FINDING THE NEWS
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
John Maxwell Hamilton, Series Editor
FINDING THE NEWS
ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG REPORTER
PETER COPELAND
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS ——— BATON ROUGE
Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright © 2019 by Peter Copeland
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing
Designer: Barbara Neely Bourgoyne
Typeface: Sentinel
Printer and binder: Sheridan Books
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Copeland, Peter, 1957– author.
Title: Finding the news : adventures of a young reporter / Peter Copeland.
Description: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2019] | Series: From our own correspondent | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019009871 | ISBN 978-0-8071-7192-9 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-0-8071-7250-6 (pdf) | ISBN 978-0-8071-7251-3 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Copeland, Peter, 1957– | Journalists—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC PN4874.C686 A3 2019 | DDC 070.92 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009871
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
To my mother, and to Maru
CONTENTS
Foreword by John Maxwell Hamilton
Acknowledgments
1. Sirens in the Loop: On Getting It First
2. City Hall: On Getting It Right
3. The Border: On Honesty above All
4. Mexico City and Points South: On Learning by Doing
5. How We Met: On Luck
6. Shaken: On When the Story Gets Personal
7. The Capital of the Free World: On Why You Can’t Do It Alone
8. Invasion of Panama: On Fairness
9. Operation Desert Shield: On Competition
10. Operation Desert Swarm: On Sources
11. The Ground War: On Loyalty
12. A Baby, a Ballet, and a Book: On Happiness
13. Rescue in Somalia: On Attitude
14. Anywhere but Somalia: On the Value of a Story
15. Home for Good: On Learning from Mistakes
16. Epilogue: On Journalism
17. Where Are They Now?
18. Lessons: On What I Learned
Illustrations
FOREWORD
WANTED: Individuals willing to live out of a suitcase, sleep on the desert sand next to an army tank, look for scorpions in their boots when they wake up, go without a warm bath for days, worry about death threats from Latin American drug cartels, and day-in and day-out act as the faithful eyes and ears of their newspaper readers back home.
George Seldes spoke of foreign correspondents as the “nobility of American journalism.” And rightly so. Given their distance from editors at home, correspondents have the most freedom of any kind of reporters. They hobnob with foreign leaders. They dine on exotic food. They cover news that can be the most perplexing and often is the most vital. Understanding what people abroad are doing and thinking is essential to anticipating threats to our national security.
Foreign reporting is also the most difficult. Correspondents cover economics and politics, culture and sports, the environment and immigration, epidemics and religion. They combine, in effect, the news beats of dozens of reporters in a domestic newsroom, but on a greater scale. They cover at least an entire country and often a vast region. When a crisis erupts, they hop planes to places they may have never seen before. When they land, they do not enjoy the legal protections that their home country assures them. In war, they can be killed as easily as any soldier.
For all of these reasons, correspondents have written thrilling, memorable books over the ages about their experiences. Peter Copeland’s is no exception. Readers will feel the frustration that comes with trying to penetrate foreign lands, the challenges of making stories relevant and meaningful for readers, and the exhilaration and raw fear of covering news in dangerous places. Copeland is a deft storyteller.
But this book has attributes not typical of correspondents’ memoirs. This is what makes reading it unusually satisfying.
First, Copeland exemplifies a quality that is essential to the success of any correspondent, empathy. He has the ability to put himself in the place of the people he covered. While other (but not all) correspondents do this, he vividly shows the challenges and satisfaction of connecting with people and understanding the circumstances in which they live and act.
This approach is much in keeping with the traditions of the E. W. Scripps Company, formerly known as the newspaper group Scripps Howard. The newspapers never sent large numbers of reporters abroad, partly because until 1982 the company owned United Press International (UPI), which had a large overseas presence. Copeland was the only one from the newspapers permanently abroad when he was sent to Mexico City in 1984. A single correspondent in Europe was added later. But the company always covered wars, and its notable specialty has been its focus on people. In World War II, long before the military invented the term embedded reporting, Ernie Pyle was in the mud with soldiers and Marines, poignantly reporting their experiences and feelings. He was killed by enemy machine-gun fire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima. Scripps Howard’s Raymond Clapper, one of the best reporters and commentators of his age, also died in the Pacific Theater. Jim Lucas, a former Marine who covered that war and subsequent ones in Korea and Vietnam, won a Pulitzer Prize for his boots-on-the-ground reporting.
Second, Copeland’s autobiography is an object lesson in fidelity to professional norms. As he points out frequently in these pages, he was concerned with facts, not judging, in assignments that ranged from night police reporting in Chicago to overseas postings and Washington, DC. His job was to record the news, not shape it. While this was once taken for granted, it is less so today. Changes in news media in recent years have opened the door wider to opinion and commentary. Copeland reminds us of the value of accurately and fairly telling what happened.
