On any given day Laura Greenback '05 is crisscrossing Howard County with a reporter's notebook and a nose for news. The 2004 Elm editor is living the writing life as a county reporter for the newly launched Baltimore Examiner.
Until recently, Baltimore was a one-newspaper town. Since April 2006, the citizens of the metro area have been getting a second opinion via The Examiner, sister paper to The San Francisco and Washington Examiners, and bane to Baltimore's 169-year-old Sun.
"It's fun to compete with The Sun," says Greenback. "I've beaten them on a couple of stories," she says with no undue pride.
Although she dallied in countywide journalism working one summer at The Kent County News, Greenback's first forays after graduation were decidedly non-journalistic. She lived "the fun and aimless" life as a store artist creating the chalk drawings for Whole Foods, coaching high school volleyball, waitressing and moving to Chicago then moving back to Baltimore six months later. Then an amazing opportunity knocked.
"I heard through former Elm sports editor Kevin Conner that The Washington Examiner was starting up a Baltimore paper," she relates. "I interviewed one day in February. The day after, they hired me."
She spent the month of March preparing stories, establishing contacts and getting ready for the April launch of the paper. Now, from an office overlooking Baltimore Harbor, Greenback works 60-hour weeks, writing 10 to 15 stories per week covering Howard County politics, development, courts and other assignments.
The formula for The Examiner is shorter, compact reporting. "First, I had to learn how to cut my articles down from 600 words to 300 words," which challenges a reporter's sensitivity to balance, fairness, nuance, angles and background. "Usually, we source three people to try to get balance in a story, but to make it powerful I often have to find one person that an issue really affects to build the story around."
She adds: "Given our shorter format, you can't always tell the background, but you can do a lot of follow-up."
At the end of a busy week, Greenback finds satisfaction in the public service role of journalism, bringing issues to the fore so that citizens are better informed and engaged in their communities, and in the constant "learning on the job" that is the nature of career journalism. But one more thing really motivates this writer. "I have to admit, I just love seeing my name and my work in print."
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