Drive for details leads to colorful
New York Times internship

By Faith Karimi
Copy Editor
The Times, Shreveport, La.

Posted: Aug. 1, 2003

NAIROBI -- I lifted my hand to knock on the door of the East Africa bureau of The New York Times.

How did I feel? Shaky. Intimidated. Unsure.

After eight months of exchanging e-mails, I was meeting bureau chief Marc Lacey, who has written the kind of stories about the region that makes me call my friends and say, “Did you see this?”

Lacey opened the door.

“Hi. I’m Faith Karimi ... uh ...”

There were stacks of Times in the office. At that moment, I knew it was going to be a great experience. Here I was, getting a chance any journalist would envy -- learning hands on what makes The Times such a great newspaper. And doing so while covering one of the most historic moments in Africa, the Kenya elections.

I was Lacey's reporting intern.

I was ready to do anything that would make me grow as a journalist. I drew the line at making coffee, though. I had heard horror stories about interns who spend their entire internships making coffee. I told Lacey I wasn't going to be one of those interns.

As it turned out, I would have no time to drink coffee, let alone make it.

Lacey was a tough customer. I had to be observant, paying attention to detail. (Thank God for my copy-editing experience). This bureau chief does not just write a story. He treats a story like a painting that has color, depth and texture.

In his stories, you see details -- the British accent of his subject, the braids of a 7-year-old.

The unspoken understanding between us: No way was he going to let a dull, colorless story come from his coverage area.

For a profile, we found that the incoming president’s favorite sport was golf.

Every other newspaper stopped there. Lacey did not. We went to the spots where the president played golf to find out his handicap.

When it comes to using quotes, Lacey does not believe that everything one utters is quotable. A quote is used only when someone says something better than you could have said it, Lacey says. To get a good quote, he says, you must be patient, sometimes for hours without tuning out the subject, because you never know when your subject will say something worthy of quoting.

I remembered all those times I had quoted people just because they had said something. I groaned at the thought.

As the cliché goes, the rest is history. The internship in December 2002 and January 2003 went by fast. I arrived for work about 9 a.m. and barely had time to set down my bag before I started running, literally. I attended so many campaigns that I started speaking in campaign lingo.

I learned how to sprint after election candidates and to tap on their helicopter windows to get a quote -- yes, a good one. I learned that the best time to talk to street children about what they expected from the new government was at night when they were not running from the police.

I learned how to stop people on the streets and tell them they look like the president’s doctor, and, by the way, how is the president doing? (As it turned out, the guy I stopped was the president’s doctor. I got his cell phone number, an update on the president and a speech on the value of an education.).

The highlight of my internship was Election Day, when Lacey and I went to Kibera, a sprawling slum in Kenya that has a history of being the most controversial polling station. Violence broke out after three people were accused of rigging elections. We were interviewing an unruly crowd when police arrived. The crowd threw rocks and burned the suspects’ car, and the police fired live rounds and tear gas.

Unfortunately, we were caught up with the crowd. After a stampede that sent me crashing into a ditch, we came up with our press passes held above our heads. The police pulled us to their side, where we had to duck every few seconds to dodge rocks. Despite bruises and tear-gas stung eyes, we were able to write the story.

I loved every minute of it. I loved the traveling, the near-death experiences, the press conferences, the listening to people’s stories. Most of all, I loved the learning, the growing as a journalist and the thrill I felt every time I introduced myself at press conferences as a Times reporter. I still find myself saying it over and over again -- “This is Faith Karimi from The New York Times.”

Faith Karimi was a Spring 2001 Scholar at The News-Star in Monroe, La. Reach her at kafa96002@yahoo.com

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