Writing and Reporting | Lascher at Large

Following a war correspondent's footsteps to the oil spill

By Bill Lascher

Will following the footsteps of Melville Jacoby, a World War II correspondent and my grandmother’s cousin, help me cover the gulf oil spill? [...]

All for one and one for all: why writer communities

By Bill Lascher

Michelle Rafter, Blogathon Organizer and Owner of WordCount

One of the more interesting features of the 2010 Blogathon is today’s guest post exchange day. Blogathon participants have wandered about the Internet to post on each other’s blogs. Visiting Lascher at Large today is Michelle Rafter, a freelance business and technology reporter who blogs about freelancing and new media at WordCount: Freelancing in the Digital Age and organized the Blogathon. In today’s appearance at Lascher at Large Rafter discusses what she’s learned about community and writers through putting together the Blogathon. I, meanwhile, can be found on her site discussing the Oregon News Incubator.

Anyhow, here’s what Michelle wrote:

Writing is a solitary endeavor. Even if your favorite place to write is a crowded coffee shop, in the end it’s just you and your laptop.

Being part of a writing community doesn’t take away the pain of getting the words on the page. But exchanging tips, opinions and war stories with other writers provides a level of support you can’t get from the random guy sipping a caramel macchiato next to you at Starbucks.

I’ve blogged a lot about the importance of belonging to writing tribes, whether in a newsroom if you’re lucky enough to still be a staff reporter, in the city where you live if there’s an SPJ chapter or other organized journalism group, or online through a virtual writers’ group such as the Online News Association, Freelance Success, or UPOD.

This sense of writers as community hit home again in a big way during the early days of this year’s WordCount Blogathon.

Every May, I host a blogathon where freelancers, reporters, copywriters and other writers with blogs commit to posting every day of the month. This year, more than 110 writers registered before the official deadline and another dozen or so joined after the fact.

Continue reading “Guest Post – All for one and one for all: why writer communities”

The Free(lance)dom to Investigate

By Bill Lascher

Like Jen Willis, today I attended an investigative business journalism seminar organized by the Reynolds Center. Unlike Jen, though, I don’t feel as pessimistic about the potential for freelance journalists to do investigative work. Nor do I feel staff writers should lament, at least not for the long term. What I took away more [...]

In Transit

By Bill Lascher

Last Spring, I wrote a commentary about my personal experiences with transit in Los Angeles. An assignment for a class, it was something of a companion to the reporting I’d done for my master’s project, the work that became “R We There Yet.” I was proud of the final piece that emerged, as I was of my master’s project. It reflected my experiences riding L.A.’s buses and trains (which actually have quite a clever numbering system) to school and through the city – the novelty of which might reflect the privilege I had to be able to choose to ride.

The piece was originally slated to appear in Neon Tommy last summer, but I asked that it be pulled before publication. An editor at a national magazine was considering publishing a version of my master’s project and I didn’t want to disrupt that possibility [I should have pitched the main piece to the increasingly impressive Tommyanyhow]. That editor dithered for months and both pieces lost their freshness. Once I finally self-published my master’s project, I’ve been hesitant to accompany it with this commentary. In retrospect, it seems a bit fawning toward Metro. Though I was reflecting on my personal experience with the system, it’s easy to see how this reflection could color one’s perception of my reporting on transportation.

I remain a little uncertain about my decision to post it here. I’d still like to write about transit and transportation, the institutions that manage it, and the people who utilize and who are dependent upon it. At the same time, though, I’ve for so long wanted to share this experience, my experience as an individual moving through Los Angeles, that I’m giving into temptation and sharing this here, whatever the consequences of that decision might be.

What do you think about my decision to publish this piece? Should I have kept it as a classroom assignment, even though it was an assignment meant for publication? Should I be proud of it? Does it belong here?

