A Day in the Life: Chris Hardesty

This account was written for the MidAtlantic News Research Conference on July 18-19, 1997.

Chris Hardesty
News research manager
The News & Observer
Raleigh, North Carolina

It's Wednesday, July 9, and today was a fairly typical one for me at The
News & Observer.
I got into the office around 8 a.m. There were a few people already at

work. Teresa, the News Research DepartmentŐs director was in her office.
The group of folks who maintain the electronic text archive were involved
in getting todayŐs stories enhanced. Jean, who does more to make
everything run smoothly than anyone realizes, was getting the day's state
and national papers on the racks.
Before I continue, I need to show how our department is organized.

Teresa -- Director, News research
	Chris -- News Research Manager
		Becky -- News Researcher (FT)
		Brooke -- News Researcher (FT)
		Charles -- News Researcher (FT)
	Colline -- Archive, Operations Manager
		Brenda -- Enhancer (FT)
		Hillary -- Enhancer (PT)
		Jean -- Jean-of-all-trades (FT)
		Jonathan -- Enhancer
		Matt #1 -- Enhancer (PT)
		Matt #2 -- Enhancer/Photo Archivist (PT)
		Renee -- Enhancer/Photo Archivist (PT)
		Peggy -- Photo Archivist/Researcher (FT)
		Tonya -- Enhancer (PT)
	Denise -- IQ Manager (public research service)
		Karen -- IQ Researcher (FT)
		Jeremy -- IQ Researcher (PT)
	Sperry -- Resource Manager
		David -- Database Researcher (FT)
		Donna -- Database Researcher/Developer (FT)
		Norman -- Data collection Clerk (PT)
		Patricia --Data collection Clerk (PT)

The first thing I do every morning is sign on to my e-mail. Much of the
company's communication comes via e-mail, so just about everyone leaves it
running through the day. Many of the 400 or so research requests we handle
each month come electronically. If I see that late requests from the
previous night have not been answered I'll take care of them. Likewise,
I'll get started on any early-morning requests.

Today, however, there weren't any requests leftover from last night and
none were waiting in the morning. I sent a message to a reporter to
compliment  them on a story they wrote, which I try to do every day.
Anyway, since there wasn't any research to get started on right away, I
spent about an hour entering fulfilled requests into the research budget
we maintain to keep track of the research we do. It had been quite awhile
since I had entered anything in. The research budget tells for whom the
research was done, what department and desk they work on, how much time
was spent on the request, what resources were used and some other tidbits.

I attend the morning news meeting every morning at 10:30. It usually lasts
for about 30 minutes. Anywhere between twelve and 20 editors show up to
pitch stories from their desks for Page One the next day. We've already
worked on many of the stories that are pitched, but a fair number of
stories are conceived around that desk, so it's important for someone from
News Research to be there to offer ideas and suggest ways in which our
department can help make stories better. 

A critique of the day's paper takes place at that meeting, too. The
section fronts are tacked on the wall and comments about content and play
are voiced. Too often, it seems that the editors are commenting only to
hear themselves speak. I reserve comments for times that I feel very
strongly about something in the paper -- usually when I notice mistakes. I
have a hard time tolerating factual errors. If there is any doubt about
something, reporters and editors have a capable research department to
check questionable things.

When I got back from the morning meeting, I made a call to the county
government's accounts payable department to find out if an individual of
his company was listed as a vendor. We are able to dial into the county's
computer system to check such things, but I made the call to confirm their
absence from the database. The reporter who requested the search was quite
confident that I would find them in the listing of vendors. The person in
accounts payable told me that neither the man or his company did business
with the county government.

A little later I put a call in to the flak at the Division of Motor
Vehicles. We have a database of the state's license plates, but the one
that a reporter was looking for was issued too recently to be included.

Just after I place that call, a reporter from the business desk called to
ask for help deciphering an AutoTrak report Becky did for him yesterday.
He was working on a story about a couple of stock brokers being sued by a
group of investors who claim that their money was poorly invested. I went
to his desk to explain all the information the report contained. He
questioned some of the details, so I offered to double-check some of the
things it indicated. Specifically, he wanted to check on the ownership of
some property, including a vacant plot in town. I told him we'd check it
out.

Brooke and Becky had gone to lunch by the time I got back to the
department so I dialed into the county's database to confirm ownership of
the property and connect it to one of the brokers. In the meantime the
reporter called again to ask about a company that the brokers might own
together. He also wanted to know the color of one broker's Ferrari.

I checked the Secretary of State's database for the company, looked in the
archive, the Internet, and Dun and Bradstreet, but still couldn't find
anything about the company the reporter mentioned.

As for the Ferrari, I had its license plate, but our DMV database doesn't
have vehicle color. I called the flak at the agency again to see if she
had access to anything that would tell the color. She said that she didn't
and couldn't offer any suggestions.

I had some time before the 2 o'clock meeting to plan the weekend papers,
so I made some worked on gathering some information about Atlanta and
Austin for a graphic that is part of a series on sprawl running in a
couple of weeks.

The weekend meeting plans the budget for the weekend and Monday's papers.
The stories are usually written and we have already helped, but
occasionally there are new twists that would benefit from a good dose of
information my department could provide. This week everything seems to be
set.

I worked a little more on the sprawl stuff, using the Census Web site and
a book our market research department has called Demographics USA. All of
a sudden my mind shifted back to the Ferrari. I realized I had the car's
VIN and thought that it might provide clues to its color. I got the phone
number for a Ferrari dealer and called them. The dealer told me that
identification numbers on some makes of cars do indicate color, but not on
Ferraris. The man was willing to check his company's records to see if it
had sold the vehicle. No luck. I asked about service records, thinking
that perhaps it had been in for a repair. Again, no luck.

"Maybe I know the guy," the dealer said. "Can you tell me the owner's
name?"

I said the last name and the dealer was able to give me the owner's first
name without prompting. He asked me to hold, and when he returned to the
line he told me the broker's address, which confirmed to me that we were
talking about the same man. He bought a car from the dealership 20 years
ago. 

"Hey," the dealer said. "I know how you can get the color. Call his nosy
neighbor. Hang on and let me get the number."

Pretty strange, but what the heck. The dealer gave me the name, address
and phone number of the broker's next-door neighbor. I have no idea how
this car dealer knows who, let alone that they're nosy, the broker's
neighbor is and I didn't ask. I gave the name to the reporter, who called
and was told the car is red. We had given the reporter a list of neighbors
the day before but he hadn't called any, assuming none would have any
knowledge helpful to the story.

One of our investigative reporters called to get a copy of laws addressing
contempt charges. A legislative committee investigating a suspicious
$100,000 payment to a state employee called the man to testify at a
hearing, but the man answered no questions. So, they charged him with
contempt. I got copies of the law and its penalties from the General
Statutes in our collection.

Things slowed down for a bit until a reporter wanted to find out if
several individuals had made any contributions to state politicians. We
have a database of all campaign contributions in the state, but it's been
converted to a new format and is still in a beta stage and we haven't been
trained to use it. Charles and I tried to figure it work it but couldn't.
I called David at home to get him to walk me through the process of
searching the "Money Machine." He wasn't home yet so I left a message for
him to call me back. He did, and coached me on how to get into the
database. The people I was checking had not made any contributions.

I gave the reporter an update and then realized it was getting kind of
late. I walked out the door about 6:45.


A Day in the Life
SLA News Division Home

Last Updated: 09/16/02
Amy Disch
Send comments or suggestions to newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com