Yes indeed, it's the latest SAJA Week in Bylines, Volume 4, featuring the work of Jyoti Thottam, Mohamad Bazi, Raju Chebium, Anusha Shrivastava, Raghavan Mayur and others. Okay, so we hibernated for a few weeks there but notice how these bylines have that special Spring Scent, like a warm towel straight out of a long-lost dryer. To see previous editions of the Byline Roundup, click here. Have a byline for us? Send it to arunvenu[at]gmail.com, and as always, many thanks to Rupa Dev for finding bylines.
This week, we're highlighting the recent work of former SAJA President Jyoti Thottam, a senior editor with Time magazine who mostly deals with business coverage and globalization. In 2004, she wrote the cover story on offshore outsourcing.
For the April 9 issue, she oversaw Time's 44-page special issue on climate change: "The Global Warming Survival Guide: 51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference"
We asked Jyoti a couple questions...
Tell us what's it like to put together an enormous package like this?
It started, even before I was involved, with a long list of ideas for possible stories on global warming put together by Time's science reporters and writers. I started work on this in mid-February, figuring out the bones of the package: four basic pieces - Jeff Kluger's lead story on mitigation (What Now?), the section on global warming innovators, 51 Things We Can Do, and Mark Hertsgaard's story on adaptation.
To get the reporting going, particularly for the 51 Things section, I asked our reporters and correspondents all over the world to contribute ideas and reporting. In the meantime, I worked closely with our art and photo staff to come up with the look of the package, and consulted with Time.com to figure out how to produce the package for the Web. There were nearly 30 people involved altogether, all of whom were working on stories for the weekly magazine at the same time. The stories started coming in in early March, and we closed the 44 pages in three stages over the course of two very busy weeks. This was also the first special issue to be part of the redesigned Time, so that added another set of challenges. The whole thing was finished on March 26.
There are a lot of people who wonder where Time is headed and how it's evolving. In light of a major package like this, what do you think Time does best?
Without question, the biggest asset that Time has is its brilliant reporters and writers. Every part of the global warming package, even the short 100-word items, is dense with information, and that's a reflection of the expertise of the people who worked on it.
Time has a global point of view. When we figuring out what to say about biofuels, for example, or carbon sequestration, we had the benefit of reporters in the U.S., Europe and Asia who had all researched the topic, so the finished pieces tell the reader everything that's going on in those fields, not just what's happening the U.S.
I also think that Time is able to present information graphically in a way that few other publications can. For example, the global warming package featured a graphic on a plan to protect New Orleans from rising sea levels.
[We should also mention that Jyoti was recently promoted. Here's part of the memo from Time managing editor Richard Stengel - March 28, 2007:
Jyoti Thottam becomes a Senior Editor. Jyoti, who joined TIME in 2002 as a reporter and then writer in the business section, will help edit Global Business and manage projects like this week's excellent cover package. Jyoti also will write features, which in the past have covered a range of topics: monks in Virginia, crooks at Enron, murder victims in Queens. She has proved herself in everything she has undertaken, and is a great addition to the editing team.]
Other SAJA bylines of note:
- Reporting from Lebanon, Newsday’s Mohamad Bazzi writes about the fallout from Iran's release of 15 British sailors: "Bazzi Analysis: Strain remains between Iran and West" (04/08/2007)
- More than five years after 9/11, Gannett's Raju Chebium reports on the struggle to protect the nation’s 15,000 chemical plants: "NJ fights to control chemicals"
- Computerworld’s Jaikumar Vijayan examines the pernicious spread of malware: "Malware for Sale" (04/06/2007)
http://computerworld.com.my/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=4600&pubid=4&issueid=109 - We last interviewed him after he covered the Israel-Lebanon war but now, McClatchy's Shashank Bengali in Iraq, and reports that "U.S outposts face stiff challenges in Baghdad neighborhoods" (04/05/2007)
- A series of 3 editorials by pollster Raghavan Mayur in Investor's Business Daily, chiding the 'media elite':
- Arundhati Parmar reports on the health of state pension funds for Pensions & Investments: "State Pension funded levels improve, but there's still work to be done"
- Anusha Shrivastava of Dow Jones Newswires reports on the evolution of micro-finance: "Microfinance sector looks to Change Perceptions, Educate"
