how the story develops

Man. Wow. Okay, I've got loads to talk about.
First, I want to add that I'm quickly learning how tangled and complex a story can appear to be after doing some heavy reporting. Or really how a story can unfold by just calling people on the phone.
The Afro-In Books and Cafe story first started, really, as me trying to find an interesting place to visit in Liberty City-- y'know just to check it out.
But then I read the bookstore was the area's only bookstore, and probably one of the few African-American bookstores in Miami. That was appealing and it had huge potential to be a story. Pitched the story to my professor/editor Neil Reisner, who I call by his first name because, yeah, we're on a first name basis. Totally cool.
Anyway, he liked the idea so that's my story!
Drove down to the shop to see what it's all about and it definitely looks dilapidated and not in business. Called the place and the operator said the line was disconnected.
So through some phone calls, I find out the place was closed down in August 2009. Yikes. Well, there goes my story... uh not so fast. There's still a story here, said Neil.
So I make phone calls and decide my story is about the loss of a cultural institution in a low-income neighborhood. But then I hear this man, Darrin Ferguson, is trying to reopen it. HUH? Now that's a story. A better one at that.

I get his number and talk to him, and he's pretty much working with a couple of other people to reopen the store. Nothing concrete or anything but just a plan and an investment. Okay that's sounds good.

I wrote up a first draft about how this man wants to reopen the store. It's a little weak, but Neil said it was well-written... it just has a ton of holes. So I do more reporting.
I find out that Ferguson is working with Clarence Jones, nephew of Earl and Eursla Wells (owners of the property and the ones who opened the store back in the 80s). Hmm. Now this is more interesting. Though, apparently, Ferguson had never met or spoke to Jones. Ferguson knew of Jones through a mutual friend Bernon Quinn, a local business owner-- I believe it's a sporting goods store. Actually come to think of it, Ferguson didn't even know Jones' name. He only knew that Jones was nephew to Earl and Eursla Jones.

Hmm. Okay. Well right now I've got nothing because Ferguson doesn't have his number or name. So by using the white pages and the Miami-Dade property appraiser, I find Earl and Eursla's phone number. They live in Tennessee.

Now I'm a little nervous to call because I had read in a previous Afro-In article from The Miami Times that they refused to talk to anyone and they had a spokesman talk for them. So this was nerveracking.
Well I bit up the nerve to call them and they were nice. Earl gave me a brief history of the store and this was all good info. And from him I was able to get Jones' phone number.

I called Jones up and explained to him what I was doing. He was receptive and asked him what was up? Did he know Ferguson was? etc.
Didn't know who Ferguson was but did know who Quinn was. Then he told me a piece of info that was vital-- he was meeting with the City of Miami Arts and Entertainment Council and Books & Books. WHAT? Books & Books? Apparently Books & Books is interested in reopening the store. AWESOME.

Got in contact with the man from the Arts Council. His name is Marvin Weeks. He told me that the council is negotiating some kind of plan to reopen the place. It's gonna happen but it's at a really premature stage.

This is amazing. I call Neil about it and he's incredibly excited! His excitement makes me excited as well. Like he's really excited and he's telling me how much he's proud of me. This means a lot considering that I got a terrible grade in Neil's Print News Workshop class from the previous semester. That was a rough class and I thought there was no hope. But to hear him say all this to me. Definitely means a lot. LIke a crap-ton.

Anyway, he tells me to get in contact with Mitch Kaplan, founder of Books & Books. That got me nervous because he seems like the top dog at B&B, but I gotta do it. I call the Gables B&B and they just give me his cell number. Woah. That was easy.

Gave him a call but didn't answer. Left a voicemail. No call back.

Come morning time I gotta do a lot of crunching for this story. Call him again and leave a message. He calls me back instantly. Talked to him for a bit about the place. Didn't seem too comfortable talking about it since plans are pretty premature. Honestly, though, for someone like Mitch Kaplan to be interested in reopening a closed-down bookstore located in a really low-income, black neighborhood is enough of a story. And the fact that he's trying to make it happen with the help of the Arts council is just great.

Write the story up. I had been writing for a good couple of weeks adding and omitting info as I go. Once I had Mitch Kaplan's quotes-- the story was essentially done.
Send the story to Neil and I get a phone call 30 mins later.

