Reporters on the Job

• Making Connections: Often, the hardest part of reporting a story is finding key people involved. Sara Miller Llana went to Apatzingán, Mexico, armed with the knowledge that the city had the highest number of allegations of human rights violations in the state (see story). "I hoped that the human rights commission could connect me to people who had filed complaints," she says.

Her timing couldn't have been better. The state president of the commission happened to be in the city, but in order to interview him, she had to join his whirlwind visit of the area.

His tour of local hospitals was unrelated to her story, and she was getting worried. "I was starting to think I was never going to get my story done, when the commission called one of the representatives I was with and said, 'Someone just came in to file a complaint.' The timing was really amazing."

Even the hospital tour proved valuable. "It did help me write the story because it gave me a true cross-section of the problems in Apatzingán.

– David Clark Scott

World editor