By Paulo Braga
Deputy Editor, Valor
Sao Paulo, Brazil

It was 11:45 a.m., and Celeste Garrett, the Chicago bureau chief, came to me with a scrap of the day's newspaper. This guy, Clarence Wood, had been appointed the new president of the Hull House Association. He would be talking to the press from noon to 1 o'clock. I realized there was no time to do anything, to get background information on the Internet, to call somebody and ask what the association is about. I left the newsroom and walked to the building where the press conference was to take place, hoping that the other journalists there would do most of the questioning, rescuing me from making a fool of myself in front of other people.

The problem was, when I arrived there, I noticed the press conference was just ME. Explaining it better: in a big, fancy room, sitting around a round table, is Mr. Wood, four of his advisors and two or three more PR people. The thought of running away crossed my mind and, after it was gone, my feeling of solitude went away with the legion of people that symbolically had entered that room with me. I was there for Alfred Friendly, his family, Susan and James, Howard Tyner (Chicago Tribune's editor) and all my colleagues in the fellowship. And, last but not least, I was there for myself.

I started talking to Mr. Wood, an African-American wearing suspenders and a nice suit, trying to delay as much as possible the time when I had to ask him more substantive question. He seemed like a big man to me, and I am sure this feeling had to do with my state of mind. Months later, when I saw him at another event I went to cover, he seemed just like a normal-sized guy. I decided to be humble and explain to him that I was new in town and wanted to know about his organization. He started talking, but, real or not, at a certain point I guessed he was wondering how the Tribune could send to his office a guy who doesn't know anything about him? Occasionally, some advisors got into the conversation, and I remember perceiving a lady's tense voice as a sign that she was worried I would mess up. But I'm glad to say I didn't. The story came out the next day, and the PR people even called me to say it was nice, and thanked me. Celeste complimented me for the "nice angle" I found.

My story is to try to show that being a Friendly Fellow requires a very delicate blend of attitude between being humble and aggressive, and trying to mix those two qualities was my biggest challenge during the fellowship. We have to arrive at our newsrooms with an open mind, as our main purpose is to learn as much as we can. But we are not human black holes sucking information. We have our culture and values, prejudices and own work methods, that may clash with the situations that we find ahead of us. And, there's no use denying it, we are special, for all the good and bad aspects that come with belonging to that category.

I felt special because people treated me with special care and privileges. First of all, I had a desk of my own, while the reporters hired on the Tribune's one-year program—some of them experienced journalists about my age—have to look for a vacant desk everyday. The Fellow has the luxury of working at his or her own pace, while the one-years have the pressures of tight deadlines, the editors going after them and almost grabbing their necks when they are working on an important story. It's weird to say it, but the special treatment can also become one of the downsides of the fellowship experience. To use a word made very popular during the presidential campaign, there is almost no accountability, unless you really manage to uncover a story that your editors think deserves big attention or, on the other hand, you mess up big time.

Neither one of those situations happened to me, I'm sorry and happy to say. But should I, then, consider my experience in the U.S. a rather irrelevant episode that is going to pass unnoticed? The answer is no. It is a resounding NO, if not for anything else, because of me. I am absolutely sure that I will emerge from it as a more complete professional and human being. The story I talked about above was less than ten inches long. It ran at the bottom of the page with no picture. By now, probably nobody remembers it. But I will never forget it.