Me: "Hello".
Neil: "You rock!"
Me: [laugh] "Thank you, man! So, you read it?"
Neil: "I read the first two paragraphs and said 'you nailed it!'"
Me: [laughs]
Neil: " You ****** nailed it!"

Awesome. Then I hear SoFla Times love it, too! Man amazing.
Then I hear I'm getting front page of the times? WHAT?! This is ridiculous! All of this happening within three hours. It's intense.

Look for it this coming week.

Brad Bennett, editor of the SoFla Times, asked if I can possibly get Mitch Kaplan to pose for a picture at the bookstore. Told them he might decline. But I called anyway and Kaplan was not digging the idea because of these plans are still in the beginning stages.

Bennett didn't seem to mind too much. There ya go, though. That's the Afro-In Books and Cafe story. My first story for the Liberty City Link and the South Florida Times.

-ryan

afro-in books and cafe

Well it looks like the Liberty City Link is going under way and I've been given an assignment.

After doing some very light research on the area, I found some notice of there being a book store in Liberty City. There being a book store in this area is already a good story idea, and the fact that it's primarily an African-American/Carribean bookstore made it even better.

So on the way to school, I took the time drive by the address. It took a while to find it since it's sort of hidden on NW 7th Ave, or the 7th Ave corridor. I finally found it and it looked pretty decrepit. But a lot of the business establishments in the area looked pretty run-down as well, so I didn't really think anything of it. There was a gate around the store and a sign that said "No Trespassing". Odd. Didn't look like anyone was inside and there weren't any cars parked on the front or rear. This was pretty strange.

Though, I neglected to look at the store hours on the side of the store. I drove to the store on a Monday, and it's closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Well that day we had to submit some budget lines for the first run of the newspaper. As Professor Reisner looked at the budget lines on the screen, he seemed to really like the idea of running a story about the book store. We decided to go with an angle that showcased this bookstore as the only bookstore in the area. It already sounded appealing.

Well I kind of slacked on the story until Professor Reisner asked how it was progressing. I told him I was going to visit the store after class since I'd be going during hours of operation. He didn't seem to happy. He asked me if I had the place's phone number and I didn't. But I got the number and got the motivation to do some really heavy research using FIU's library resources.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been learning a crapload about the library's news databases and it's become really helpful. I looked up any articles I could find in the Herald about the place so I could get a real sense of its history. I guess I missed the Miami Times article that said it closed down 5-6 months ago. Before driving to the place, I called the phone number and it said it was disconnected.I had to physically drive there to find the place wasn't open during its business hours. Found that kind of weird, but I asked a local about the place and he said that there are usually people walking in-and-out all day. All of this was odd to me. I decided to call Professor Reisner since, y'know, he is my editor. He told me to try to get in contact with the managers. I already jotted down his office number (he works with the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board), so I got into my office at the radio station and give them a call. It was like 6 p.m. so I knew I'd get a voicemail. So I left a message.

continuation

I still haven't even scratched the surface on what reporting is going to be like. Before this class, I had done some extremely light reporting for my News Workshop class. I had covered a comic book panel at the Miami International Book Fair, and I had reported on a story about Laptop musicians at FIU. Just some light interviewing and research-- nothing epic.

Now I'm in Reporting and we're coming up with story ideas. Reisner gives us sort of a rundown of how he'd perform these reports. He would check this and that, go to political officers and what-not. If I was to report on something, I'd probably just write a really superficial look at the story and subject. I feel like I just need to tap into that mindset. I am a student, though, and I'm obviously in this class to learn it.

And this project is just really skyrocketing. The South Florida Times is picking us up! They're gonna be hosting a web page for our paper, and devoting an entire page of their newspaper to the Liberty City Link. Hopefully this thing skyrockets more, right?

I'm taking a conscious/necessary effort to learn more about the Miami political system. First, by seeing who our city commisioners are. The only commisioner I knew of was Michelle Spence-Jones, who is in charge of District 5, which covers Liberty City. She's had a pretty rough year, y'know , with the whole corruption thing. She was suspended and now Rev. Richard Dunn is the new commissioner. Liberty City kinda reminds me of the fictional city in the Batman comics Gotham City. Just a lot of violence and corruption going on. Looking at the city that way makes it less scary for me.

liberty city

I had Professor Reisner last semester for Print News Workshop, which I can confidently say was the hardest class I've ever taken, partially because of Reisner's tough teaching style. He was harsh and honest, and I really wasn't used to this kind of verbal/playful abuse. I'm not trying to make him out to seem like a bad person. He really is just trying to psyche us out for how editors will be when we get out to the real world.

