The keys to good journalism

The moment I thought "journalism" had died and I missed it came before speaking to a college class.

"Oh no, this isn't a journalism class," the professor told me moments before I stepped into the lecture hall. "This is media communications."

"Not the same thing?" I asked. “I thought I was here to address journalism students.”

"Well, yes," the professor said. "And no. Which is why I invited you."

Confused, I asked for clarification, which she gave: "Journalism is incorporated in all we do; it’s an element in all we teach. But journalism by itself, we don't do that anymore."

And my job here this day?

"Maybe I wasn't clear," the professor said, sounding apologetic. "I was hoping you could explain what journalists like yourself do in your day-to-day routine — tell them how the theory comes into practice."

This sounded simple enough. Problem was, the majority of the 45 students awaiting my sage instruction were seniors about a month away from sporting mortarboards. In my own college time, the “theory” we were supposed to learn came into practice almost immediately after freshman orientation. We all knew going in how to type on IBM Selectrics and use notepads, the professors presumed back then. Thus, their chief task was showing us how make something of the space between our ears, the most valuable news-gathering tool we had.

I doubted that anything I had to say to those 45 students would help them get a foot in a door at that point. Yes, they were savvy with networking and gadgetry. And yes, they probably knew how to knead an idea in as many ways as the prefix "multi" in multimedia allowed. But how much theory can anyone reasonably grasp when their eyes are focused on the space below the exit sign?

The key then, I believed, was offering the students less theory and more practicality. I didn't know how much of the latter their in-class lessons provided. From my experience, the lessons I learned outside class were the ones still rooted in my mind. So, I opted to pass along some of the same tried and tested tips that no text or learned lecturer had awarded me at their age. If even a few students caught a clue, I figured, they'd be better prepared than a lot of their peers.

Among my hard-earned pearls of experience:

Read. Everything — We tend to reach first for whatever we like to read, not what we ought to read. Delving into assorted writing styles expands one’s mind for using words. It’s said that the best way to become a good writer is to first become a good reader, because you have to know and understand how words work before trying to make use of them.

Research. Everything — The habit today is to sift Wikipedia or the first couple of pages of a Google search for key sources, when the truth is that both of those venues are suspect. Wikipedia is vulnerable to prejudiced editing, while Google permits paid placement to influence its search listings. Real research — probing everything from pamphlets to databases and interviewing assorted subjects — takes time and effort, and is perhaps the hardest thing about being a credible journalist. Get comfortable with such sites as PACER and Pipl and Portico, and learn how to conduct advanced searches on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Listen. To everything — Rare is the interview when the subject gets to the point right away. Journalists may have to sit through speeches, musings, even homespun tales before the golden detail they seek rings clear. That’s fine — just listen. Chances are that other important information can be culled from what sources are trying to say.

Develop a strategy — Don’t go blindly into a topic hoping a story will somehow magically appear in completed form on your computer or tablet screen. In advance of pursuing a story idea, figure out how best to go about that pursuit. In other words, have a plan of action before taking the first note or conducting the first interview.

Develop living, breathing sources — The trend toward news aggregation is fine for those happy with merely repeating other people’s ideas. But for the rest of us intent on generating original content, it pays to talk with reliable experts, witnesses and trained observers to discover first-hand information, no matter who they are. And after that, it pays dividends to stay in touch and keep abreast of what they’re doing, find out what they’re seeing. Who knows: these once-used sources could provide insight to other story ideas later.

Ignore titles — Along this line, avoid depending too much on people with big or impressive titles. I struggled mightily in my first weeks of reporting by thinking the titled types possessed all the salient details when it was everyone below them — administrative assistants, clerks, servants, etc. — who had this information. I realized then that executives only make decisions; subordinates are the ones who make those decisions happen, and by extension know where all the signed documents are stashed.

Be skeptical — The saying among my college professors was, “If your grandmother says she loves you, check it out.” The point: Never take others’ word as gospel, for they may have less information than you. Furthermore, there are people out there whose job it is to mislead journalists. Don’t make it easier for them to do their job by trusting what they say.

