LATIN TRADE: A quick guide to sections

Radar
Length: 300 words
Focus: Brief stories provide new, exclusive, relevant, original, entertaining, high-impact and well-presented information.

Q & A
Length: 700 words, including 100-word intro.
Focus: Major corporate or public policy makers.

Currents
Length: 800 and 1200 words
Focus: Corporate and sector news. Profiles of policy makers, people in the news, entrepreneurs or fish-out-of-water types (a Uruguayan in Mexico, a Brazilian in China). See What We Need Most to understand more about pitching these general stories.

Features
Length: 2000 words
Focus: As assigned.

Destinations
Length: 800 and 1200 words
Focus: Stories related to the business travel and hospitality as well as airline, cruise and train travel. Also, stories about areas/regions with a unique business heritage in Latin America, not destination/vacation stories.

Rules & Regulations

• Confirmed story assignment will be sent to you in writing.
• Pitch first, story assignment follows. A pitch is a short sample of the what the story will say with a definitive "hook" or story idea, plus a list of prospective interviews. Here's an example:

Gerdau group, Brazil's biggest steelmaker, has expanded abroad. In 2003-04 it bought two Colombian steel mills for US$75 million, giving it a presence in a fifth Latin American country, and four remaining mills of North Star Steel, boosting North American presence. INTERVIEWS: CEO Jorge Gerdau Johanpeter and senior V.P. Carlos Petry; steel consumers like auto parts makers and civil construction; suppliers of raw materials; Brazilian steel product exporters.

• SOURCE MATH: Word count divided by 200 = number of quoted sources, so a 1,000 word assignment needs at minimum five quoted sources, etc.
• If you make an accusation, person/institution must be given opportunity to respond.
• If story focus shifts, editor must be notified in writing.
• If story is time sensitive, you must indicate that to the editor.
• If you are going to miss deadline, you must notify staff in writing. Otherwise, we will assume story is not coming.

Self-Editing: Five Easy Steps

• Is the sub-head easy to write? If not, the story central theme or thesis is probably not very clear. Remember, if you can't figure out what the story is about, the reader will have even less of a clue.
• Do you have photos, charts or other art for the story? If there is nobody to photograph, the story probably lacks a protagonist. Similarly, if you have all building shots, the story is probably a brick.
• How many examples are in the story? There's a stupid journalism rule that says three examples make a trend. Use it.
• Do the numbers confirm the trend? An easy way to remember statistics is to check them with sources. Add up numbers. Do charts total 100%? If you use percentages, provide the base numbers, too, as in "sales rose 45% to US$15 million in a year."
• How many sources are there in the story? If you aren’'t talking to enough people, what do you really know?