Towards the end of the course, he told us about his Print News Reporting class in the Spring semester. He said it was going to be this 'experimental' curriculum where we would create an online newspaper and cover a neighborhood that's not covered often: Liberty City. Right off the bat, I was excited. I was planning on taking a Reporting class with another professor, who was more tame and approachable. But this sounded pretty rad, and ten times more cool than what I would've been doing in the other professor's class. Sign me in.

I was excited, at first, because it was months away before I would be able to report from the city. At the time, it was just an idea on paper, and ideas always sounds good on paper. Well, winter break passes by and there I am, in the same classroom from Print News Workshop. Though, this time I chose a different seat, as to not rehash memories from the prior semester. Seriously, man, I never looked forward to Print News Workshop. But Reporting was a different beast in itself. First off, this class and its curriculum is Reisner's baby, so he's way more passionate about this class than he is with the Workshop class. Second off, Reisner knows most of the students in the class, and we know him, so we all understand each other and we're not being scared.

Usually, Reisner starts his classes with a long, long speech about his past and what he's done. He says the same jokes and stories from the semester prior so I'm kinda just in my own world. But then he starts talking about Liberty City and I'm all ears. This online newspaper could get huge. We could get press and a lot of awards. Most of all, we'll have clips of our stories published. This is great.

A few weeks later, a couple of students and I meet at the Martin Luther King Parade in Martin Luther King Park located on the West edge of Liberty City. I'm stoked, but nervous. Though, everyone seems to be nice and minding their own business. I'm feeling comfortable. There's also a huge group of police officers stationed around the park and the parade route. I'm more excited about food, honestly. I'm a huge food connoisseur so eating some deep-fried food was my goal. Other goals: phone numbers, sources, etc.

We met some interesting people. Some women from the NAACP, two young volunteers working the Children's Trust table (one of them is an art teacher who works at Poinciana Park Elementary in Liberty City... got his number), some church leaders, and some regular people. Everyone is nice, but I think it was because it's a holiday. I'm certainly not negative during Christmas.

We saw the parade and it was good. Parades aren't really my thing, but this one was interesting. Lot of cops. Found that pretty interesting as well. After the parade, we went and ate food. I ate some fried tilapia and fries. PERECT.

The next day, we all agreed to meet at this family-owned/white-owned restaurant called Jumbo's on NW 7th Ave by 71 St. I drove to the place by myself and parked. I immediately noticed across the street, a group of Black men just hanging around. They seemed pretty bored, and in my mind, I thought they'd find my car pretty interesting. But I held it in and walked inside the place. Saw my classmates and sat down. I was immediately introduced to the owner Bobby, who is white. Very nice guy who prides himself on the history of his life and especially the restaurant.

Shortly, everyone had arrived and we were going to be introduced to a couple of "community leaders". Ken Knight, the main person talking, is a lobbyist and, really, a jack-of-all-trades. He does everything. He's a maintenance guy and deals in construction. Though, what was strange about him is how often he, and the others, would toot their own horns. Ken Knight pulled out a copy of the South Florida Times with him on the cover. Shameless self-promotion, I'd say.

There was Dr. Fisher of the Joint Coalition and Dr. Preston Marshall, Chaplain of the Democratic Party and uh one of the few people to motivate Barack Obama to run for presidency? I don't know about that. There was also Marshall Davis of the African Heritage Cultural Center. Davis seemed like the most legitimate of the bunch, and that's because he was younger. All of these men were old old old. Preston Marshall was close to falling asleep. I guess they can be "community leaders" but I feel we won't be arriving to the core issues with them. With the exception of Davis. Dr. Fisher wanted us to put up a press release for his Study Abroad program that needs funding. These guys really wanted us to help them, rather than them helping us, which would ultimately help them? I don't know.

I was kind of disappointed with the trip to Jumbo's. Though, my catfish nuggets were AMAZING.

About a week later, I'm assigned to cover the Youth beat in our online newspaper. I'm driving around Liberty City and I'm seriously scared of it. I don't know a damn thing about reporting or this area. It's a brand new world to me and I don't know if they'd particularly like me. Maybe I don't need to be liked?

Hopefully I become more confident.