Labor up Close

By Kelly Carr
Janurary 5, 2009

In David Dagan’s coverage area for the Central Penn Business Journal there was a severe shortage of skilled laborers, but a lot of underemployed residents. Plenty of companies had good jobs in trades like welding, nursing and carpentry, and still were unable to fill open slots. While unemployment in the area remained relatively low, despite the troubled economy, many workers’ careers stopped at low-level jobs.

Businesses were beginning to think about the issue, special panels studied the problem and experts were consulted. The consensus: there indeed was a problem and something had to be done. But the work didn’t seem to involve the voices of those living this nightmare scenario, that is, until Dagan stepped in.

Dagan’s usual reporting approach was to immerse in research and then move into the streets. But this project was different. The goal was to first find out who the underemployed were and then understand why they weren’t progressing into skilled jobs. Dagan went into the heart of the neighborhoods of those who were most affected and searched for the heart of the story.

The result was a series, which included both print stories and videos, called “The Invisible Workforce.” Dagan’s work brought readers into a section of Pennsylvania’s underemployed, into the lives of workers struggling to make ends meet in spots like Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lebanon and York. The project not only identified the problem, but attempted to offer solutions for how to move more workers up the pipeline. In the end, the reporting also brought in national experts to check Dagan’s thesis.

The project took Dagan to the frontlines. And that’s where he met Kenynn Pattillo, a 22-year-old Harrisburg resident struggling to put together a concrete plan. Pattillo let Dagan roam deep inside his reality, into his struggles to hold down a job, troubles with the law and through the minor details that became overwhelming. In the end, Dagan’s narrative on Pattillo allowed readers to grasp some of the underlying reasons why their fellow residents weren’t advancing.

“The point we wanted to make to businesses is if you want to tap these workers, if you are serious, it’s going to take big time legwork and you have to get up close and personal with these people,” Dagan said. “If you want to get serious, you have to have plenty of patience and plenty of time to understand them and know their problems.”

To capture the details of Pattillo’s life, Dagan spent time simply hanging out with him.  They ate at McDonalds and threw around a baseball, any activity that would allow Pattillo to relax and Dagan to learn. This world, Pattillo’s world, was a place where a home could be a vehicle, where many struggled to get on the Internet and did not have consistent access to a telephone. After their meetings, Dagan would run back to his car and scribble into his notebook, each piece building part of a story that told the bigger-picture problem.

“His (Patillo) story tells about the lives that you don’t often get to meet and being overwhelmed by the system goes further than just him,” Dagan said. “A lot of people in this situation, obstacles that seem minor to someone else become overwhelming. You kind of get that feeling that they are right here in our town, but that they might as well be living on another planet. They are completely disconnected with us in many ways.”

Patillo’s story is just one in the series, a project that Dagan chipped away at mostly in the evenings or on the weekends. In a supplement to the series, Dagan offers readers a look into his reporting process through his own “Reporter’s Notebook.” In it, he reminds readers about the people behind the numbers, the residents packed into these neighborhoods whose voices are rarely heard. There he found decay, but also hope.

Overall, the series has a sense of authority. It makes an argument. Dagan admits that sometimes that’s a hard fact to acknowledge as a journalist.“The point it makes is that there is a problem here that is in a sense invisible and there are people who are so disconnected that we can’t really understand them until we get to know them,” Dagan said. “The project is telling the reader that I spent the time to figure this out and now I’m going to tell you what I found.”

For Dagan, the biggest challenge in attacking a project of this scope was to find uninterrupted time. As the reporting continued, he still had to file daily stories to keep up with coverage demands for his paper. But he found a tactic to keep the information fresh. He wrote from the very beginning, as much as he could. After he would complete an interview, he would write it out. After a visit, he jotted down all the details into graphs. Through the notes, the story began to form.

“Take the time then and there to write,” Dagan said. “It’s amazing how much better you write when it’s fresh. Even if you do it a couple days later, sometimes it’s too late.”

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism