Sit. Stay. The Act Of Embedded Reporting.

I’ve never been a fast reporter. Or a fast writer. I tend to
wander off any beat I’ve been assigned and my knees quiver at the thought of tight
deadlines. And so, going somewhere and staying there for a rather long time appeals
to my professional insecurities.

And while the term “embedded” is most often associated with military reporting, that’s not what this essay is about. This essay is about finding a place you want to report, going there and staying. For me, that place was the largest public housing complex in Nashville, the James Cayce Homes. A thicket of two-story, red brick, government-built apartments. Cayce feels very isolated from the rest of Nashville, even though it’s less than a mile from downtown and smack in the middle of a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.

It felt like a community cleaving apart right before my
eyes. Wealth on one side of the street. And poverty on the other.

The tension was palpable. I figured there must be stories
there. Important stories. Stories the whole city and maybe even the whole
country needed to hear.

So, I went. Then I went back. More than two years later, I
am still reporting there. I visit multiple times a week. In fact, I went there
this morning. And I still got lost trying to find an apartment. I thought I
knew every inch of the place. Turns out, I don’t. So I’ll go back again!

The art of settling in somewhere and reporting is, to me,
one of the most fulfilling things a journalist can do. So often we spend our
days running from press conference to interview to deadline. Rarely do we get
to stop and spend an open-ended amount of time in a place. It can feel like a
luxury, but it always makes a story better.

The act of embedding takes patience, determination and humility. It requires you to stay open — open to new information, open to having your opinion change, open to having stories shift beneath your feet.

What follows is a brief list of some of the most helpful strategies
I’ve found while sticking around somewhere to report.

Find A Story That Can Sustain The Endeavor.

Not just any story can be the type you embed with. First, you need access. You need complexity. A sense of place. Really interesting people that can be reflective. You need good stakes. Good action. And, of course, time.

When I look for opportunities to spend a lot of time in a place, I subscribe to the less is more philosophy. Can one place act as a proxy for lots of other places? Does a person’s story or a place’s story capture the nuances of an issue? Or does it knock us off balance and throw our assumptions for a loop? Is there one fundamental question that’s an access point for many other questions? Is a journey about to happen that warrants observation every step of the way?

Getting back to access, this is really important. And it’s often a delicate negotiation process. If it’s an official place like a school or tight-knit community like Cayce, it always takes some finesse to communicate your endeavor and get people on board. If it’s somewhere like a school or an institution, that is out of your control. It’s up to the powers that be to say yes or no. But there are some things that can help you get to a “yes”:

* Look for a place that has an obvious story to tell. Is a school going through a recalibration? Is there a public institution that’s got an unsung hero or is wrestling with a challenging or important issue that the public should know about? Pitch it to them as an important story that ne...