Be compassionate, to a point — Understand that everyone has an opinion and the interview may be where the subject feels a need to express it. Let people vent, if it puts them at ease, but avoid getting drawn into an agenda.

Talk it over — It helps to talk about your stories with colleagues to get their input, though the solitary nature of freelancing can make that difficult. For journalists going it alone, professional organizations such as Society of Professional Journalists, the Online News Association and the American Copy Editors Society offer venues for discussion, as do the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Freelance Success and Freelancers Union.

What running taught me about writing

(This post first appeared in The Independent Journalist, the freelancing blog of the Society of Professional Journalists.)

Thirty years I ran, in competition and at leisure, for my main source of exercise, pounding pavement and trails, hills and dales, until my body said, "Stop. Sit down. Take it easy now." The pernicious announcement was broadcast through my feet, knees and heels. Nevertheless, I hobbled on until exactly the day 30 years after I started running, then shelved my 278th and apparently final pair of training shoes.

The downside was divorcing myself from a diversion that had become second nature. The upside was finding more time to write, my other favorite thing to do. So I jumped into blogs and social media with the same vigor as running, even finished that first book I always promised myself and started tapping out a second. I didn't give up exercise, just reassigned it on my list of priorities.

Soon, however, I remembered that every leap has a fall, and mine came when the words suddenly didn't. Writer's block, a problem foreign to me until then, choked my confidence, turned sitting at a keyboard into physical agony, and made me wonder whether my decades-long love of words had waned. After all, as the saying goes, too much of a good thing ...

I puzzled over this alarming change. I went on book-reading binges and to coffee-house poetry readings to try shaking my creativity loose. I tried even staring down my computer, hoping for the moment the screen was less blank than the look on my face.

It was during one of these stare-downs that I realized the problem: I hadn't prepared myself properly to write so much.

As with running, writing requires a "training" method of sorts. Just lacing up the shoes and hitting the road without proper preparation invites injury and aggravation for runners; it makes sense then that sitting down to write without a plan can cause comparable aggravation.

So, before you type, think.
Have a plan — Blogs and books, tweets and treatises, they all require distinct writing styles, with the format for one unlikely to fit another. Settle on a style to suit the need. Be true to your voice. But do the research, determine word counts and writing time ... in other words, have a plan before starting to type. Knowing parameters can help keep a project under control and palpitations to a minimum.

Have good equipment — In running, comfort is king. Shoes and togs that satisfy this royal priority reduce injury, frustration and boredom. For writers, comfortable equipment, and a dependably cozy, ergonomically suitable place to lay down ideas address those same issues. The key is to eliminate physical distractions that may hinder the creative process. 

Have a goal or routine — At my peak, I ran 10 to 15 miles daily, regardless of speed, to satisfy my training expectations. As a writer, I aim for a minimum of 1,000 good words at each sitting, regardless of topic. Goals and routines serve as rulers; they help us see how far we’ve come and how much further we must yet travel. Of course, nobody starts running 10 miles their first day; one works up to that. The same with writing. Start small, then expand the goal as time and tolerance permit.

Have accountability — Did you miss your goal for the day? Mark it on a calendar as a reminder. Did you exceed your goal? Reward yourself in some way. The final arbiter is the person you see in the mirror. Be able to stare back at that person without the least twinge of regret.
Have some variety — For a while in my running routine, I chose the same route  because that one more than others gave me what I felt was the best workout. But opting for sameness invited a lameness to my training that curtailed my development. Writing the same way every day can be just as limiting. If prose is your forte, dabble with poetry. If long-form writing is de rigueur, break out with short stories once in a while. To help, keep a writing journal — a paper or electronic place to experiment with other styles and discuss progress with yourself.

Have a partner — Running, like writing, is an intensely solitary exercise, and solitude can be confining. Through partners, runners find motivation and challenge, especially if the partner is a somewhat better runner. Writers, meanwhile, benefit from partners who discuss ideas, edit their output, even nudge them along on daunting projects. Partners provide a perspective on writing that solitude may not permit.

