Ethics basics

I find myself having this conversation repeatedly these days, especially with newer correspondents, so here is a quick review of what you can and cannot do as a Latin Trade correspondent.

Remember, I am absolutely unconcerned about your ability to be ethical. If I doubted that, you wouldn't be writing for us in the first place. More so, the problem is the appearance of conflict, which in the minds of our sources and readers is essentially the same thing. If you do things or say things that can be miscontrued or misunderstood, you can bet they will be.

So, here it is:

Gifts: Do not accept anything of value greater than US$10. Avoid accepting anything at all, but there's no reason to return keychains or other worthless corporate trinkets that might come in the mail. If it is valuable and you get it unsolicited, please return it and explain that you cannot accept it. If the company will not take back whatever the item is, please contact me for some advice on how to handle those rare cases.

Meals: In general, avoid meals with sources. Active correspondents end up eating out five times a week on private expense accounts this way, and it is unacceptable. If your source cannot talk to you at any other time because of travel or time issues, accomodate them but try to pay the check. I will reimburse you within reason. I have had sources buy lunch and then expect coverage simply because they paid for a plate of fish. Do not fall for this. One strategy is to meet them in their office at a non-meal time. Or, accept coffee (less than US$10) and, here as well, try to pay the check.

If a major diginitary is visiting and his or her press people say a meal is your only shot at some time with that person, and they manage to pre-pay or quietly deal with the bill, do not make an issue of it. Just keep it to an absolute minimum and thank them kindly with no promises. Remember, the reason they are taking you to lunch is because some hack journalist in-country ate lunch with them last year and wrote a glowing article later. As far as they know, this tactic works. Prove them wrong, politely.

Travel: Latin Trade correspondents and editors do not accept travel junkets of any kind. We are edging slowly into travel writing through various supplements and are experimenting with where to draw the line for those publications (for instance, our Brazil Editor is working on a feature on business class travel, and we're flying him around the region and obviously not paying for the tickets).

For normal Latin Trade issues, however, no free travel. If we want you to go somewhere, we will finance it or we will not. Sometimes, there are weird cases, like trips where the official government plane is the only way in or out. These we will handle on a case-by-case basis and always with advance editorial approval.

Public-relations professionals have told me that they are aghast at how many Latin American journalists show up for their junkets to cover corporate events, attend the first day, then disappear, only to reappear for the flight home five days later sunburned and carrying a suitcase of duty-free stuff. They bring along their wives and husbands as "assistants" and don't write squat about the company that paid for their virtual vacation. Latin Trade will not be joining these folks in this practice.

Public relations work: Do not work part-time for any private institution we might cover. This includes the government. No press release writing, no speech writing, no translation for corporate clients. People who do all kinds of editorial work for whoever pays the most are honorable professionals. They are called copywriters, and not journalists. You should choose which one you are in advance of working for Latin Trade.

If you daughter's pre-school needs you to translate a document for their Web site, no problem. If Big Company SA wants you to work on their newsletter for a weekly fee, clearly not. Any questions, please ask me.

Perspective

We're mostly back after the mess that Hurricane Wilma brought us. Law office downstairs lost some big windows, and many of us are without power at home, but no big issues. A handful of people are dead among the millions in South Florida, mostly from their own stupid doings (although certainly a few are tragic cases, particularly old folks). If you consider how many people die in metro South Florida in a normal week in car accidents and nightclub idiocy, the average deaths-per-day probably dropped during Wilma.

I was listening to the radio the day after, as the wind died down and we all began to check our roofs and such. A woman was talking on the phone to the station, complaining about her supposed losses.

"Well, the wind blew our trampoline into our lake. I wonder who is responsible for getting it out?"

I can't help but think.... Katrina, Hugo, Mitch... Andrew... all of the serious losses of life and property in the last few years, and this woman is a) worried about a trampoline and b) thinks it's the local government's job to fish it out for her.

Misplaced American values, again, as a friend in New York commented.

Our creative director, Bryan Cooper, had an even better one. Seems a bunch of ridiculously rich people managed to close off a section of eastern Miami near Coral Gables, creating a gated enclave right on a beach he used to frequent as a kid growing up here.