Here’s the piece:

Continue reading “In Transit”

Telling the stories we aren't searching for

By Bill Lascher

I agree that SEO isn’t about conforming to a robotic standard, but it’s also not about speaking to people, it’s about speaking to some sense of the mean average of what people are looking for. The thing is, if we want to succeed — both in reaching people and in drawing them back to our work — we can’t just be producing what the public is looking for, what the public wants to read. We must, we absolutely must tell the stories that the public doesn’t know it is looking for, that the public isn’t looking for, that the public hasn’t even conceptualized the terms for. If we don’t, in very short order we will tell fewer and fewer stories that matter, that impact society and we will lose not only all impact, but all value we are capable of offering the public. [...]

All Things Not Considered in NPR's Oil Drilling Coverage

By Bill Lascher

Yesterday afternoon President Obama shocked the country when he announced plans to open parts of the Atlantic and Alaskan coasts to oil drilling. Though the Pacific Coast was left untouched, the move could open up huge expanses of ocean elsewhere.

Many environmentalists treated the news as a betrayal and yet another delay in the move away from a fossil fuel economy. Business leaders were generally heartened by the news. Some Republicans expressed cautious optimism about the President’s willingness to compromise, though others saw the move as thinly-veiled politics.

News organizations, meanwhile, treated the news as the surprise it was, with banner headlines and lead stories on broadcasts. You can read about the decision many places on the Web. I’d like to discuss, instead, how the news has been covered, particularly by National Public Radio. I believe NPR missed a chance to thoroughly cover the story. Listeners who first learned about the decision during their commutes home yesterday afternoon and on their way to work today, thus, missed a chance to fully understand a decision whose implications may reverberate for decades.

Continue reading “All Things Not Considered in NPR’s Oil Drilling Coverage”

Writing (and driving) gone wild

By Bill Lascher

Today I leave Los Angeles for Portland, Oregon. As I do, I look forward to taking an as-yet determined path to my new home hundreds of miles north. I don’t know how exactly I’ll get to Portland, though I’ve set a few ground rules. I won’t set a firm date to get there. Though the trip could easily take as little as a day and a half, I don’t want to constrain myself to any schedule, lest I miss the world I pass through (you can help me get there, too). I may backtrack. I may make detours. I may decide to linger in one spot staring at the sky for hours. I may rush. I may wander. Which brings me to rule #2, perhaps the most exciting and most questionable part of my plans. To best experience the journey I plan to completely avoid freeways and even divided highways. Getting to Oregon from Southern California in January makes this a rather daunting task, particularly because I also plan to steer clear of the coast. As stunning as the coast is, I’ve seen much of it and hunger for a new path, at least this time around. [...]

Making the most of making the media

By Bill Lascher

Finding Community | Stopping to Breathe | False divisions | Continuing the discussion | Other Voices

I arrived in Los Angeles late Monday afternoon. As I landed, I watched the sunset turn the Santa Monica Mountains that golden hue they turn in late fall, caught glimpses of the skyscrapers along Wilshire Blvd., marveled at the sheer everywhereness of it all and traced a line from the Hollywood sign down to the corner of Hollywood and Vine, where, nearly a century ago, my great-great-grandfather’s decision to rent a barn on his sprawling ranch to two young filmmakers for $250 a month might have made much of the city’s role as a media mecca possible. The tableau pulled at my heart, one more landing in a city I’ve called home for only a year, but which has been in my blood for five generations.

For years, though, as I hinted in a post last Spring, I’ve danced with another city. Over the past week, the motions became more certain, thanks in part to the energy I tapped into at the We Make the Media Conference at the University of Oregon’s Turnbull Portland Center.

Thoughts about the future raced through my mind as my plane descended. Some of these thoughts are familiar to the world at large. Some are personal. When it comes to Saturday’s conference, I’ve had to take some time to digest, get back home, and prepare my next steps. They include returning to Portland very soon — and more permanently — in part to join the community of mediamakers who emerged at the conference.

Continue reading “Making the most of making the media”

The eyesore, history and the untold story

By Bill Lascher

The Ventura County Star reported Oct. 30 that Ventura County Superior Court Judge Glen Reiser halted the demoliton of the Wagon Wheel hotel. The stay came after what seemed like the end of a long fight between developer Vince Daly and the San Buenaventura Conservancy.