Have healthy habits — To run or write, you need fuel. Lacking that, runners hit a wall and writers hit a blank. But not just any fuel works. The term “garbage in, garbage out” may be chiefly a computer programming term but suits writers well, too. You eat junk food, you’re going to have junk writing, because the mind is more efficient with a healthy diet. Additionally, a sedentary lifestyle has been found to diminish brain function. Get up and out on a regular basis if only to increase blood flow to the brain. Walk, run, bike, bend, stretch — whatever it takes. Writers will find the words come easier when there’s less garbage in their way.

How to get a newspaper editor's attention

(This post first appeared in The Independent Journalist, the freelancing blog of the Society of Professional Journalists.)

The calls, emails and tweets started flowing in around during the holidays, coming across my desk at a rate of about half a dozen daily. Many more landed among my colleagues. They usually say something like this:

"I wrote this piece and thought you might like it," says the introduction to one email.

"Sure, it's a blog post, but it's a subject that interests everyone," says another.

"I'd love to write about sports. I'm a big fan," says one caller.

This time of year, aspiring writers drop hints, notes and whole unsolicited stories on newspapers like new snow with the intention of publishing those stories and getting paid for them. I think of it as a different kind of holiday tradition: as Christmas-related bills mount, these optimistic writers try to salve their financial wounds by banging out what they consider "news" and expecting a newspaper editor to read it as such, thus publishing it in the next day's paper and paying generously for the writers' work by week's end, or at least before the next credit card statement arrives.

But most of these gratuitous pitches and contributions wind up deleted, erased, ignored, because their writers failed at good reporting.

Sure, newspapers long have relied on contributing writers or freelancers to report news particularly when their full-time staffs were swamped with other work. The need for freelancers is acute now since newspapers nationwide have cut about one-third of their staffs over the past decade.

But today as decades before, newspapers do not accept anything and everything submitted to them for publication as "news." The stories appearing in today's print pages or online are products of careful planning, research and attention to detail. Even breaking news coverage requires rapid incisive analysis by teams of reporters and editors — freelancers sometimes among them — to determine how and why something happened and why it's what journalists like to call "newsworthy."

So, before you ship that free-form story to the nearest newspaper, stop for moment to understand first what it takes to attract a newspaper editor's attention:

First, you have to read the newspaper — This sounds pitifully obvious. In reality, it's pitiful how many solicitations that come to newspapers are ignorant on their face, as the writers are blind to the newspaper's greater purpose. Each paper serves as a kind of window onto the community, and the communities themselves are distinct. Thus, what interests readers or is newsworthy in St. Louis may not warrant similar attention in Sheboygan, Wis., or Syracuse, N.Y. Reading the newspaper carefully every day reveals the distinction. Consider how a newspaper is organized and edited, and where certain topics routinely appear. In other words, study the newspaper before trying to write for it.

Sell the story, not yourself — Prospective freelancers often try to tell their life stories when all an editor wants to know is whether the writer's idea is worth attention. Concentrate on explaining the story's importance in one or two short sentences, focusing on the key questions all news stories try to answer: who what, when, where, why and how.

Remember, there is no "I" in news — What you think, feel or believe about the news is not important; don't try passing off a recent blog post or journal entry as a news story. Cite only the facts in a story pitch; leave out your opinion. Because everyone has an opinion, but not everyone has the facts.

Provide verifiable sources — Newspapers aim to steer clear of bias in its news, leaving that instead to the commentary pages, thus some editors may want to check the validity of a freelancer's idea before committing to it. Providing at least three independent sources that editors can contact if they wish will sell a story pitch better than if there are none.

Send your pitch to the proper place — Story ideas relating to sports should not go to the news or features editors. Find out who the editors are that work with freelancers and accept story ideas, and craft pitches and queries to them specifically.

Pay attention to quality, quantity — Besides determining the proper editor for submissions, make sure to spell the editor's name correctly. For that matter, pay careful attention to fixing spelling and grammar errors before sending any correspondence. Most newspapers also adhere to "style" guidelines outlined by The Associated Press. Furthermore, if a story calls for a specific length, say 500 words, avoid writing even one word more than that. Not following such a simple direction may prompt time-challenged editors to hit the "delete" key.

