Journalism: bearing witness to the storm

I’ve always thought I’d use journalism as the means to an end. I like to think and write and probe, and these are skills I figured I could stand to hone, no matter the career I chose later on. Interestingly, my time as a journalist in college has afforded me the opportunity to get a sneak peak, so to speak, on the profession I truly want to pursue. Recently, after interviewing the UM System’s top lobbyist, Steve Knorr, for a profile piece, I decided I almost certainly want to be a lobbyist. I had numerous meetings with Knorr and others, together and separately, to gauge what the lobbyist’s role has been in passing the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative, better known as the MOHELA plan. To better get at the role of a journalist, I’ve offered my recent experience with Knorr as an example.

The role of the journalist is to bear witness to the storm -- and then to make it out alive to report on it. The week and days following up to the publication date of my profile on Knorr was a whirlwind: I wasn’t done reporting until the day I was editing. Even though it made for a more difficult time in terms of getting it ready to run, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

My meeting with Knorr up until the last minute, in addition to Sen. Chuck Graham, meant I had the most current information. With an issue such as the MOHELA plan and other time-sensitive subject, it’s important for the journalist to keep up. Otherwise, he or she seems wooden and distant. About a month ago, when I first met with Knorr and Rep. Jeff Harris, Harris’ withdrawing his support for the initiative seemed like the most important element of the MOHELA debate. Now, it seems like a mere sliver.

As a journalist, one must be in it for the long haul, willing to see all sides and, if necessary, divert from the original course of action to get a more accurate glimpse of the story.

Working with Knorr was tough. He was skeptical from the beginning, and I’m still not sure why he let me meet with him. I think he thought I seemed harmless. So, initially, I always played this up with him. I would ask questions I knew the answer to. This may seem too canny, but I believe it worked for me with him. He felt like he was guiding me along on the MOHELA plan, letting me in on what it’s like to be a lobbyist. I would argue I was let in on his world by questioning and observing him, even in a somewhat stressful circumstance. (Initially, our meeting was more staged and formal; later, it was less so.)

As a journalist, one has to be willing to play the part of the person whom he or she is interviewing. In fact, the reason I believe Knorr allowed me to report on him was that, though I was young, I seemed prepared and wouldn’t necessarily “stick out” as he was making his way around the Capitol to meet with legislators.

When we first met, he was also less consumed with MOHELA, more optimistic. A month later, he was in the middle of it and seemed more worn down. Because we had sort of built up a relationship, he let me stay "in" anyway.

As a journalist, a person also has to be sensitive of timing and the way the subject fits into the debate.

Knorr has a lot riding on getting the plan passed, including, maybe, his job. I tried to be careful with this. And because he let me “in” on his world, I felt grateful. Interestingly, my recognition of this rare access I was getting meant I felt sort of loyal to him. This wasn’t a problem, really, until I spoke with Graham. Up until the very end, no one was willing to speak openly against Knorr, no one willing to allude he might curry too much favor with the governor’s office. Even in private with Harris, Harris always spoke highly of Knorr.

Perhaps the biggest thing I’ll take from this story is that reading blogs pays off. When I began researching Knorr and his background and people’s perception of him, I stumbled across an entry on the Web site firedup.com, a sort of liberal political blog on Missouri state politics. The blog, while not really substantiated, seemed to speculate that Knorr was knee deep in the Republican Party and, it argued, too close to the governor.

Whether it is true, I don’t know. But I found a source, Graham, who was willing to say it. And I think he said it somewhat candidly because he was tired from the debate. People seem most willing to talk when they’re tired. So, that was the hook. But that didn’t happen until the day before the story ran. And although I felt “bad” about making Knorr look a little bad when he had let me profile him, I knew it had to be in there no matter what.

This, to me, is a journalist’s supreme job: to take all the elements of a story, even if initially it’s mere speculation, and break it down into something more manageable for the reader.

I’m not sure why I loved working on this story so much or why, for that matter, I used it as an example of journalists' role. Certainly, I made mistakes and still wonder if I covered everything I needed to cover in this debate.

But perhaps this experience as a journalist sticks out to me because I felt truly fascinated by what Knorr does, how much clout he has in the legislature for someone who’s largely unknown to the general public. This fascination seemed to carry me through -- and made me wish I felt this way about every story I work on.

Sources, I believe, can tell when you’re interested in who they are and how they get by in life. I would argue, then, that journalists have to feign interest, no matter how disinterested they are, in order to find the crux of a debate. And perhaps, too, journalists have to seem far removed, no matter how much he or she wants to jump in on a debate (as was my case with Knorr), so as not to seem too vested.