Many comments posted to the Star‘s Web site featured the theme of the Wagon Wheel as an eyesore, a blemish to the entrance of Oxnard, Ventura County’s largest city. The building and its surroundings, they argue, should have been torn down long ago. Some commenters argue the conservancy should repay Daly for the costs of the delay, costs he claims mount by the thousands each day the construction is delayed. For his own part, Daly argues in the Star article that blocking the demolition permit further delays construction of the affordable housing element of his development. On the other hand, neither Star reporter Scott Hadly, his sources on either side of the story, nor any of the commenters pouncing on the article address one crucial question: why is Daly building this project now? Why is it so urgent?

Drive across the 101 from the Wagon Wheel, located here and one finds the massive development known as RiverPark. On the north side of the freeway, just outside of that development, stands a billboard declaring homes starting from “the 200s.” That simple advertisement, that homes in RiverPark are selling for only 200 grand, tells the entire story. Homes aren’t selling in Ventura County. Even with reports Oct. 29 of an unofficial end ot the “worst recession since World War II,” our economy is sputtering. Should Daly, or anyone, be building new homes right now?

Let’s argue for a moment that he should, that he has a right to, or that, simply, as the owner of the property upon which the Wagon Wheel Motel stands he should be allowed to finish the project he’s started. Does that mean A)It’s right if he does so or B)It’s wise if he does? Daly seems to be gambling that by the time the project is completed we will be out of this gut-wrenching time, that consumers are going to return to the table unaffected by the misery of the past two years, give or take a quarter, that every American is going to want a condo or a townhouse across a freeway offramp from a cookie cutter mini-mall and down the block from a thousand other condos and townhouses just like their very own (though the possibility of a “transit center” at The Village raises some intriguing possibilities).

Are we so sure of that? Are we so sure that our behaviors are not going to change after this recession, that we’re not going to think strategically, that we’re not going to act differently, that we’re not going to operate differently? Even if we get ourselves into some other economic mess — which is quite likely — some lessons, even if they’re not the right ones, have surely been learned during this period.

Besides the possibility Daly is hoping for a boom by the time The Village is done, another reason one might want to see it started immediately directly relates to the current economy. Perhaps, one might argue, every day we hesitate to build is a day we cost ourselves valuable construction jobs, jobs that could earn money to feed families, jobs that could pay residents money they can use to spend on clothes and food and cars and gadgets and all the other everythings sold in the county’s stores. Aren’t we, by blocking those jobs, which provide that income, which allows that spending also preventing the economic growth that comes from that spending, preventing the jobs created by that growth, and preventing the income those jobs allow?

Perhaps.

What are we really protecting? We have a great deal of unsold housing stock. Oxnard has buildings that already exist. Ventura County has miles upon miles of substandard homes and poorly utilized space. What if we spent the same time, the same money, the same energy and investment and subsidies we would put into new projects on instead reconstructing the cities and communities and neighborhoods that already exist. What if we brought our county, and our country, back to life? We might accomplish multiple goals. We would still put our contractors and construction crews and architects and plumbers and electricians and welders back to work, but we would do so without turning our backs on our neighbors and on our past. We could engage our community. What if we integrated our history into our past, instead of throwing it out? What if, instead, we learned to reuse the materials that already exist across Ventura County and beyond, to really recycle the world in which we live, rather than throw it out like the 4.5 pounds of trash we still throw away each and every day?

Continue reading “The eyesore, history and the untold story”

Cooking Up Frustration

By Bill Lascher

In the middle of the night I had it all figured out. In a journal rescued from stack of half-finished tomes, I penned thoughts about what I am doing here, free of school, free of work and ready to cast out on my own yet again. Writing with a sudden fervor, I listed the major projects I wanted to work on, projects I’ve discussed tangentially here on this site from time to time, and repeatedly in conversation with my friends and family. I knew what it was I wanted to do. After an uneasy weekend of random, mounting bits of disappointment and frustration, I went to bed content.