Finally, and related to the first two points, Copeland’s memoir is unsurpassed in showing how reporting is done at home and abroad. This nuts-and-bolts aspect of the book is in no way a dry how-to manual. In a lively manner, Copeland explains what goes into good reporting. Of course, the filing of news stories from overseas has changed since Copeland’s time—which, by the way, makes his book a valuable reference for historians and others who want to know how things were done at that time. But technology—the essential determinant of the speed with which news can be transmitted—is only one part of foreign correspondence. Doing the heavy-lift of reporting to acquire a meaningful story is quite another. Every would-be journalist can profitably read this book for that reason alone.
No students of journalism can fail to learn from and be inspired by this book, even if they want to remain domestic reporters. Peter Copeland celebrates journalism’s high calling, essential in a democracy, of serving readers—even when it means having to watch out for scorpions in your boots.
John Maxwell Hamilton
Washington, DC
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing can feel like a solitary pursuit, but publishing a book requires a lot of help. I’m grateful to friends and family, especially my wife, Maru, who kept up my spirits and checked my facts.
Veteran newsman and friend George Hager, who has been backing me up since we covered Central America thirty-five years ago, was a generous and enthusiastic advisor.
&
nbsp; Because of constructive feedback from early readers, especially Stephen Baker, I expanded the book from stories about covering the news to include the lessons I learned about journalism. I was trained by many great reporters and editors, and it is in honor of them that I humbly pass along their wisdom to future generations of young journalists.
Other early readers who made important suggestions and fixes include Zita Arocha, Matt Casey, Julie Castiglia, Luis Ferré Sadurní, Bart Gellman, Harry Moskos, Amie Parnes, Ruben Ramirez, Theo Stamos, and my first city editor, Paul Zimbrakos.
Kathleen Dragan edited the first draft with the perfect mix of encouragement and course correction.
At LSU Press, I enjoyed working with editor in chief Rand Dotson, senior editor Neal Novak, and copy editor Gary Von Euer. Journalist and scholar Jack Hamilton guided me through the process and improved the book.
I received needed guidance about book publishing, and how to make my story relevant to today’s journalists and readers, from Battinto Batts, Monica Bhide, Mary Kay Blake, Rich Boehne, Bruce Brown, Chris Callahan, Liz Carter, Roy Peter Clark, Isabella Copeland, Lucas Copeland, Trevor Corning, Ken Doctor, Peter Fritzell, Dave Giles, Josh Griffith, Ray Hanania, Sandy Johnson, Paul Mahon, Bruce Sanford, Bob Stewart, Mark Tomasik, Marvin West, and the outstanding students of the Foreign Correspondence course at Ohio University.
Photos were generously shared by Frank Aukofer, Michael Haederle, John Hopper, David Lawhorn, Ruben Ramirez, and Kirk Spitzer.
Lauren Francis-Sharma and colleagues at the DC Writers Room provided a productive and friendly place to work.
Thank you to Washington City Paper, which printed some of my Gulf War stories, edited by the inimitable Jack Shafer.
Finally, and most warmly, thank you to the Scripps and Howard families and everyone at the E. W. Scripps Company for always supporting me, for sending me around the world to cover the news, and for permission to reprint my experiences.
FINDING THE NEWS
1
SIRENS IN THE LOOP
——— ON GETTING IT FIRST ———
I walked through a badly burned apartment on Chicago’s Far North Side, trailing a beautiful woman, on my fourth day of training. The woman was Theo Stamos, a young but experienced reporter, who had been assigned to teach me the basics. I stood alongside and listened while she called in a story on a fire that had gutted the apartment and killed an older woman and her young granddaughter. The apartment had been destroyed, but the rest of the building seemed fine, except for the bitter smell of smoke.
After Theo finished filing her story, we left the building and stood out front on the sidewalk. Theo said my training was complete, so I should head back to the office downtown. I was now, officially at least, a reporter.
The City News Bureau of Chicago did not allow reporters to spend money on frivolities such as taxis, and the job didn’t pay enough for me to own a car, so I went looking for a bus down North Sheridan Road to the Loop. The day was cold and clear, February 7, 1980, and I was on my own for the first time as a reporter. I was twenty-two years old, dressed in a new three-piece suit under a buttery camelhair overcoat, and I had a fresh haircut. I liked the job so far, but there was a lot to absorb. Theo had taken me to press conferences, police stations, and crime scenes. I watched her navigate the city, come up with stories, and work with people back at the office. She was poised, smart, and determined.
I did not know what I was doing.
The sky was gray, and the tall buildings stood out in the crisp air; everything was sharply delineated, the colors bright. To the west I noticed a white cloud of smoke rising silently from behind the distant buildings. The cloud was getting bigger and turning black at the bottom. Fire. Big fire. As instructed by Theo, I had memorized the phone number of the office and carried a pocketful of change. I found a pay phone, dropped in some coins, and dialed. The operator answered quickly: “City News.”
