Senior Column: The Hardy Boy of Spec

The first article I was assigned to write for Spectator nearly drove me away from the paper. I was charged with discovering why what is now Barnard’s Diana Center—then called the Nexus—had fallen behind its construction schedule. For a full week, I loitered outside the construction site in my free time, peering into the small opening in the makeshift gate in some vain effort to flag down construction workers for the “scoop on the street.”

The strategy copied The Hardy Boys: amid the clunkers and the clatters, survey the workers for insider information that might later draw truths from high-profile Barnard administrators. The outcome copied the Pink Panther, with days of possible ear damage, calls to a friend complaining about how I hated Spectator, and robotic responses from workers that I should “speak to a manager.” Concisely—zilch.

As I look back on my four years at Spectator it astounds me to consider all of the lessons I would not have learned, the professors, neighborhood residents, city council members, editors, and photographers I would not have met, and the quirks I would not have adopted had I just dropped out then and joined Bwog.

I would likely not know the value of acting fast to retain cell phone numbers in my contacts list at the close of a conversation, or place among my list of secret fantasies the opportunity to interview back-to-back the Manhattan Borough president, a famous Harlem pastor, and a US House representative—a dream that realized when I attended an event in 2008. I would likely not be able to whip meager quotes into a story at 7 p.m. through a combination of nagging the right people and careful contextualizing.

But most vitally, Spectator taught me to not underestimate the richness of the environment around me as a place where relevant stories could be born. Turning tips into full-fledged stories or apparent non-issues into real, important issues—as at the Barnard construction site—implied the fearsome consequence of being ignored or even reproached by sources who wanted everything but to speak to Spectator.

I agree that reporters may create more news than they record. Yet at Spectator, I found that fascinating narratives emerged through slow, self-assured probing of uncertain intuitions, and through interview after interview that expanded upon accumulating piles of once-scanty information.

Don’t get me wrong. Patient fact-finding did not always work in Spectator’s favor. In fact, at times it ended in harsh reproof: a message from a professor that my question made him laugh out loud, sharp accusations of prejudice, and cries by local residents of unsupported coverage. When sitting down with a professor to discuss a heated issue, such as the debate on Palestinian academic freedoms that shook the faculty two years ago or the never-formed African studies institute, I felt like I was the one being interrogated. Where was I going with my inquiries? Who was “some people”? Could my background challenge my ability to objectively cover a topic?

The hours of question-writing, Googling, and transcribing that I devoted while writing long-form analysis pieces for Spectator led me to shed my naturally timid inhibitions to aggressively investigate problems. Finally confident that I could balance cautious restraint with calculated risk-taking to compose a controversial, interesting, and important article, I did not let my fears prevent me from developing the underdeveloped story.

In the best circumstances, my editors’ prodding reaped products unattainable with a less daring temperament. Our investigations unmasked a landscape of issues that had brewed for years but never crystallized, like the creeping movement to overhaul a nucleus of the Columbia bureaucracy or the trends leading to the opening of Columbia’s global centers.

The truth was that I always knew that there were stories to be unearthed around me. But I failed to realize that I had it in me to confront the dual prospect of breaking news or wasted hours of reporting.

Had I known this while contemplating trespassing on the Barnard construction site four years ago, I might have been able to pull off The Hardy Boys solution. But the process of arriving there—through the cell phone number storing, the nagging, and the realizing of my fantasies—made for half the fun.

The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in Hispanic Studies with concentrations in philosophy and linguistics. He is a former Spectator copy staffer, associate news editor, senior staff writer, and training editor.