His data skills help him get stories and keep his job, Taylor says
By DINORAH PREVOST
USFSP Student Reporter
There wasn’t a wow or eureka moment for Langston Taylor with journalism. His father was a reporter so it was always around him.
It remained a constant through his days as editor of his high school newspaper in Silver Spring, Maryland, and in three staff positions at the Daily Tar Heel at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Those years led him to the Tampa Bay Times, where Taylor, 23, is now a general assignment and data reporter. To him, reporting is “a rewarding challenge.”
“You become exposed to all parts of the city you live in, you talk to families and workers and experts you never would have otherwise. I feel like I’d miss out on a lot of life without that driving factor,” Taylor said.
After covering daily assignments, he turns to working with numbers. He coded in college and regularly uses data to tell deeper stories.
Pushed to one side of his desk are printouts of Florida maps, dotted and shaded red in certain spots with words scribbled in.
From his cubicle on a slow holiday, Taylor shared some tips for young reporters.
Apply for internships and jobs with intent.
These days, Taylor’s girlfriend, Stephanie Lamm, 23, works at the Dallas Morning News. But before Dallas, Lamm applied to a number of newspapers across the South. After interviewing at some papers, she came to two realizations: either she didn’t like the boss or the paper’s work environment.
Ultimately she didn’t want to work there.
Despite the pressure of landing a job in this shaky journalism market, Taylor said, recent graduates shouldn’t apply for positions without doing some research.
Figuring out whether they really want to work for a certain outlet is key. And the best way to learn about the work culture is talking to people with experience there.
Negotiate for a permanent job if possible.
Just after graduating from college, Taylor went to work at his second internship for the Times in May 2017. It was a six-month position, so before it ended Taylor wanted to ensure his stay at the paper.
He applied to three other media outlets, including the Charlotte Observer, where he had interned for a summer. The Observer made him an offer. With that in hand, Taylor persuaded the Times to cut short his internship and give him a permanent job.
Move on from positions when you feel you need to.
When Taylor started at the Times, he worked in the Tampa office as a general assignment reporter, covering government, activism and crime.
Covering crime, he spoke to many mourning relatives.
When his father died, making those phone calls and knocking on those doors became more difficult.
Taylor said he knew his limit. He left the Tampa office and moved to the St. Petersburg office in October 2017.
Be flexible and lend a hand on projects around the newsroom.
Taylor’s specialty is working with data and producing graphics to represent it in an easy-to-understand format for readers.
He lends himself to small-scale data reporting when he is done with general assignment stories for the day, while more in-depth data stories are left to the Times enterprise team. He said that willingness to help can establish yourself as a handy person worth keeping in the newsroom for the long run.
As an example, he mentioned “Danger on two wheels,” his story with Times reporter Tony Marrero about bicycle accident hot spots in Tampa Bay.
Using data, they confirmed that people commuting to work on busy roads like Fowler Avenue in Tampa are involved in more accidents than leisure riders who stick to bicycle trails.
Taylor is now compiling data for a larger story on the impact of Florida’s recently adopted Amendment 4, which restores voting rights to felons who aren’t convicted murderers or sex offenders as soon as they complete their sentences.
He’s pinpointing communities across the state with high concentrations of ex-felons who are now eligible to register to vote.
Use data and public records to your advantage (and to make your job easier).
In a story about the drawn-out recount during last year’s midterm elections, Taylor used public records to reach voters in Broward County. While there is no Times office on the east coast, he said, that doesn’t stop him from writing a story using the voices of Broward voters.
Taylor made a request for state voter records via the Florida Division of Elections website. He used the contact information provided by a number of Broward County voters and mass emailed over 3,000 of them. He included 40 responses in his story “Bill Nelson’s Broward County problem.”
Don’t feel obligated to follow the traditional (that is, intern to reporter to editor) path, because reporters are getting laid off midway through that path.
And don’t feel bad for taking the easy route if the opportunity comes up. Taylor said he thinks he’s been lucky to do as well as he has in the industry, especially because he gets to work on larger, weeks-long data projects.
“I think being a young reporter now means having an advantage in understanding the internet, and there’s a chance to become very visible and impactful in your lane,” he said. “That probably wasn’t available a decade ago.”