Hours after waking, it all seems to have dissipated. I can’t start one project for fear it will distract from another. I send out queries. I update my résumé. I catch up on my reading. I research. I follow-up and I wait in silence.

Meanwhile, the life I want surrounds me. The radio crackles behind me as I type. Through a light fog of static Warren Olney spends 45 minutes catching listeners up on the rapidly changing situation in Iran then deftly switches the topic to American policy in Afghanistan.

Across the room one of my typewriters rests on a table. The paper is rolled up to reveal the few lines of faint text I’ve randomly typed on it. A reused sheet, I can see enough of the paper’s opposite side to know it’s an old 460 — a California campaign finance reporting document — printout I must have consulted for some story about political donations, or one I hoped to tell. It makes me hunger to pore over documents, to analyze connections, to question and prod and explore.

A pile of books sits stacked against my bed. Stories and stories and stories full. I want to tell so many similar tales. I want to bring people and places to life; to recount histories of far-off lands as well as all-too-familiar backyards. I want to look beneath the veneer of political and social idealism to the true machinations occurring in even the most progressive atmospheres. I want to translate complex knowledge to lush, page-turning narratives about the fascinating processes governing this world in which we live.

On one corner of my computer screen a little box occasionally lights up. It tells me I’ve received new updates about stories I’ve been following. Subjects that matter to me. Right now it’s announcing the release of the full text of a new federal transportation reauthorization bill in Congress. It seems boring, but what it contains will directly shape how we get around our neighborhoods, our cities, and our country. I want to dive into the text, to carve it up, to continue one thread of my master’s project. Then I realize that project still sits on a shelf. I wonder whether it will see the light of day, whether the editor pondering it will write me back, will find it suitable for publication, will believe that I have something to say, a story to tell that no one else can tell.

I’ve talked about this project for months and I’m starting to feel like a lier, like a cheat, like I’ve told all these people how I was compiling this grand tale of movement and transportation in Los Angeles. So far, most of them haven’t seen word one. It’s there, it’s on the page, and I think it’s fantastic. I think about it every time I ride the subway or the bus, or tell someone I am doing so and they look at me quizzically, as if they’re shocked to learn there are ways to move about this vast, deep city without a car.

I understand – trust me I understand and kinda don’t want to discuss – that the publishing world is rapidly changing. Even if it weren’t, it takes time and patience to get something published. But I wonder about the rules of the game. With information spreading so rapidly how am I supposed to do this, to wait patiently on a story that is constantly evolving? Even if things go well with this story, how do we publish, how do we write or report anything? How do we set boundaries? Do we just say “that’s the story” even as it continues to change? Do we just cut convenient slices of ever-lengthening timelines out?

I’ve just finished reading Roxana St. Thomas’s most recent “Notes from the Breadline.” The poetry in her words. The honesty. Most importantly, the resounding familiarity of her situation, despite our differing professions, has brought me close to the point of tears. When she wonders why she left “The Big Law Firm” I ponder why I left my Big Job, then finished school feeling less certain than before about where I wanted to be, more certain than ever about my ability to do it, and completely lost about how I could ever fit into this transitioning world of journalism.

She ultimately recognizes the fight she has left in her and I think of the times I’ve come to the same realization, of the numerous times I’ve gotten off the mat, of the blessings I’ve counted, of the gratitude I have for the ceaseless support from my family and of the friends who have lately been crawling out of the woodwork. But I also feel the ebb and flow more than ever, the impermanence, the sensation that everything about where I am is foreign. I feel as I always have: neither here nor there. Too experienced to start completely fresh, not quite accomplished enough to stand out.

Continue reading “Cooking Up Frustration”

Following a war correspondent's footsteps to the oil spill

All for one and one for all: why writer communities

The Free(lance)dom to Investigate

In Transit

Telling the stories we aren't searching for

All Things Not Considered in NPR's Oil Drilling Coverage

Writing (and driving) gone wild

Making the most of making the media

The eyesore, history and the untold story

Cooking Up Frustration

Fuel My Writing

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