Copley News Service writer to receive award for outstanding writing on diversity
By Kate Kennedy
Special to freedomforum.org
03.11.04
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| S. Lynne Walker |
The story of Beardstown, Ill., is the story of an all-white community, a meat-processing plant and change.
It's a hometown story, a business story, a religion story and a story of politics.
S. Lynne Walker of Copley News Service calls it the hardest story she has written.
Walker told Beardstown's story in a four-part series published in November 2003 in The State Journal-Register, a Copley newspaper about 40 miles from Beardstown in Springfield, Ill. In the series, Walker chronicled the change that immigration from Mexico is bringing to the small Illinois town.
For her series "Beardstown: Reflection of a changing America," Walker received the 2004 Freedom Forum/ASNE Award for Outstanding Writing on Diversity.
The award, which comes with a $2,500 prize funded by the Freedom Forum, will be made April 23 during the American Society of Newspaper Editors' convention in Washington, D.C. Two finalists also were named: Jill Leovy of the Los Angeles Times and Amy Argetsinger of The Washington Post. The winning entries and interviews with the winners and finalists will be published in Best Newspaper Writing 2004 by The Poynter Institute.
Walker, Mexico City bureau chief for Copley, was approached to do the story by The State Journal-Register's editor, Barry Locher. "In my heart," Locher says, "I knew there was a really great story there."
In 1987, Beardstown, a community of 5,200, welcomed a new employer, Excel Corp., in the hope that jobs would be created. Over the next 16 years, Hispanics who came from Mexico to work the rigorous jobs in Excel's pork-processing plant began to change the community.
Parts of Beardstown's story had been told. "In that sense," Walker says, "I didn't break ground. But maybe we broke ground in how we tried to tell it" — by telling the story of the whole town.
In describing Walker's work, ASNE award judges said: "With blunt honesty, the writer delivers a powerful, intimate account of what happens to a town changed by an influx of immigrants. It is a slice of America also written about by others, yet in this case delivered in a compelling way that offers a deeper understanding."
Locher says, "Having access to Lynne helped us go so much deeper" into the story. The journalism produced by that was significant. It was a big deal for us. It was a big deal for our readers."
Walker believes that the understanding cited by the award judges comes with time and trust.
Over the course of seven months, Walker made four trips from her office in Mexico City to west-central Illinois to talk with people in Beardstown. "It's so hard in our business to get time. Everything is so immediate," she says. "Maybe people would think a week (working on the story) is enough, but you won't get that deep look that you want."
Once she began work, she says, she "told editors, 'This is a great story. This not a good story; this is a great story. So we're going to keep going until we have it all.' "
She praises editors for their support and the "wide latitude to go out and get what I thought was the story."
With each visit to Beardstown, Walker says, she returned with objectives on what she felt she needed for the story. "I had in mind what I lacked, who I needed to talk to. I'd go back with a list."
A photographer from The State Journal-Register worked with Walker, and that was critical, she says. "She kept in touch with the people there," Walker says. "She kept the story alive."
Time allows reporters to build trust with sources, Walker says. Trust was especially important because a number of her sources were undocumented workers. She wanted sources to open up to her, but they "won't do that on the first visit."
"I sat with one family for six hours. Most of the time we weren't talking about things I needed for my story. But several things came up between conversations. They wouldn't have said that had I not sat there so long."
Getting to know each other helps, too. She says she talked with sources about her own experiences and why she was in Beardstown, "so that people would feel more comfortable with me."
During one visit, she went to Mass. "People saw me there, a non-threatening situation." She stopped and talked to people on the church steps.
To illustrate how connections matter, Walker shared a story from her reporting:
She was asking a man many questions when she realized that she hadn't introduced herself. When she began doing so, the man said he knew who she was. He had read — and saved — from the Springfield newspaper a Valentine's Day business story she had written two years ago about the U.S. importing flowers from his village in Mexico. One of his children got the newspaper clipping for her from a closet.
"You never know how things are going to circle around for you," Walker says.
Walker, who has worked in Mexico for 11 years, says Hispanics in Beardstown are hungry for news from home. She used her knowledge of Mexico to reach out to them and get acquainted. "It was more comfortable for both of us. We could laugh about certain things. We talked about the news. We talked about (President Vicente) Fox. It didn't feel stiff or awkward."
The stories used few unnamed sources. Walker noted the responsibility of reporters in dealing with sources. "The Mexican people (of Beardstown) are not aware of the power of the press. They didn't ask me not to use their names. They had no idea of the possible ramifications.
"You're not anonymous in Beardstown. I worried all the time about not exposing people terribly in a way that would be hurtful. Because they were very generous and open with me, I wanted to be fair."
That puts the burden on the reporter, Walker notes. "You as a journalist have a responsibility. You know what power you have."
Walker's Spanish-language skills were key to getting the story. She noted that many past stories about the community quoted the same people. English-speaking immigrants tend to be leaders in the Beardstown community. She wanted to talk to others, too.
Walker emphasizes the value of having language skills. "One of the reasons papers in my chain want me to do things is because I'm bilingual. A lot of editors don't think they have enough reporters with language skills."
She also notes the importance of working with an editor before, during and after reporting. "By working with an editor before I go out on the first interview, then checking in with her throughout the reporting process, I've been able to have more focused stories with fewer holes when I turn in my finished piece. That streamlines the editing process and helps us get it into the paper more quickly."
For the series, she worked with two editors. Before going to Beardstown, Walker and Susan White, border editor at The San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune, developed questions to ask. The Union-Tribune also is a Copley newspaper, and Walker and White work together frequently. "Once I had made my first trip, she and I began refining the story," Walker says. "Susan was also the line editor on the story, so by the time I handed it in to Barry Locher, the story was in pretty good shape."
Locher assigned Walker to work with Rosalynne Harty, associate editor at the Springfield newspaper, "to do the final edit and help with Illinois-specific passages in the story to sharpen it for the paper's readers. This was a great example of teamwork that strengthened the series."
Walker's series was accompanied by an editorial in The State Journal-Register supporting immigration reform. The series also ran in The Times Reporter, a Copley newspaper in New Philadelphia, Ohio, where another meat-packing plant is hiring a large number of Hispanic workers. A condensed version of the series was published in the Journal Star in Peoria, Ill., a Copley newspaper whose circulation area also includes Beardstown.
Walker, who describes Beardstown's evolution as good moments and bad moments, hopes the stories will help other communities facing change. The people of Beardstown felt "alone. There was no net. No state or federal help" at the time, she says.
There was significant reader reaction, including many letters to the editor. Locher says the letters' "underlying sentiment was supportive."
"The style in which she wrote it — narrative — was fascinating," Locher says. "The way she wrote it and the sensitivity and depth of writing kept people's attention."
Walker heard from people in other small towns who see change in their future and from people who wanted to talk about racism in downstate Illinois.
A University of Illinois-Springfield professor is making the series required reading for a course.
One of the most important reactions, Walker says, was from Bill Beard, editor of the weekly Beardstown Newspapers Inc., who called her stories open minded, well researched and well done. Walker values his reaction "because that was the voice of the community."