UPDATE: JUNE 15 TO 30

So here I am, with an update on what I did in the last two weeks on professional front to advance my fellowship goals at the Sun Sentinel.

The past two weeks were as eventful as the previous weeks had been, both in and off the newsroom.

As I wrote in my previous update, I worked with the metro team and got to spend one week with the courts and crime reporter, which brought alive the memories to me of reporting crime and courts at The Hitavada: The Akku Yadav case, (My Indian friends know about that case. A goon and alleged rapist was lynched dramatically in the courtroom in Nagpur by an angry mob in 2004) and the Khairlanji dalit massacre.

I sat through the wrap-up arguments in a homicide case for two days, with the jury awarding death penalty to a 50-year-old man convicted in February of killing a 72-year-old man in Palm Beach County in 2005. It was my first experience with the Jury system. We don't have a jury system in India. The criminal jurisprudence is much the same. Unlike fierce competition from at least 15 journalists from other newspapers back home, this one's an easy walk: you are alone in the courtroom reporting it.

May be, a colleague from the television could keep company to you in the court-room recording the proceedings.

Nonetheless, I could interact with the crime investigators, lawyers and people who make the court corridors such livelier and interesting always.

However, surprising to me was the fact that the story got less than 250 words, since it wasn't a high profile case. It ran as a joint byline, and I had to write it real tight. The courts reporter wrote the background. I wrote the lead and proceedings. The story appeared on the inside pages, but was up online first.

Suffice to say, it advanced one of my priorities: Learning to write tight.

The same week, I could tag along with the investigations team that is working on two monster projects. From the stage of conception of a story through the investigations and writing, it takes ages (really months) for it to hit the pages.

I spent two days with John Maines, senior journalist who is sort of backbone of this team, given his expertise in the computer assisted reporting. It's addictive, to say the least. He gave me basic tips to decipher piles and piles of data.

That helped me sift through a mass of agriculture census reports (I'm still immersed in it). Next in line: massive data on farm payments (subsidies).

Two reporters in the team shared with me their approach to writing stories; clues they explored to dig into a story and checklists they follow meticulously.

The editor explained to me the process of editing the investigative stories into parts that run as a series of expose!

As much as I would like, I won't be able to do an investigative story, given their pressing priorities and tight schedule, and my own schedule.

But it helped me learn the process of writing a narrative story: one of my goals. I might be able to apply those tips to a narrative story I'll do for outlook later. Plus it's so much more fun to learn how to do stories that delve beneath the skin.

With the metro team, I learnt about the Sentinel's internal day-to-day decision making and the guiding factors in prioritizing the news. It's changed over the years and it continues to change, for good and bad, both.

The second week, I came back to the editorial team to do a write-up for the Sunday Outlook magazine (July 12) on the Everglades after a tour on Wednesday.

I had to finish off a pending story: a profile of bagasse power plant, against the backdrop of climate change bill debate. Hope everyone's following the bill, for it's a major policy decision that would impact the world like never before.

In two weeks, I wrote four stories. One appeared on business front page on a Sunday (the story was about the partnership between local farmers and local hotels as part of local food movement). Three are to be published subsequently.

But I enjoyed learning about the process of writing tight; doing background research to add value to a story; and different reporters' approach to writing a story.

The weekend was a great fun. I could escape into a more rural landscape of Florida, driving up north to Jacksonville through the historic city of St Augustine, where I attended the Greek Landing Day festival (I'll blog about it separately), saw citrus groves on the way, and spent some homely time with the family of a friend's sister eating Maharashtrian food and watching (finally!) some cricket.

I had a brown bag last week with summer interns, who wanted to know about the tribe of Indian journalists and generally, journalism. Well...good luck to them.

Then, I could attend the editorial discussion with two guests: a former policy maker who is now vice chancellor of south Florida university and a lobbyist for the climate change bill that was passed late last week by the senate.

What's more, last Wednesday I wrote an editorial too, my first. The editorial board gave me the frame and the newspaper's position on President Obama's restraint on Iran. I think this is perhaps the most difficult part of print journalism. Writing a newspaper's position on an issue in just about 250-300 words with context is not easy. It's a serious business and needs hours of background research.

Honestly, it wasn't easy for me to write an editorial and express the newspaper's stand that might not always be your personal opinion. But it was worth it. I learnt the ABC (argument, background and circling back to argument) of editorial writing.

It meets my third goal: Write opinion and comment pieces.

I'm now also the Sun Sentinel's editorial blogger, where I am writing my experiences and observations about American life, from an eastern standpoint! It's all about learning to engage with readers in a conversational tone.

All of that, as my friends in the editorial board tell me, will help me figure out what not to write than what to. That is key to writing crisp, clear and clean.

I'm not there yet. But I'm on the course.