Journalist’s Trade

After Diana K. Sugg had been The (Baltimore) Sun’s medical reporter for six years, she wrote an enduring article about beat reporting for the Poynter Institute. In “Turn the Beat…

‘Sometimes the overlooked topics may be more important than the ones that dominate the headlines.’

‘… the Internet changes the concept of the beat: A blog such as ours becomes a valued partner of political reporters offering them additional sources and fresh angles for stories.”

‘That is when I had the epiphany: These early years of motherhood were like being a rookie reporter on the beat.’

‘When heading off to Africa in these cash-strapped times, the expectation is that you will return with more than just a few stories. A daily radio show is a hungry…

‘... I always say that I am not the story. I am out of it. I observe the place, and I describe it as it is. If I talk to…

With International Reporting Project support, ‘my story reminded Iowans that it’s not just the large coastal papers that bring them news from abroad.’

‘Spending enough time in a tormented country for the reality to truly sink in is a painful experience.’

‘I stand as a witness to the silences—to what goes unspoken and ignored—to the things that float away as if insubstantial but that are filled with the simple breaths of…

An Essay in Words and Photographs