Keep an open mind about being edited — Even the world's best journalists need editors, so don't think your work is much better. But don't take editing personally. Accept that stories may be trimmed or adjusted for length before publication. Tight, precise writing and rigid adherence to a prearranged story length go a long way toward preventing this.

Small potatoes are better than no potatoes — It used to be that newspapers paid well for freelance work. These days, big paychecks are rare, $25 to $50 per published story being typical and non-negotiable.

Don't be discouraged, but don't be a pest, either — Upon making a pitch, if a newspaper editor has not yet responded, wait three or four days before following up politely, professionally. It may be that the editor has been busy, or is keeping an eye open for other ideas.

My mother, my grandparents, and Pearl Harbor

(Editor's note: This post originally appeared a year ago and has been updated to reflect new information.)

On a bright Sunday morning 70 years ago, my mother looked out her parents' kitchen window and saw black smoke rising in the distance.

Then she saw planes soar out of the smoke, and the whole world was forever altered.

That morning, my mother watched the attack on Pearl Harbor from her home. She was a child, living across the harbor from the U.S. Navy yard. My grandparents' house sat on a hill slope, their back yard overlooking the battleships moored in port a couple miles away, and on this Sunday morning in December my mother and grandparents saw the smoke, heard loud bangs coming from the same direction, left their unfinished breakfast sitting on the kitchen table, and went outside for a better look.

They heard the planes before seeing them. A whining roar, as if from a million large, angry mosquitoes, echoed across the hillside, gaining in volume, until the planes appeared as black darts flung across the bright sky. My grandmother remarked how unusual it was to see military maneuvers on a Sunday. My grandfather noticed these planes were unlike any he had seen parked on the airfields.

The planes came closer at incredible speed, and there were more of them each passing moment. It occurred to my grandparents that they should move back closer to the house when one plane, so close now the Rising Sun emblem on its fuselage was clearly visible, wagged its wings on approach to the slope, pitched starboard and with the tip of one wing carried off my grandmother's clothes line.

My mother recalls seeing the pilot's face. She says that given enough artistic talent, she could draw it now, 69 years later, from memory.

Everybody ran back into the house to watch the black smoke and noise intensify across the harbor, and it was at about this point when they saw a bright flash followed by the swelling bubble of an intense shock wave envelop the harbor and race up the hillside to rattle the kitchen windows. The USS Arizona, already critically wounded, burst nearly in two as the ammunition magazine ignited.

At that, the event became profoundly personal: What should we do? Where should we go? Neighbors were walking out into the streets crying, shouting, comforting each other, even as the planes continued to zip overhead. My grandfather, who had joined an all-volunteer civilian defense corps a year earlier as tensions heightened between Japan and the United States, expected he would be called to do … something. But no word came; the few phone lines around the island were jammed.

Hours later, a Jeep came down the street. The military police officer behind the wheel was going around asking every able-bodied male, particularly those who had guns, to meet in the town center for further instructions. My grandfather expressed concern about leaving my grandmother and mother alone, to which the Jeep driver responded, "Look, we're expecting an invasion by the Japanese. If you don't get down to the beach now to try stopping them, we're all screwed anyway."

So, my grandfather packed his only gun, a small-caliber pistol, and boarded a truck en route to a long shallow beach a few miles past Honolulu where Japanese landing craft loaded with troops were expected to appear overnight. Dozens of civilians in several trucks made the trip with him, including one man who brought the only weapon at his disposal: a pitchfork.

Upon arrival, the men busied themselves initially by digging shallow trenches and building defensive positions behind rocks and trees. Then they waited, the only sounds coming from the surf, the only light from the moon. And waited.

And waited.

By daybreak, the threat of invasion had subsided, though the intensity wrought from the previous morning never did. My grandparents' friends who were driving to meet them were strafed and killed en route, their bodies found in their car a block away. And thereafter until the war ended, the Hawaiian islands, not yet one among the United States, were under U.S. martial law. The rationing and blackouts common elsewhere in the nation during this period were many times more constraining in Hawaii because of difficulty protecting the islands' supply line to the mainland. And the happiest times of my mother's childhood ended as the freedom she had to play with friends and roam was curtailed by stringent rules on civilian movement except for essential needs such as school, work and hospital visits.

