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What was the genesis of this piece?
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A few months earlier, I had written a story about a program at the University of South Florida which allowed mentally challenged young adults—with Down's Syndrome, autism, learning disabilities—to take college classes and get part-time jobs. As part of the program, the instructor had contacted the Hillsborough County transit system to see if her students could get bus passes, since most of them can't drive. The transit folks sent Mark Sheppard, the county's travel trainer, to teach each individual student how to ride a custom-made route from their home to the university and back.
The first story, published in fall 2004, was called "Miss Gigi Makes it So," and focused on the teacher who had started the program at the university. The fact her students rode the bus was one sentence in that story. But the more I talked to the students, and her, the more I realized what a difference this man had made in their lives. So I waited a few months, then called Miss Gigi to get the name of the travel trainer. I realized his story was separate, and perhaps more universal for our readers.
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Please describe your reporting process. How much is reconstruction and how much were you present for? What sort of research did you do?
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I called Mark Sheppard to set up a day to meet him, and we talked on the phone for several minutes. He wanted to wait until he had a whole day of trainees planned, and asked if I'd be willing to meet him before dawn, as that was when his day usually started. A couple of weeks later, he called to arrange a day. I met him and a St. Petersburg Times photographer at the travel trainer's office, armed with 30 or so questions. I was there beside him and the trainees, on the buses and in his car, from about 5:15 a.m. until 2 p.m. I probably could have framed the whole story around one rider. But I thought it was important to show the range of people he helps: a young, single mom who has all her faculties but no money for a car payment and no idea how to get her infant to the doctor... to a young adult man with Down's Syndrome who still lives at home with his mom and wants to get to work at Publix, where he bags groceries, on his own. These two presented very different challenges for the travel trainer, and were different types of folks for readers to relate to.
I didn't do much additional research, other than to call Mark Sheppard and his boss back to verify ridership. Most of my questions were answered along our travels, and many he answered without my asking while he explained the system to his trainees. I spent 10 hours—one long day—reporting.
I have to add that it really helped having the photographer with us. Several times, of course, I had to get out of his shots. Other times he had to punt so I could eavesdrop and record dialogue. But we could not have connected his images and my words so well if we had gone to capture the story on different days.
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What challenges did you encounter during the reporting process?
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The hardest part was trying to stay out of the way of the story. Both the travel trainer and his riders wanted to talk to me and the photographer. And we just wanted to witness the day unfolding. Mark Sheppard, the subject, was too accommodating. He kept trying to make concessions for us, and we had to keep telling him to ignore us. Finally, I told him I'd interview him over lunch, when he had a break, so that he could go on with his day without having to impart information to me and interrupt the flow of his training.
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Please describe your process of structuring and writing the piece.
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I wanted to make the readers wonder about something. But with the riders, the only thing to wonder about was whether they'd get off at the right place. Amy was bound to. Justin might never be able to solo. So I wasn't sure what to do, while I was reporting.
I did know, from the beginning, that the narrative would follow my main character through a single day: Start at dawn, when he does, hang on until he heads back to the office. Simple thread.
It wasn't until the day was almost over and we'd dropped the young man with Down's at Publix, that the travel trainer started talking about himself. I'd asked him about his wife, how many kids he had, previous jobs. But many of those questions had been lobbed over the phone, or between stops, waiting for buses. After he left his rider at Publix, he began talking about how he'll never give up on this young man. How, no matter how long it takes, he'll keep helping Justin as he tries to learn to ride the bus. "I told you I had four children," he said softly, as we walked across the parking lot. "Well I lost one of them, when he was just a baby."
His story started spilling out, how his first son, Benji, had Down's, how the boy had died only a few weeks after coming home from the hospital. When I realized that that was his motivation for doing this unusually challenging job, I knew I had a thread to make readers wonder about—and a pay-off of something personal to drive the piece.
Originally, I followed the first woman, Amy, to and from the doctor's office. But my editor wisely told me no one cared how she got back, since it was along the same route. He wisely sliced about eight inches of narrative going nowhere from the center of the story.
I wrote this story in one day; it probably took about 12 hours, including editing (and breaks!).
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What sort of reaction did you get to the story? Emails? Phone calls? Response from other media? Etc.
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The reaction was surprising. At first, my editor had budgeted the story to run on a Thursday. But when he read it, and saw the photos, he bumped stuff around and made it the Sunday lead.
I got probably a dozen comments from other reporters (a rarity) who said they enjoyed the story; probably 25 e-mails, many from readers who also wanted to ride, one from a disgruntled bus rider who wanted to vent. I got I think six or seven phone calls, mostly people who said they enjoyed reading good news, about good people in our community.
Perhaps the most gratifying response was an e-mail from the travel trainer's brother. He said I really captured his brother's personality, and he thanked me for the story. Later that day, the travel trainer called, all choked up. "I haven't heard from my brother in more than two years," he said. "Your story prompted him to call me. I can't believe it."
Channel 10 news also did a "good folks" feature on Mark Sheppard a couple days after this story ran.
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Please include any other comments you think would be interesting to fellow reporters, editors and students of narrative.
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Any time you can travel with your subjects, you have a built in narrative. The thread of time and place really helps weave a story more tightly, so I try to sign-post both of those every other section, or so. I also think when you can find out something personal about your subject, it gives the piece that much more heart. Sometimes, folks open up at the end of a long or emotional day and you don't even have to ask them.
The scenes unfolded in front of me, so the reporting wasn't hard. I tried to write down when we were where, what the world looked like from inside the bus, who else was riding, and capture the dialogue between the trainer and trainee. I'd much rather write in dialogue than quotes.
A final thought: I was amazed at the range of people riding the bus. Since most of us drive cars, we have no idea the time or complicating factors riding the bus takes. There were probably two dozen other rich subjects all around me, the whole day, waiting on those vinyl seats for someone to ask them: What's your story?
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