What You Can't Learn From Journalism 101

In the last week I have learned the names of most of the 200 riders of the Tour de France. I have learned more about the art and rules of cycling than I ever thought I could understand or retain. I have even learned to keep my eyes peeled for the yellow jersey of overall leader Lance Armstrong with an excitement verging on fanaticism.

But the lessons I will take from covering the Tour de France for the Los Angeles Times go much deeper than names or winners to touch my own philosophy of life--and of journalism.

In this last week I have gone--I am fairly sure--where few Harvard students have gone before--amid the tiny villages (some of which seem not even to have names), the winding one-lane roads and the vast green expanses of the Pyrenees in southwestern France.

One lone 19-year-old complete with pearls, high heels and a computer wandering deserted dirt roads, goading taxis to speed beyond the traditionally-slow pace of the region to catch cyclists for a quick word before they pedal off and striding purposefully into small, French bars full of old, burly men drunk on the dark red wine of the region to demand the name of the closest hotel.

This I realized, after a day of wondering what I was doing out here in the middle of nowhere, is real world journalism at its best--the kind rarely practiced anymore since the advent of television and internet services. A journalist, my editor is fond of saying, must be skilled in becoming an instant expert at anything and everything and then passing on the knowledge to the public--all for tomorrow's paper.

Through constant immersion, and for better or worse, I am becoming an expert on the Tour and the country it blazes through. I am living as the locals live and covering the same terrain as the cyclists (although, I must admit, in relative comfort in comparison to their journeys of sweat and strain). In this way, reporting is like acting; I must study and then acquire, for a time, the identity of my sources.

The new outlook it brings to every day is what I love about reporting--the long conversations with natives about their impressions of the Tour, the importance of stopping to notice every detail and, of course, the challenge of searching high and low for the unique story, the unique angle.

Last night, for example, I and a bunch of other journalists stayed late into the evening at the press center in the town of Pau carefully crafting our stories about the allegations of drug use against Armstrong--unfounded, it seems. I had to be in Bordeaux--a city three hours away--by morning, so I filed my story about 10, packed quickly and took a taxi to Bordeaux. By 2 a.m. the taxi driver and I were engaged in a fascinating discussion about drugs and the effect they have had on cycling.

It's been exciting, but it's also been a struggle. L.A., 6,000 miles away, cannot book hotels or flash its name to make interviews and interviewees snap into place. Here, the Harvard name means nothing and the Los Angeles Times is a little-known entity. My numerous brochures about the history and itinerary of the Tour are more of a hindrance with the pounds they add to my already weighty load than a help in writing my articles.

My experience, no matter how difficult, has brought home to me one of the cardinal rules of journalism--perhaps, not surprisingly, the only one I did not learn at The Crimson: the art of reliance and admitting ignorance. I say art because it takes practice to swallow your pride--something none of us Harvardians are too adept at--and to ask for help from a total stranger. But it is in these moments of helplessness that I have gained incredible insight into the Tour and its people.

Little-by-little, as I unloaded the pressure of Paris and took the time to observe the beauty around me here, I opened up to the locals--and they opened up to me. Their low-pitched, gravely pronunciation, in sharp contrast to my Parisian accent with a hint of a Belgian twang, began to sound less foreign. And they taught me the magic of the Tour--an event the size of a small village that thunders through their region each year leaving crowds of fans, discarded tents and straggling journalists in its wake.

Jenny E. Heller '01 is a philosophy and French concentrator in Lowell House. She is working for the Los Angeles Times in Paris this summer and wrote this postcard riding in a taxi along the edge of a cliff in the Pyrenees.