The onset of war ended my grandfather's job, servicing the pineapple harvesting equipment owned by Dole foods, as many industries on the islands shuttered during wartime. About a year later, my grandparents and mother left for California, riding a cargo ship under destroyer escort.

There was one humorous moment out of it all. When my grandfather returned from his beach patrol early on the morning after the attack, he went to put his gun away and noticed a box of bullets sitting open on the bedroom dresser. That's when he remembered …

He had forgotten to load the gun.

Freelancers can be problem-solvers

(This piece first appeared in The Independent Journalist, the freelancing blog of the Society of Professional Journalists.)

Look around. No matter where our eyes land, we see words.

It may be just one small word, such as “off” or “on,” but the process that led to printing the word required someone to come along and write it. Decisions were made, assignments were given and the words we see around us were formed.

If prospective and novice freelancers keep that in mind, the emotional challenge of finding writing and editing assignments will become little easier to take. Understand that the world needs writers of all kinds, and that one of those particular needs is bound to fit a freelancer’s special talent.

Of course, nobody will know that until it’s made obvious to everyone. Thus, self-promotion and marketing are as important as the actual creative actions of writing and editing.

This is tough for most freelancers just starting out. The very notion of having to sell themselves and do it daily takes them out of their writing and editing comfort zones and plops them in front of risk, challenge, uncertainty, frustration — things certain to make even average people squirm and sweat. Worse still, shopping for clients takes time away from the writing and editing processes.

Thus, marketing is where a freelancer’s ego runs up against reality. And repeatedly banging into reality this way can be bruising.

There is, however, one element of reality working in a freelancer’s favor that can cushion the psychological blow and act similarly as a sales tool.

You see, people who know how to use words effectively are, above all else, problem-solvers. They bring to bear talent and wisdom nobody else has or can use in precise ways, and that precision helps answer questions, surmount obstacles and open doors for other people.

Whereas managers organize a given situation and technicians wrestle with the fine details of it, writers and editors are responsible for communicating initial needs, communicating the problem-solving processes, communicating the analysis and conclusions of the final result. And let’s face it, nothing gets accomplished without strong, effective communication at multiple levels.

Thus, freelancers are instrumental. They find and write the words that help address important issues. They are, in essence, problem-solvers. And if prospective freelancers think carefully about this before tackling the onerous task of self-promotion, that task may start to seem less onerous. By pitching themselves as problem-solvers, freelancers expand the definitions of who they are and what they can accomplish. Clients will see them as more than just communicators, too.

It’s a psychological game, certainly, but it’s one all freelancers can win. And once they start to play, it can become much easier to switch their careers from “off” to “on.”

Your first task as a freelancer: Suck it up

(This post originally appeared in The Independent Journalist, the freelancing blog of the Society of Professional Journalists.)

Hall of Fame hockey player Wayne Gretzky is synonymous with excellence on ice, but it turns out he also had superb advice for the prospective freelancer.

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take."

Sure, he meant that about hockey in particular. But in general, Gretzky's wisdom stretches wide to encompass whatever we do in life and prompts thoughts about what we stand to lose when we fail to take chances.

For writers or editors eyeing independence as a way to a life-sustaining career, opportunities abound. Everyone, no matter their skill set, requires help with words, either creating them or crafting them, and your skill in these areas may be all another person or organization needs to convey the optimum message of the moment. Moreover, the market for effective, engaging communications continues to grow exponentially.

Yes, newspapers as a medium are going away, but the demand for what they try to offer their communities — responsible, accurate reporting — has not diminished and in the wake of social media has grown more acute. Besides personal engagement, we as a society also hunger for dispassionate views that help hone those engagements.

So, yes, the opportunities for freelancers are more and varied than ever. And it's time to take your shot.

Your goal, then: suck it up. Don't chicken out.

"But how?" you might ask. "Where should I start?"

The easiest, simplest and perhaps most flippant answer is, "At the beginning." But aspiring freelancers can have trouble distinguishing the well-traveled path from the one least taken. They need advice, however small, and guidance, however approximate, to start moving in the proper direction.

