold of them.

I am still not sure which of them are going to be accepted. But I am not worried about it. I am only concerned about becoming a better journalist and equip myself with new techniques and tools.

Randy and John, I have realized now why you wanted us to work too hard during the orientation seminar. I can't overcome the tough situations here without that training.

I want to thank Betsy McKay for having faith in me and treating me like a reporter, all of colleagues in Atlanta bureau for giving me space to become part of the team and Marcus Stern for his cooperation and guidance.

Thanks you guys for sending me Atlanta. It is great city.

Most of you may not know that I started learning English Alphabets at the age of 14, started writing English, if it was, at the age of 20 and joined The News on Sunday as reporter at the age of 27. For a person like me who hails from a small village of Pakistan, it was a great success.

I have also been working with different American newspapers in Lahore as special correspondent and ‘fixer’ since 2006, but it was beyond my imagination to work in an American newsroom.

Yes, I have been working with WSJ Atlanta bureau since April 8. It is surprising for me as well! But it is a reality. I came to know in November last year that I had been selected as 2010 Daniel Pearl Fellow and would work with WSJ Atlanta bureau as reporter for five months. Vow!

Coming to US for the first time in my life and as 2010 Daniel Pearl Fellow was a huge professional accomplishment for me. After spending first two intensive but very useful weeks in Washington DC, I left for Atlanta on April 7 with my mentor and WSJ Atlanta bureau chief, Betsy McKay.

On April 8, I was all set to join the office. Betsy picked me from my small but superb apartment around 10 in the morning. It was great feeling (a mixture of enthusiasm and fears) going to office for the first time. On the way, she told me about everybody at the office.

I got open hearted welcome from everybody at office. They were happy to have me. After half an hour I had 8-9 new but reliable friends at the office.

They want me to learn new things and share problems with them. At noon, we went to a close by Irish pub for lunch, food was good but the best thing was my ‘lecture’ on Pakistani culture and journalism in Pakistan. Everybody was listening with care and respect.

The first thing which I have learnt here working in the newsroom that reporters are not competing with each other instead they believe in cooperation. Sharing of the ideas, information, contacts and resources with fellow reporters is a very common practice in the newsroom.

It is not easy to adopt new techniques and practices for a person from totally different culture and working environment, but it becomes lot more easier if one has caring and supportive people around. I am lucky to be among such people.

On April 9, my second day at office, I was sent on a field duty with Corey Dade, one of my colleagues. That day, I used blackberry for the first time of my life to file the story. Corey taught me the importance of time in American journalism and pushed me to file the quotes of a source to the bureau chief seconds after we talked to him on mobile phone.

Within an hour the story was on WSJ website and more surprisingly it contained my name as one of the contributors. That day I learnt that honesty was one of the prime pillars of the American journalism. If one makes an effort and contribute to the story, nobody can stop him/her getting the attributions.

I have not only been learning new things about American journalism while working here but also coming across the true face of American society. My second story was about Southern Baptists, a very strong protestant Christian group. My colleague Jennifer ‘dragged’ me to the story. While working on story, it was revelation for me that American society is very conservative and religious especially in the south and the Church is very important part of their lives.

The first two weeks in Atlanta are a mixture of highs and lows for me. I always love the high moments of my life but for the first time in my life I have started learning to live with low and dull moments and to get out of them. I hope this program will not only help me becoming a good journalist but also a good human being. The progress so far on all these fronts is excellent.