By Umar Cheema
Special Correspondent, The News International
Islamabad, Pakistan
Hosted by The New York Times

As I’m heading to the close of my Daniel Pearl Fellowship, a friend asked me: “what do you like the most in the United States?”

First Amendment, I said.

I believe it is the cornerstone of American history, the tale of a country that never looked back after she fought for independence and won. The United States would not have been different from Europe, had her people not been blessed with freedom -- a fundamental requirement for every human being.

Whatever impressed me here, it was linked with the First Amendment.

Whatever depressed me here, it was linked with the Patriot Act.

My fellowship brought me to a new world, a universe full of wonders, a blend of contrasts and contradictions, and last but not least, a land that promises something to promising individuals hailing from whatever part of the globe.

I’m sad and glad for being at The New York Times.

Glad for the reason it was a great privilege working in an institution that’s a dream of every American print journalist, let alone me and you belonging to other countries working for under-resourced media houses. The Times was a magnificent place and I was a happy fellow for being there, among the crowd of nice people -- always willing to offer me help and facilitate in the best possible manner. One reason for being glad is that I was the first Daniel Pearl Fellow who spent time with the Grey Lady, as NYT is called sometimes, for the reasons not exactly known to me. The reasons told to me, were not so convincing to be satisfied.

Sad because NYT did not let me look at its contemporary. I tried in the beginning, though there was nothing like my host paper so I decided to get to its roots instead of scanning other papers. Therefore, the U.S. journalism, for me, is mostly what I observed, learned and discovered from NYT.

During my fellowship stint, 2 Ws (what and why) and 1 H (how), kept haunting my thought process. ‘What’ stands for what I learned, ‘why’ stands for why it’s not being practiced in newsrooms back home and ‘how’ means how it can be introduced in our newsroom.

First of all, the U.S. newsrooms are properly staffed and have plenty of resources -- a reality here and dream in my home country of Pakistan. From the beginning, I found this problem popping into my mind whenever I tried to uncover the reason of our lagging behind. For example, the U.S. newspapers are more concerned about the accuracy of information, especially in domestic reporting, therefore they take a great deal of care with it. Besides reporters, they have fact checkers and researchers to verify facts, and access to all parallel sources of information to tally details (in case of routine reporting, they also go through wire service). In my country, all this is the reporter’s headache and then copy editors -- the most neglected creature who responds to the general apathy by neglecting his actual work.

The First Amendment has blessed American journalists with access to public records. Their Pakistani counterparts don’t have access and sometime they bribe lower staff to obtain some official documents. But that doesn’t mean we should keep sitting cross-legged telling this and that reason to justify lacking of quality work. Although not at a big level, we can make a difference by changing basic techniques. For example, I had a useful learning about interview techniques. I never realized that I was a bad interviewer until I took a Poynter Course “Writers@work” with Chip Scanlan my coach. This was incredible. I want to share with my colleagues this learning. Moreover, “brainstorming on story ideas” would be a useful list of tips to share with my friends at home, coupled with “beat anatomy”. I’ll be holding a workshop, inviting NYT staffers in Pakistan, to share learning with my office colleagues and friends from other media outlets.

Regarding ideas worth sharing with editors, I’d tell them about the investigative reporting and the amount of time and money spent on these projects. As I work for the investigative cluster of The News International, how to keep this business running in a better and effective way should be our foremost concern .

Likewise, some initial work on Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) is worth a try. I’d make efforts to convince my editor that we should set up such a department where we closely monitor the important happenings and keep track of them. Like NYT furnished data on casualties in Iraq War and later published it on 5th anniversary. We can do it for War on Terror operation on Pak-Afghan border, the amount of suicide bombing. Also the political rhetoric needs close monitoring to discourage politicians from changing their statements over a period of time, for political convenience.

Moreover, we need to set up an opinion survey section. It is of vital importance and can help us feel the public pulse after decent intervals. Partly my effort would be to seek help from some association in setting up intranet in the newsroom.

Besides all that I’ve described, the most vital learning is “perspective” and its lack thereof is a bone of contention between “they” and “us”.

My stay here granted me an opportunity to study a system, read people and observe their reaction to different happenings. Such a cultural exchange in the form of interaction at institutional level is worth admiring, following and trying. I’ve to endorse what I read before: “Ignorance creates suspicion and suspicion creates hatred”. Engagement is key to learning and resolution of conflict. I, therefore, would say this fellowship is multipurpose with greater depth. It sows a seed inside you that will grow into a tree and this tree soon becomes deep-rooted, with roots in the east and west.