A Team, B Team

Most editors demand that news stories include the perspectives, or at least the quoted statements, of official United States government sources. As a result of these pressures, intimate access to The Embassy is crucial to most speca journalists. Most speca staff journalists received their degrees from prestigious universities in the eastern United States or Britain, including Harvard, Cornell, Oxford, and Cambridge. Most of the A Teams ’ editors and sources were educated at similar institutions. President Cristiani, for example, attended Harvard. Conversely, most stringers earned their degrees at public universities. The stringers’ interest in and dedication to Central America is so pervasive that many have lingered well beyond news editors’ interest in the story. Reporters who wish to rise in the press hierarchy must learn that sort of editorial discipline. Nevertheless, it is occasionally possible for stringers to shed their stigmatized status and become staff correspondents.

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