Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [30]
Hakim was late, however, so I had no chance to speak to him. Instead, I cornered editor in chief Mohammed al-Asaadi, who had only made it to one previous class, and asked him sweetly if he wouldn’t mind joining us for an hour. He was the person I most needed to reach, but Theo had told me he felt threatened by my presence. Apparently he didn’t believe his journalism skills needed improving, which was disappointing. I wanted him to be able to reinforce what I was teaching and carry on some of this work after I left.
Once Hakim and al-Asaadi were both settled amidst my other reporters, I launched into my critique. To my delight, both al-Asaadi and Hakim (and the rest of the class) were quite receptive. I got through everything I wanted to say with minimal disruption. I began with praise, saying how much I liked the layout of the front page, some of the front headlines, and most of the story ideas. Baiting the hook.
I especially praised Adel, the paper’s health reporter, because his was one of the better pages. “Poor Adel,” Theo often said. “He is the lowest-caste person on staff, and the rest of them treat him like an animal, even though he is one of the best journalists they have.” Yemen is divided into several social strata, including bedouin (desert nomads), fellahin (villagers), hadarrin (townspeople), and akhdam (literally “servants”), which include Adel’s family. So I told everyone what wonderful stories Adel had picked for his page, in the probably vain hope of boosting his status.
Then I reviewed some things that needed to be done more consistently. Every story should have a byline, I told them. (Often, the stories just said “Observer staff.”)
“You all work hard on these stories,” I said. “You deserve credit for them. I want you to be proud of your work. Putting your name on your story tells your readers that you stand behind your reporting. It enhances your credibility. And it keeps you accountable. If you are ashamed to put your name on a piece of work, it does not belong in the paper.”
Theo raised his hand. “What if you are writing a story that could get you killed? So if you put your name on it, someone will come after you?”
“Well, in that case, we can make an exception. I don’t want to get any of you killed. If you are quite sure that someone will come after you with a gun or any other weapon for a story you are writing, you have my permission to withhold your byline. However, every single one of the stories in this issue should be able to safely have a byline without getting anyone killed.”
Next, we talked about the importance of spelling. “The word ‘conference’ is misspelled in a front-page headline,” I said. “As a reader, I see this and say, ‘If they make mistakes about things as small as spelling, what other kinds of mistakes are they making?’ You increase your credibility when your grammar and spelling are perfect. And you erode it when they are not.”
They nodded and scribbled.
A new fellow joined us for the critique, a blond, blue-eyed Californian named Luke, who had been hired to help with the copyediting. He radiated goodwill, and I was happy to have someone else there to reinforce the proper use of the English language.
When everyone had finally dispersed, Theo looked at me. I was crumpled against the blackboard. “Worn out?”
“I feel like I’ve just run a marathon. My diaphragm hurts.” I get so enthusiastic when I am talking that I wave my arms a lot and lunge back and forth from the dry-erase board to the