“Washington Post” Economics Correspondent Heather Long ’04 Says Her Liberal Arts Degree Prepared Her to Take Leaps

2019年8月后不久杰克逊洞经济政策研讨会,Washington Post经济学记者Heather Long'04写了在年度聚会上进行了一个不寻常的讨论：世界顶级经济学家和央行互相敦促互相敦促花费更少的时间和更多的时间在讲故事上。长期以来对经济分析和报告中叙事的重要性的看法是在Wellesley的一部分中塑造的，在那里她第一次采取了其中一个Calderwood Seminars in Public Writing是由此设计的经济新闻课程大卫林德尔，斯坦福卡德伍德经济学教授。在这里，很久就讨论了她是罗得岛学者的沃雷斯利和牛津的道路;行业面临的挑战;经济学家如何能够将讲故事融入他们的研究;以及自由艺术学位为21世纪准备的方式。

问：你什么时候知道你想成为一名记者？那条路上有没有任何不确定性的时刻？

Heather Long:My journey to being an economics correspondent at theWashington Post当我乘坐大卫林德尔教授提供的经济新闻课时，在Wellesley开始了我的高年级。我喜欢这个课程并设法获得了我在家乡报纸上发表的课程中写道的OP-edPatriot-News哈里斯堡，PA。我想说我的道路在毕业后直截了当，但很少生活是如何生活的。

我很快就去了牛津大学，在那里我幸运的是赢得罗德奖学金。我以为我想成为一名教授，但在我的第一年在牛津之后，我需要休息一下。我设法在这个伟大的实习Guardian在他们的伦敦办事处。我的第一周是伦敦地铁爆炸爆炸2005年。几周后，我在伦敦的室友坐在另一个试图炸毁另一个伦敦地下火车的轰炸机旁边。因为炸弹发生故障，她幸存下来。我了解到它在悲剧前线的记者中的意思触动了自己的家。

I returned to Oxford to complete a degree in financial economics and ended up landing a job at an investment firm in London in 2006. I thought I had put journalism behind me after the bombings, but I kept having this nagging feeling that I was in the wrong field. In 2008, I did something that at least half my Wellesley friends and family thought was crazy: I left a good job in London to move back to my hometown of Harrisburg to become deputy opinions editor at thePatriot-News. My first day at the newspaper was January 5, 2009. I have been a journalist ever since, and I’m so glad I took that leap.

问：你是坎德伍德研讨会的热情支持者 - 关于教学写作方法有效的是什么？你从Wellesley拍摄的其他工具是什么，你发现你搬进你的职业时特别有效？

长：I basically took the “pilot program” for the Calderwood seminars. I took economic journalism in 2004 when it was this cool class Professor Lindauer had designed for the economic degree. Many of us took it thinking it would be a break from the other math-heavy classes we were taking, but in many ways, economic journalism turned out to be much harder. We had to take everything we had learned—in macro, micro, development economics, international economics, econometrics, etc.—and write about it in a smart and entertaining way that people without economics degrees could understand. It sounds so simple, but it’s not. You have to really, really understand a subject to be able to explain it in nontechnical terms.

大多数威尔斯利的朋友们知道我当然是我最喜欢的Wellesley课程之一是经济新闻。这是我现在的全职工作！但是当我在投资公司工作时，班级也很好地为我服务。我经常被选为团队的一部分，因为我被称为“好备忘录”。在许多工作场所都是一个非常有用的技能，我很激动，更多的是更多的各部门和大学现在使用Calderwood研讨会方法。

Q: Since the Great Recession, newsroom jobs have fallen by the same percentage (25 percent) as the number of undergraduates majoring in English, according to the Pew Research Center. Are these trends intertwined?

长：The gutting of local newsrooms across the United States is a real blow to democracy. Nearly all of the decline in reporter jobs is taking place at small and midsized newspaper and TV outlets. When I worked in Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, from January 2009 to December 2012, the number of reporters covering state government fell by about half. That’s a lot fewer people watching over how your tax dollars are spent and actions some officials try to hide. And the same situation is happening across the country. We have more people than ever watching the White House and fewer people than ever watching many state and local governments.

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring journalists in this climate?

长：我鼓励项目Report for Americathat are helping train and fund young journalists to essentially do what I did when I started out: Go to small and midsized media markets and tell the stories that aren’t getting told. My advice to young journalists is to start at a local news organization. It’s a ripe training ground where your work is critically needed. An added bonus is that you will get to hear from your readers in person at local coffee shops and at the grocery store instead of just on Twitter.

问：在罗伯特希勒的书中Narrative Economics他写道，你在杰克逊洞政策研讨会上引用了你的作品，“传统的经济方法未能审查公众的角色beliefs在主要的经济活动中。“经济学家应该通过试图解析他们关注的话题周围的公共叙述，或通过一些数据和叙述组合来解析他们的公共叙述来开始研究

长：I’m biased here because nearly all of myWashington Post故事是一个数据和叙述的混合，所以是的，我是组合的一个大型支持者。但超越我的角色，美国在过去十年中最纪念的变化之一是放弃在巨大经济衰退后寻找工作的美国人的数量。他们变得沮丧。这是我们之前没有见过的东西，经济学没有良好的模型，这种巨大的劳动力下降，特别是在“王子年龄”（年龄25至54岁）的男性之间。其他高级国家没有经历过这一点近乎达到美国的程度。

它真的采取了关于经济学家危机中的阿片类药危机和锈带城镇的故事，以唤醒发生的事情。普林斯顿经济学家Angus Deaton和Anne Case已经着名，因为成为第一个真正将所有数据放在一起“绝望的死亡“发生在美国，但他们很容易承认这是叙述，首先让他们了解犯下自杀或从与阿片类药物和酒精相关的并发症中死亡的大规模问题。

问：你说的是2020年的自由艺术教育的价值？

长：One of the joys of my job at theWashington Postis that I get to talk to a lot of people about their life trajectories. Almost no one has a linear path. My own story is a good example. I left Wellesley thinking I wanted to be a professor (probably because I had many great ones in college!). I quickly realized that wasn’t for me and took a job in finance after finishing graduate school. Then I switched into journalism, but even that path wasn’t linear. I started out as a columnist and opinions editor at thePatriot-Newsand then at theGuardian为他们的美国操作。我主要专注于前几年的政治和文化评论。然后一位朋友将我连接到CNNMoney（现在的CNN业务），我们有一天会见了早餐。他说，他一直在寻找有人经济学和股票市场覆盖。像听起来一样令人震惊，这是我真正击中我的第一时刻，我可以结合我的新闻背景和我的经济背景。我对此感到非常兴奋，并提出了我第二天送他的想法的页面。其余的是历史。我在CNNMoney工作了几年，然后在WAPO成为经济学记者之前。

这是一个长蜿蜒的方式，说明生活中最好的机会往往是意外的，或者你为自己创造的机会。自由艺术学位准备了我采取跨越式和手感为未来的挑战做好准备。

我没有学位在新闻中，但我的第一导师Patriot-News经常告诉我一位记者的理想技巧是好奇心 - 成为一个永不停止问问题的人。这正是一个自由艺术学位列车的内容。