Translating project work

CIP, the Latin Trade-published magazine of the OAS ports commission, needs an Spanish to English translator for the upcoming edition.

Interested? Contact Latin Trade Publisher Mike Zellner.

Small world

Went to the World Economic Forum in Sao Paulo last week. Generally, these things are snooze, and I didn't go to Brazil just for this. I was in town for an unrelated Latin Trade presentation and simply couldn't get a flight back before Friday that made economic sense. So, off to the WEF I went, talked my way into a press pass and mingled.

Brazilian President Lula gave a surprise speech, which was enlightening in its own way. More interesting still, up on the dias sat Luis Alberto Moreno, new head of the IDB, as well as Luiz Fernando Furlan, Brazil's economic minister, and Jorge Johannpeter Gerdau, president of Gerdau steel.

What do all these people have in common? Why, they have all been exclusively interviewed in Latin Trade in recent months!

Ethics, redux

If it wasn't patently clear by now, here's why we don't take corporate junkets here at Latin Trade. I don't want to be in Mr. Rubenstein's shoes, saying absurd stuff like "Latin Trade staffers do not let free stuff determine coverage." Unbelievable, and I'm sure even he doesn't buy this line.

Lavish gifts are routinely bestowed on Page Six staffers

New York Daily News
One example: New York Post Page Six editor Richard Johnson received a free trip to the Academy Awards last month, paid for by ABC and Mercedes-Benz. He got first-class airfare, a three-night stay at the Four Seasons Hotel and a car and driver. Post spokesman Howard Rubenstein says: "Richard will not let his coverage be determined by anything he may have received for free, or any other benefits." (from Romenesko)

April is out!

The test of any magazine is not usually timeliness (otherwise, good lord, why read it?) or even relevance (ditto) but the evenness of the publication cover-to-cover. April, in that sense, was amazing. I know most of you, particularly the correspondents, focus on your own story once it is in print and perhaps leaf through the rest, like any reader would. Sit in my seat for a year or so, and you see it differently. The whole thing matters, and it hurts when even a small item is less than it could have been.

No such problem in April. Mexico Correspondent Marisol Rueda and Brazil Correspondent Margarida Pfeifer ran their legs off doing our Hot 50 run on small and medium-sized companies. Pfeifer was simultaneously pulling together an excellent Brazil outlook, full of top sources, a pleasure to edit and see in layout, and filing on drug giant Eli Lilly in Brazil. (Rueda was busy as hell, too, but on a May issue monster, more on that later.)

Usually, if the feature well is strong -- and sometimes that does not happen -- then we are okay. But Rueda and Luciano Somenzari tackled the arrival of search giant Google, while longtime Latin Trader Mery Galanternick hit the phenonenon that is Orkut in Brazil. Darcy Crowe in Bogota filed a nice, strong story on Colombian pharmacies facing a consolidation. Rueda filed a tourism hit from Margarita Island off the Venezuelan coast (she is everywhere!), while News Editor Forrest Jones turned an ad in the back of airline magazine into a surprising, fresh piece on how gazillionaires do time-share.

So far so good, we could probably have published whatever else we had and moved on, but no, Spanish Editor Andrés F. Velázuez filed twice in Radar, on video ads on buses and a Q&A with the new head of the IDB. He also wrote a great read on a Colombian software collective and its more-than-a-little charismatic leader.

Mike Ceaser chimed in on the surprising economics of small coca farming. Rueda returned with coverage of the impending Panama Canal project, while Juan Pedro Tomas hit the recovery of Argentine shipyards.

Creative Director Bryan Cooper came up with an excellent cover, and I know it seems easy, a picture of a matchhead, but it is not (click here, scroll up). The feature layouts and design were strong. The research was interesting and very supportive of the stories, thanks to Research Director Gabriela Calderon. Every story was complete and a good read, and it was like the magazine came to life in your hands. Thanks, everyone, for making that happen.

March is out!

Workaday, workaday. I can understand why some folks might not want to cover ports and railroads, but if you dig just a little, you find good, solid stories worth writing. María Elena Verdezoto in Quito did exactly that, explaining why the Port of Manta wants to dig down and make the port deeper. This is good solid journalism, and the sources can be easy-going and thankful a journalist is paying attention. We need more of it.

Sometimes the story is right in front of you. Brazil Editor Carlos Adese saw a few companies talking about leaving as an indicator of something big: business costs in Miami are rising fast. I get a lot of story pitches from people who want to cover the gigantic company or the huge person. That is fine, but we also need to think like our readers: Are costs rising? Should I open an office? Where? Always welcome information.

Is your phone becoming a TV? Is you cable company trying to sell you long-distance? A prickly, meaningless word, convergence, comes to life in this story by Spanish Editor Andrés F. Velázquez. I am in Brazil at the moment and this is no U.S. phenomenon, as his story shows: TV is full of ads touting the idea, and you can bet people will start telling either their phone company or their cable company bye-bye in exchange for a lower monthly bill.

Back to how to see the story for the trees. News Editor Forrest Jones could have written our March cover story about American, or Continental, or TAM. He could have called up a bunch of airline analysts and asked if the business will recover, or not. (Yawn.) Instead, he dug into exactly how the carriers are getting by in a time of crazy oil prices and competition from every direction. And it turned out to be ... software. Great stuff.