In truth, the beginning can be anywhere. What matters is clearing the path beforehand, accepting sacrifice before reward. Biting the bullet.

Sucking it up.

Here are a few things that must be cleared out of your path:

Procrastination — The phrase, "Do not put off until tomorrow what you can do today," should hang from a sign in front of all freelancers. They are their own bosses, they are their own staff, they are the sources of their own motivation. Workers who are confined to cubicles have their environment as a sprawling reminder to stay busy; freelancers have only themselves. The best help in this area is a schedule that delineates working time and non-working time — and rigid adherence to that schedule. If the working time you set for yourself goes from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with two or three breaks spaced between those hours, then stick to the schedule. If you prefer a more liberal structure to the working day, fine. Regardless, work when the schedule says "work," and nothing less.

Distraction — This tends to provoke procrastinate and in general comes in the form of television, video games, social media, peripheral noise and activity, among other things. Remove them, or somehow set them aside, and keep them there. Author Anne Lamott says, "Turn off Twitter. ... And don't clean house." Author Carl Hiaasen wears noise-dampening headphones when he writes. And I, presuming to include myself at their level, gave up television a couple years ago when it became obvious my remote was getting a better workout than my keyboard. Indeed, that sacrifice has helped, if not quite to the extent that I can join Anne's and Carl's company.

On the other hand, silence and isolation may only amplify the ringing in one's own ears, whereas a distraction or two instead stirs the imagination. In author Stephen King's view, "Any day's routine interruptions and distractions don't much hurt a work in progress and may actually help it in some ways. It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl." In other words, be comfortable: cherish what you can work with, expunge — really expunge — what you cannot.

Surprises — Said expunging speaks to planning. The more one has even the dreary little details of freelancing mapped out, the better one can navigate through or around them. Work flow, illness, budgeting and networking all are issues that take time away from writing and editing but are essential up-front considerations for every freelancer. Attend to small details early and the bigger ones that arise later will be easier to handle.

Generalization — You could write or edit anything and everything with the notion that volume means security. Look around though and you will find that successful freelancers do not have vague notions about what they are doing. They took the time to research the marketplace for needs not already addressed, or rarely so, by other freelancers. They chose specialization and hewed closely to a small number of subjects, educating themselves each day on the finer details of those subjects. Armed with unique knowledge, freelancers can attract expert clients, instead of the other way around.

Boredom — Banality abounds. The key is not letting it slip into our work. A person in a cubicle somewhere may not have that option, but freelancers, as noted above, possess the power to chart their own course. In an earlier post on this blog I noted ways to stay busy between jobs and they are just as effective for helping break out of monotony. However, if the urge to leave freelancing as a career in pursuit of other excitement still seems too tough to shake, try talking through it with other freelancers; they may have been in the same hole and found ways to climb out.

Freelancing should be fun, something you want to do every day. Unless you suck it up and clear the road ahead of obstacles, the fun will seem only further and further away.

 

A short guide to San Francisco

San Francisco's Coit Tower atop Telegraph HIll, as viewed from Russian Hill

Fog poured like milk from the northwest over the Marin Headlands toward the orange icon spanning Golden Gate and in minutes blotted both from view, then just as quickly raced across San Francisco Bay and vanished on approach to Oakland, the burnished glow across the water restored.

"It's like that here," a 30-year Bay Area resident told me later. "People say, wherever they are, wait 10 minutes and the weather will change. Here, it's literally true."

San Francisco proper is home to nearly 4 million people who already know this and maybe blot it from their minds as they struggle against the nerve-fraying tide of traffic and tourists. But to the wide-eyed ignorant such as myself, years removed from his last visit, this glittering jewel around a rocky, rolling thumb of land 47 miles square has abundant capability to impress and mesmerize.

