UPDATE: JUNE 1 TO JUNE 15

Fort Lauderdale:

The most difficult part of doing a story is conceiving it. Then, pitching it to the editor. And finally after working on it, writing what you had originally conceived.

The media overall are increasingly shying away from covering farmers' issues. I find that in India. I am discovering it here in the US too.

So, conceiving an idea that helps me understand farming systems in the US and at the same time interests my host newspaper has been the most challenging task for me so far. The last two weeks yielded some success for me though.

One, I was able to propose some story ideas that interests the newspaper, and two, using the online research tools, I was able to make some initial contacts needed for the story. But my mentor helped me fine tune the focus for the stories.

I drove down a few miles to meet and interview the last remaining small farmers of South Florida to know their transitions and strategies to stay afloat.

It was a small step toward achieving my first goal: Understanding the US farm system in general. The small farmer here is though a big farmers from an Indian view.

No way is our small and marginal farmers any way near them in terms of farm size, technology, capital and energy inputs, production and income. Yet by the local standards, I learnt from the two farmers I met, they too are finding it hard to remain in farming, given the rising urban pressures and production costs.

With the help of the Sun Sentinel's data analysts, I downloaded and sifted through truck-loads of data on agriculture. I am still sifting through it.

Last week I attended yet another writers group discussion in the Sun Sentinel. The group goes through a few old well-written stories and discusses the form individuals would have chosen if they were to write the same story today.

It helped me learn how reporters here are evolving ways to tighten a story to fit the shrinking spaces while keeping most details in keeping with journalism tenets.

Alongside, I managed to get some new tip sheets into the way stories could be penned effectively within tight deadlines.

Two stories (yet to be published) that I did along with my other mentor for the business pages proved the best way to gain in an insight into the way journalists here write their stories here. It advances my goal: writing tight and yet lucid.

The only upsetting thing was that I could not publish any story this past fortnight. Scaling down the pace of work is something of a cultural change.

For me, it is indeed difficult, and at times frustrating, not to see a byline in the print for that long a period. I am slowly coping with those fundamental differences in the way newspapers function in this distant land.

PS: I move on to the metro reporting team tomorrow (Monday, June 15) for the next fortnight, even as I continue to work on my long term story features on agriculture issues that have been slotted for August. Idea is to look at daily processes, news priorities, tight writing, investigation skills, copy editing, presentation etc. and also get to know some ongoing local issues. I start with courts to know the justice system. That's the best way to dig into the layers beneath the skin of a society. Hopefully, there will be a few bylines as "the evidence" along the way.