“This is Copeland,” I said. “I’m on the North Side and I see smoke. Is there a fire in Uptown?” The plastic receiver felt cold against my ear. In the background, I heard scratchy voices over police and fire radios. Manual typewriters clacked and dinged.
“Hang on.”
The smoke was thickening. It looked like it was just a few blocks away, but I couldn’t be sure. Nobody around me seemed to notice. People were walking by on the sidewalk, hunched from the cold, eyes on the ground. Cars went up and down the street. I didn’t hear any sirens.
“There’s a fire coming in on Winthrop. Head over there now.”
I ran toward the smoke. Soon my chest ached from the big gulps of cold air. My clunky dress shoes, only a week old, felt like blocks of frozen wood. Faint sirens coming from different directions grew louder as police and firefighters raced toward the cloud of smoke. I swallowed hard and breathed through my nose to keep my lungs from freezing.
I turned a corner and there it was: set back from the street was a large apartment building, four stories tall and half a block long. The lawn in front was covered by snow, but the sidewalks were clear. Cars were parked up and down the street.
Smoke was coming off the top of the building in a thick, steady cloud. Flames licked out from the upper windows and curled toward the roof. People near me, still a safe distance from the fire, were watching and pointing at the building. I looked up where they were pointing and saw men and women leaning far out the upper-floor windows, gasping for air and pushing their bodies away from the heat. Other people had jumped to the ground and were pulling themselves through the snow toward us. Babies and little children, shrieking like birds, were dropped from shattered windows to waiting arms below.
I could feel the heat of the fire on my face. The smell was burning wood and melting plastic. People screamed and the flames cracked and popped. I didn’t think; I didn’t hesitate. I ran toward the burning building. I pulled the stiff reporter’s notebook from my overcoat pocket. The air was so frigid that I had to rub the tip of the pen across the paper to get the ink flowing.
My hands were steady and I no longer felt the cold. I scribbled notes about the people in the windows and the ones who had jumped, their legs twisted or broken, using their arms to pull themselves across the snowy ground. I wrote about the neighbors watching and trying to help. Not full sentences but words, phrases, impressions, down the narrow page of the notebook.
Fire engines with lights flashing pulled up fast and loud and clogged the street, so packed together, nose to tail, that they couldn’t move back or forward. An old car with faded paint was blocking a fire hydrant. Move that car, someone shouted. A firefighter took a long iron rod off a truck and speared it through the driver’s side window of the car, shattering the glass. He and another firefighter, their faces red from the cold and exertion, rammed the pole across the front seat and crashed it through the passenger side window like a shish kebab. Then they heaved on the bar to move the car enough to connect a hose to the hydrant.
A phone. I needed a phone. I had enough coins, but there was no pay phone in sight. The story didn’t matter if you couldn’t file, Theo said. You’ve got to be first. You’ve got to beat everybody. Call the office. File. Weaving through the fire trucks and the thick men in rough, heavy coats, I ran across the street and pulled open the glass door of an apartment complex facing the burning building.
I banged on doors until a lady opened, shyly, bowing her head toward me and stepping backward into the room. The way she looked at me, I sensed she did not speak much English. Phone, I said, making a calling gesture with my thumb and pinkie up to my ear. I have to make a call. She backed further into the room and I followed, spotting a phone on a table.
I dialed the office.
“City News.”
“This is Copeland,” I said. “I’m at the fire on Winthrop.”
“Hang on. I’m going to give you to a rewrite.”
A woman picked up the phone. “What have you got?”
“There are people throwing babies out the window! They’re
dragging themselves through the snow. A guy broke his legs jumping. The thing is burning like crazy.” I was breathing hard again.
“How many trucks and how many pumpers?”
What?
“How many trucks? How many pumpers? How many responding?”
People are jumping out of the building, I repeated. Did she not hear me?
There were typing sounds in the background. I looked out the picture window and could see the burning building. The scene was oddly quiet now because I was inside.
“Count the trucks,” she said. “The trucks are the ones with ladders. The pumpers are the ones with hoses. Tell me how many there are, and I can tell you how many firemen responded.”
I could do that. I walked around the living room to get a better view and counted the trucks and “pumpers.” I gave her the numbers.
What’s the address? she asked. What time did it start?
I looked at my notebook, but the time wasn’t there. Nor had I thought to write down something as obvious as the address. I don’t know, I said, it started a few minutes ago.
Number of injured?
I don’t know.
Where did it start?
Upper floors maybe. I don’t know.
Where are the injured going?
The hospital, I suppose.
Yes, but which hospital?
I’m not sure.
Confirm the building address.
I wrote down her questions.
You need to find the chief and get the answers, she said. Call me back in five minutes. My name is Holley. The chief will be wearing a white helmet.
I held up one finger and told the lady I would be right back. She bowed again. I ran out of the building and into the chaos across the street, scanning the helmets until I saw an older man standing by himself, wearing a white helmet. Bingo. His heavy coat and boots were worn and dirty. His face was lined and grim. The burden of command.
Finding the News Page 1