Chachere's Visit

Young Reporter, Enlightened

With her torso slightly leaning forward and the focus of her eyes reflecting the intensity with which she listened, she couldn't have been anything else other than a reporter.
From the moment Professor Thelen introduced her, I saw her wheels turning as she took us in and began listening to my fellow classmates pitches on what they would write for their editorials.
Vickie Chachere, elegant in appearance and strong in presence, felt so familiar.
It wasn't that I had seen her somewhere or even read any of her stories; her persona resembled the way I envisioned myself in the thick of my future career: witty, articulate and fashionably refined.

Though the latter might seem nonessential, image plays into credibility, and Chachere had me sold.
Her dark hair was cut into the classic reporter bob, reminiscent of Katie Couric. Her make-up was light and fresh. She wore a vibrant teal blouse under a fitted gray blazer, a black skirt and modest heel shoes.

"Do your own reporting!" She said smacking her right hand into her left, driving her point home.

Chachere made it clear to never rely on another's reporting, whether its a trusted reporter, or a highly respected news source such as CNN. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that she knew what she was talking about. Shortly after graduating from Arizona State University in 1989, she landed a job with the Tampa Tribune where she stayed for 11 years, until she left for an opportunity to write for the Associated Press, the prized news wire responsible for many stories that reach newspapers, blogs and television news. After a 5 year stint with the AP, she returned to the Trib, where she landed a coveted position as an editorial writer, and through those years she had seen it all.

"I'll give an example..." She said as she began telling us about a study that came out and spawned a highly controversial story that generally went like this:
Working mothers' children behave worse than children with stay-at-home moms.
When Chachere decided to read the study for herself, she found that the news reporting had been rather inaccurate and caused a lot of unneccessary grief in the working mother, house mother dichotomy.

For every story we pitched, she found a way to advance the story.
Instead of focusing on a mother killing her child, Chachere advised a student to explore the apathy towards infant death in the state of Florida. She flipped a story about a school menu lacking healthy options to the history of the school menu's contents being based in an era of malnutrition and not being updated to address the obeisity epidemic facing American children.
I was also challenged to go beyond my initial feeling of Citizen's insurance being wrong for raising their rates in a poor economy, to inquiring whether their reasoning was valid.

Chachere challenged me, as well as my classmates, to be open to being proved wrong. Being commited to the preliminary thesis I have on a story idea can and will negate the real story from developing if I don't listen to facts as I uncover them.

As the class came to an end, she advised us to back up all of our opinions with fact that we've found. As an editorial writer, Chachere referred to the best, Pulitzer winning editorialists, and read their stories. The common thread among them was outstanding reporting. If all opinion was stripped out of the pieces, a well reported, well-written story could stand on its own. So I learned editorial writing isn't neccessarily a pass to blindly write on a topic with emotion as my primary source.

Chachere's passion for reporting really sung to my soul. The joy she described when finding a vital piece of information for a story was inspiring, because I thrive off of that feeling, too.

I knew her before I met her, because she's who I've always wanted to be.
In due time, I know I will see her again. I'll make sure to wave back to my mirror's reflection!