So, the gazillionaires, with their gated community, were the first to call the city of Miami after the storm. Trees fell down all around their boxy McMansion homes. No one could get their huge SUVs out. Help us, they cried.

City of Miami: Drop dead, rich guys. You closed off that neighborhood. You gated it. You own it. Cut away your own trees. (Cue laughter)

Seriously, we're fine and back on the job. More soon.

Another job opening

Sales is looking for an executive assistant to our co-VPs of sales. Full time with 401K, health and dental. Must speak English and Portuguese or English and Spanish.

To apply for the sales executive assistant job, send a resume to Maria Gallo with the words LT job in the subject line.

Jobs opening at Latin Trade

Sorry, no editorial positions. However, we are in need of resumes and such for the following slots here in Miami.

New Business Director -- someone to run our roundtables program, should be bilingual or trilingual and willing to travel extensively

Events Sales -- similar qualifications with sales background, works parallel with coordinator

To apply for the events coordinator or sales job, send a resume to Mike Zellner with the words LT job in the subject line.

Copywriter -- entry level position handling advertorials, promotional materials, marketing writing and communications on the ad side only (this person will NOT be working for the magazine's editorial side). Should be bilingual or trilingual

To apply for the copywriter job, send a resume to Maria Gallo with the words LT job in the subject line.

Money, money everywhere

The L.A. Times is hot on the trail of U.S. investors snapping up real estate in nearby Baja California, Mexico. It's a good story, one we reported in detail from Central America in the July issue. From Nicaragua, Ricardo Castillo gave us an excellent analysis of the trend, certainly being repeated across the region as boomers retire and U.S. dollars buy beachfront in suddenly stable Latin American paradises.

October is out!

It's our big forecast issue, and this time around we focused on sectors rather than major economies for the feature well.

How do you write about the future? Well, as our able correspondents show, it's a matter of talking to the industrial sources, rather than talking heads and pundits. Daniel Joelson does this well in his take on the IT sector, as does Brazil Correspondent Margarida Pfeifer, on auto production. Departed intern Alex Ragir does the same with telecom. Cut through the PR, put people on the record, file your story. That's journalism.

Spanish Editor Andrés F. Velázquez has a very nice piece on downtown Quito's rebirth. It's sometimes hard to come up with good travel story ideas, but this one nails it: A destination, a business angle and good sourcing too.

Marisol Rueda, our Mexico Correspondent, comes up aces again with a short piece on what's happening to all that remittance money heading south from USA. She landed another nice one in her reporting on the rise of industrial parks in Mexico. Turns out it's not just low interest rates and trade, our initial assumption, but foreign governments with cash to invest. Anyone who says Asia's rise is all bad news for Latin America just doesn't understand global economics.

Finally, Brazil Editor Carlos Adese pulled together on a recent trip south what is perhaps the best story of its kind: a real, palpable trend item. Volkswagen in Brazil figured its operations there were so unique, and so functional, that the best move is to export the concept, lock, stock and barrel, to the rest of the emerging world. Excellent, behind-the-scenes stuff you just won't find anywhere else.

Free the Web!

Freeee? Did you say FREEEEEE?

If they can do it SF, they can do it anywhere. As usual, digital inclusion plans fomented by government and big companies (mostly, telcos) are about eight steps behind the technology.

To recap: Anybody is a journalist, and no one controls the printing presses. We have entered a decidely new blip on the geologic time scale.

"Established Internet service providers will be watching the development of San Francisco's municipal wireless broadband network with great interest and no small bit of trepidation, now that Google has offered to take on the project at no cost to the city. On Friday, the company submitted a proposal for a mesh network that would blanket the city with some 1,000 wireless access points. That's about 30 access points per square mile, a density that would ensure all areas of the city -- a topographical nightmare for WiFi architects because of its many hills and valleys -- would receive a good signal. The network would support speeds of about 300 kilobits per second. That's slower than broadband, but significantly faster than dial-up -- and a hell of a deal when it's offered at no cost to consumers used to paying their phone companies and cable operators upwards of $40 a month for Internet service. That's a worrisome proposition for telcos, who have been demonstrating their distaste for municipal Internet services like the one Google proposes for some time now." (GMSV)