A lot of the work of reporting is just asking questions. Mostly, that can be done over the phone (or Zoom, or email, or carrier pigeon), and so that’s how most of our reporting is done at CT. We work from home, working the phones.
But sometimes we get to go on reporting trips, traveling to the stories. This is expensive, obviously, so we don’t do it unless there’s something we can get being physically present that we couldn’t get on the phone and the difference will really matter to a reader.
One difference is who you get to talk to. In person at an event, you often interact with people you’d never know to call, just because they’re there. Another advantage—a big one—is that the reporter can just watch, take things in, and get a sense of the mood of a room. One of my reporting heroes, Gay Talese, once called this “the fine art of hanging out.”
Sharp-eyed CT readers will know when our reporters went to an event in person by checking the byline on the stories. When the reporter was physically present, we note that right after the author’s name.