Those capabilities are triggered first by the weather, which visitors notice the moment they debark from whatever they're riding. Upon my arrival, I was a five-hour flight removed from a sticky, 100-degree summer that had not varied much in a month. Yet the air swirling around the open jet door at San Francisco International was half as hot, hardly sticky and sweetened by salty plumes wafting from the sea. Exposed to it fully 10 minutes later, and feeling chilled 10 minutes thereafter, I realized I never thought to pack a jacket or light coat because I believed summer to be much the same everywhere. In fact, San Francisco never really has a summer as the rest of know it, and never really has a winter, either. It warms most noticeably in September and October between the waves of ever-present, sea-smelling fog, and snow is as rare here as it is in, say, Los Angeles. Fortunately, light fleece windbreakers with "SF" stitched into the breast are as abundant as sea gulls and apparently popular enough even among locals that it's possible for visitors to blend into the street crowds.

And, boy, are there crowds, up one hill and down another, lining the Embarcadero, munching at Ghirardelli's, and bobbing atop packed ferries plying the bay. At times, one might wonder if the whole world is here, and judging by the variety of languages heard in the hotels and restaurants and sightseeing excursions have justifiable cause to believe that's possible. It turned out that the time I visited, mid-August, coincided with the height of "holiday" across Europe, when virtually everyone there who can pursues a change of scenery. Thus, I heard in a place halfway around the world from our mother continent  British English and French, German and Portuguese, Russian and Greek, as well as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, variations on Arabic, and almost as many American dialects as there are Americans. Much of that verbal polyglot was just at Fisherman's Wharf, the former home of one industry, actual fishing, and now home to another, tourism and T-shirt shops and sea lions who sun themselves on floating docks near the shopping-mall-themed Pier 39. Thus, the former Yerba Buena, founded by Spanish colonists in 1776 and forced to grow up fast in the wake of the California Gold Rush a mere 73 years later, is as much a city of the world as London, Paris or Prague.

Also much like those cities, San Francisco also has the trouble of the world heaped on its 44 hilly shoulders: poverty amid plenty. Walk in any direction and chances are good one will see examples of homlessness and despair within a block or two of starting out. The 30-year resident told me he has watched his color-dappled metropolis, once mildly busy, transform into one streaked with grime, beset by gridlock and rife with homeless. This all happened over the last decade and a half, he said, behind the first tech boom-turned-bust rolling out of nearby Silicon Valley, when jobs dried up but the skyrocketing cost of living did not. A subsequent smaller tech boom in the late 2000's improved matters somewhat, but San Francisco remains in the throes of a swelling gentrification that has pushed all but small portions of the city beyond the reach of middle-income Americans. The 30-year resident himself pays over $1,000 per month for less than 1,000 square feet of living space.

"I don't like what I've seen," he said. "In some respects, it's not a pretty place anymore. But I can't imagine living anywhere else. Most people who live here can't imagine that, either."

Tourists are left to imagine plenty, however, with such sights and scents as San Francisco has. There's the aforementioned Golden Gate Bridge, a symbol of America as much as the city, and Coit Tower, the stunning art deco topper on Telegraph Hill and probably the best urban beautification project one can conjure. The Transamerica Pyramid remains San Francisco's tallest structure, though the insurance holding company that gave it that name no longer resides there. And hill after hill is shrouded in the curious mix of Victorian and modern architecture recognized as uniquely San Franciscan.

As for scents, one also wonders how an upstart restaurateur can make it around here. The city's eclectic epicurean opportunities are as many and varied as its visitors and they too occupy nearly every street corner, thankfully crowding out the chain gangs that unartfully decorate American suburbia. In Chinatown, of course, sits a raft of good food served up by greasy spoons as well as finely appointed eateries, but there is a wealth of international cuisine dotting the other 60-plus neighborhoods on the peninsula. I liked Au Roi, a cozy Thai place on Post Street near Lower Nob Hill, that serves to-die-for salads, and Caffe Roma Coffee Roasting Co. on Columbus Avenue in North Beach, where java lovers will find a powerful house blend that cuts through a drinker's foggy morning like a gale. My spouse, on the other hand, fell in love with Salty's Fishwich near Pier 41, where, served through a street side window, one can order a hunk of haddock wrapped in seasoned slaw and served on a huge bun. We ate there twice.

So, to summarize, I would advise bringing with you to San Francisco a camera, a healthy appetite and a tolerance for scenes of despair. Above all, bring a jacket. Because no matter the time of year, it gets chilly here.