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How did this project come about?
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In 2004, then-editor Amanda Bennett urged Metro beat reporters to find international stories with a link to Philadelphia, and propose them to Avery Rome, the projects editor for the national/foreign desk. In February 2005, as federal courts reporter in Philadelphia, I attended a court hearing related to e-mail wiretaps. I arrived expecting to write a daily or weekend story about the first (non-FISA) attempt to use e-mail wiretaps in a criminal case here. Instead I found a much more interesting story about online pharmacies, and DEA's first attempt to bring a big one down. I called Avery afterward and said I thought I had a pretty cool story, one that might fit Amanda's mandate. I started reading publicly available filings and sat through portions of the six-week trial.
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Please describe any reporting challenges you encountered.
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The trial got underway at about the same time as several other high-profile events on the beat. DEA officials here did not appear comfortable speaking with the media outside of press conferences. They still didn't even use e-mail for press releases. Federal agents, including DEA and FBI, didn't want to criticize each other or admit that they had mistakes or struggled with the investigation. Prosecutors and lawyers were reluctant to be interviewed until everyone captured went to trial or pleaded. Key defendants were willing to talk, but prison officials declined or ignored several requests for interviews. My trip to India was fruitful, but challenging because of the language and culture differences. Obtaining confidential documents is always a challenge, yet often provides the greatest details.
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What methods did you use in working out the story's structure?
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Avery wisely recommended that we try to write the story in scenes, without exposition. Let the characters provide the nut grafs, wherever possible, she said. I used index cards to outline scenes, trying to keep each one to 5 to 10 inches.
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Please comment on your narrative approach, on building the piece on scenes. Some of the detail was remarkable, considering it was reconstructed—how did you gather such particulars?
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Avery was the longtime editor of the Inquirer Sunday magazine, before its demise in 2003. She felt that using long sections of exposition or expert testimony in "Drugnet" would take away from its immediacy and drama. Together we worked hard to establish each setting with precise details, to make the characters vivid and to shape each scene so that it was cinematic and moved fast.
In terms of detail, once you know what scenes you are using, it's often just a question of going back and saying, "OK, you're in the Dunkin' Donuts—what did you order? OK, what kind of bagel? Cream in the coffee?" We took some detail from personal photos, e-mail, video, audio. Some comes by reading back-proposed lines of the story to a subject and saying, "Did I get this right?"
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We were interested in the focus on Akhil, in particular in the way he was not demonized, but portrayed as a complex, three-dimensional character.
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Akhil is a very bright, engaging guy, and provided great detail during interviews. I really enjoyed talking to him and hope the prison will allow me to visit him again. His relationships with his father and fiancee gave the story added texture. His lawyer called him the most interesting client he has ever had; prosecutors would call him manipulative. Akhil really wanted people to understand why he'd done what he did. The beauty of it (from a journalistic standpoint) is that he didn't deny any of what happened. He simply argued that he did not break the law. I asked him what he would title the series and he said, "An Innocent Man."
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