By Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart, The Laconia Daily Sun

Listen to the full interview on The Granite Beat podcast

Journalist and author Bill Donahue's trip to Kenya to report on a cycling team and a legendary runner took an unexpected, and it turns out prescient, turn. The Granite Beat’s Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart recently interviewed Donahue where they talked about finding the hidden stories and how to be humble as a journalist working in another country.

The following transcript has been edited lightly for clarity and length

Julie Hart:

When we have new reporters, we sometimes tell them a fable about a rookie who was sent to cover a celebrity wedding, only to return and say there's no story because the groom never showed up and the bride was left at the altar. The moral is there's always a story, but it isn't always the one you were sent to get. I was reminded of this lesson when I heard the background behind your story published in Runner's World in April. Would you do the honors of bringing our listeners up to speed?

Bill Donahue:

I went to Kenya to report two stories: one of them was about cycling, one was about running. I was in a bike race last summer, and after I finished the race and was standing in the beer line, I asked a guy by me how he did in the race and he's like, I won the race. He was from Kenya, which was a historic moment as it was one of the first times that a Back rider had won a major American gravel race. But then I later found out that his teammate had died in the race, they were from a team called Team Omani. I ended up going to Kenya to report a story about this team for Bicycling Magazine, but my editor is also affiliated with Runner's World and asked me to do a story about Eliud Kipchoge, the legendary great of running, a marathon world record holder. Anyway, I went to his village and was very much shut out. I didn't get access. So I said well, there's this other guy here who won the Boston marathon named Evans Chebet, and his training camp is like a mile from my hotel. I call his publicist, and you know nobody ever wanted to talk to Evans Chebet, so I was able to skip over there, went right in – he was very generous with his time. I wrote a story where I was like, you know, he might beat Kipchoge, and then I sent it out to all my friends. I said, this is the guy who's going to beat Kipchoge. And then he did – he beat Kipchoge. It's very gratifying to see my predictions come true. And if you need any betting tips for the Kentucky Derby, I'm here to help you.

Adam Drapcho:

I'm curious about the difference in media treatment between Evans and Kipchoge – do you have an explanation for why there's such fascination with one but the other was so under the radar?

Bill Donahue:

I mean, Kipchoge has scored more flashy wins. He has the world record, he went under two hours. He's also kind of a wise man, he reads Plato and Socrates, and he always speaks in the sort of zen koans – like somebody asked him in advance of the race what kind of weather do you want, and he said, We will all be running in the same weather. And Evans Chebet, he's not fluent in English, he's not as intricate a character. He is the guy who is very low key, very laid back, and very friendly. He's known by some people in the running circles there, but generally he's just not known. I think it's very hard for Americans to wrap their minds around more than one Kenyan, I think, and that's the sad thing. Every one of these guys is different from another. It was a shame that people didn't know him, so I was really happy to sort of introduce him to readers.

Adam Drapcho:

I'm someone who's worked in the same state that I've lived in since I was 10, and I'm fascinated by the challenge of traveling to a distant land and coming away with the kind of story that you can only get after establishing rapport and trust with the people you're sent there to interview. How do you do that? How does that work? How do you develop those relationships? And what do you do when it doesn't work?

Bill Donahue:

I think you have to start with some sort of realistic understanding. I mean, in a place like Kenya, it's not like I'm going to blend in – I'm a white guy, pretty tall, it's evident right away that I don't know what's going on. And that's okay. I think if you go there and demonstrate that you're genuinely curious, and you're very earnest about trying to learn what they're all about, what their culture is, what their daily life is, I think most people want to tell their story. So I think that would be my main thing, I guess my tactic is to have no tactic. I'm generally a pretty unrehearsed person, like always losing things and my hair is never straight, and that's just what I'm bringing to the table. At some level, I think that that's better. I mean, if you showed up in a three piece suit they would be like, Who is this person? You have to relate to people on a human level. Everybody wants to know who you are, what your family is, what you're all about, so bring pictures, bring little gifts. And another thing is,every place has its own social milieu of its own, and you kind of have to figure out what that is and how to work it. That really entails working with local people, like interpreters. For example, when I was trying to write about Kipchoge, I was talking to many people through an interpreter who's Swahili, and he was affiliated with this university about 10 miles from Kipchoge’s Village, but he did not deem himself a worthy guide in the village, so in addition to working with him we had to get a guy in the village who knew the local people. There are layers of access you have to penetrate.

Adam Drapcho:

Do you have at least some contacts set up before you arrive? Or do you have to invent them while you're on the ground?

Bill Donahue:

Usually I go with a few contacts, but then when you're there it's just like…I'm thinking of an interpreter I worked with who had a motorcycle, so we're riding around, going here and there to talk to this person and that person. We're just kind of making these connections, making calls. So it's constantly like that – you have some level of access, but when you get there, that's when you have to work your way in. But that's like if you're working at the level of talking to people who live in villages, if you're talking to the Secretary of Tourism or something like that you have to set it up in advance.

Adam Drapcho:

Do you find it more difficult or less difficult, or a different kind of a challenge, to report on or write about the things that are happening in your own town, versus something that might be happening on a different continent?

Bill Donahue:

One lesson I've encountered in traveling around places is that people next door might be way more different from me than someone who lives in Kenya or France. Some people who I interview in my town are diametrically opposed to me in their politics, so they are quite different from me. And so are the people in Kenya, but in very different ways. So I guess you have to feel it out every time. I never go to interview people with a list of ten questions and that's it – it's a conversation. You just have to ask questions and see where it goes.

Julie Hart:

How do you find living in the same community as somebody who you've interviewed and included in a piece that you've written for a magazine? Does that change the dynamic between you and your neighbors once they've been included in your writing?

Bill Donahue:

I mean, I've written maybe five stories about this town. But yeah, things can change. Notably, I wrote a story for Backpacker Magazine that was a profile of a very good friend of mine and it was a very admiring story, and we're still good friends. Some people I've written about didn't like it, and they probably don’t want to talk to me. And that's a sad thing, but I guess that’s the way of journalism sometimes. Joseph Pulitzer said a newspaper has no friends, or something's something to that effect. It's an unfortunate consequence sometimes, but it does happen.

This article is part of The Granite Beat, a project by The Laconia Daily Sun and The Granite State News Collaborative, of which Laconia is a partner. Each week Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart, will explore with local reporters how they got some of the most impactful stories in our state and why they matter. This project is being shared with partners in The Granite State News Collaborative.