Today was another busy day, as I continued to research Durham politics and crime. Thomasi and I didn’t make it down to the courthouse, instead staying in the office and doing our research online. It’s incredible to see just how much work goes into every news story and feature; for Indy Week, which is a weekly specializing in longer features, writers often have days or even weeks to research, draft, and edit stories. Staff writers started working on most of the stories for next week’s paper either early this week or last week, and many are still in the research phases of that process. One of the college interns, Thomas, has been working on a story about a legal case for the past few days, for instance, and is still amassing files and reports.
It can also be hard work to find people online. A large part of what I did today was finding online contact info for a myriad of people, which was often harder than what it sounded like. Though we’re often used to finding any info we could possibly want on the internet, I often found myself backstopped as I dug deep into a story.
For lunch today, Lara and I went to Luna, an empanada restaurant near the office. I have to say, I’m quickly growing to appreciate Durham food– like with the other places we’ve been, the food was amazing.
As another consequence of writers getting research for their stories, the office was pretty empty again today. People dropped in depending on if they were needed at their desks, and otherwise were out collecting data and interviewing people. We’re also getting wind of some big stories; it’s really cool to hear about things firsthand, before they appear in the paper or on TV.
I also took the opportunity to leaf through Indy’s stash of old papers. They keep piles of them in the office, with multiple copies of each issue organized by publication date.
