Emma Cordover, a digital producer for Politico, spoke to National Press Foundation Widening the Pipeline journalists on March 2, 2025.

Rachel Jones, National Press Foundation (00:00):
Session two of the first 2025 Widening the Pipeline virtual training. We’ll explore how the new White House administration’s immigration policies have affected access to maternal healthcare. We’re joined by Emma Cordo, who is a digital producer at Politico. In addition to covering sustainability and labor topics, Emma has also helped produce Politico’s Women Rule Newsletter, a reporting for Women rule ranges from an interview with AFL CIO President Liz Schuler on how women are changing the labor movement to interviews with state lawmakers on how the politicization of in vitro fertilization has spurred fertility care coverage bills across the country. Emma, thank you so much for joining us today.

Emma Cordover, Politico (00:59):
Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. It’s really an honor and I’m going to have a lot of fun talking about this one in particular because it’s just, yeah, it’s a really great one to talk about. So thank you so much for having me.

Rachel Jones (01:13):
Well, I know you have prepared some slides for us to talk about your work, and particularly that one newsletter about this topic. But before you do that, let’s learn a little bit about your lived experience and who Emma Cordova is. So start by telling us about your background and your entry into journalism.

Emma Cordover (01:34):
Oh, sure. Yeah, so I am from Washington DC actually born and raised. My mom is from Spain. My dad is from the Bronx, New York. So an interesting little mashup there. But I grew up going to Spain back and forth twice a year my whole life. My twin sister currently lives there and the rest of my mom’s side of the family lived there as well. So I kind of grew up with this very two-sided upbringing. I would say I was kind of straddling two cultures at once at all times. And I like to say that that’s what drew me to journalism, just because I was a very curious person and I wanted to understand everyone and everything, I think, and I feel like journalists’ job is to do that and to explain what’s going on in life by understanding it well yourself. So I graduated from Cornell in 2022 and I started at Politico shortly after as a producer. And yeah, I’ve been there for two years now. So a lot of what I’m going to talk about today, I think I’ve learned very much on the fly and a lot of what I’ve learned has been thanks to amazing reporters and editors that have believed in me and listened to my ideas and given me all these opportunities. So I just hope that I can impart some of that knowledge to you all today.

Rachel Jones (03:05):
Well, one of the things that I find so interesting about someone who has your set of experiences is that you do have such a broad range of opportunities to learn about various topics and from, again, sustainability to reproductive health. But one of the things that I found most interesting when the newsletter popped up in my email was thinking about how when covering immigration, specifically the broad reaching aspects of these policies, reproductive health is something that personally as a journalist, I have supported journalists in learning more about not only in the US but on the African continent as well, so that when I read your newsletter, I thought this is a terrific way to add context and depth and to help people understand that it’s not just about that point of arrest and deportation, et cetera. So I’m going to let you tell us how that topic landed on your radar screen and walk us through that.

Emma Cordover (04:17):
Awesome. Yeah, I’m definitely going to talk about how there’s this policy overlap. I think those kind of small intersections in policy outcomes I think is where some of the freshest and most, I think, important reporting comes from. So I will definitely get into that. But yeah, I can share my slides now.

Rachel Jones (04:36):
Yes.

Emma Cordover (04:38):
OK, I think we are good. So what I’m going to do, I think is how I’ve set this up is a kind of step-by-step process with numbers. So I hope that’s OK with all of you that I numbered it and I’m just going to share some details about my process writing this story that can hopefully help you all do the same in your communities. And I think with immigration coverage especially, there’s such a continuous stream of news around it at all times that it can be harder to find a unique angle and a fresh angle. So I think, yeah, that’s something that I will get into in a moment. So step one, an idea. Of course, you have to start with your idea. And like I said in the beginning, I’m really excited to talk about this story specifically because I think its, Genesis is a really wonderful example of why I love journalism so much.

(05:41):
What happened was I got dinner with a friend on a Friday night. We were sitting in her apartment having dinner, we were catching up about work and life, and she just started telling me about how difficult and chaotic her work life had become. For context, she works at a hospital here in New York at their clinic for undocumented migrants as a project manager specifically for the postpartum depression clinic. So she works in giving postpartum depression care to undocumented mothers. And we were talking and she told me that work had just been absolutely crazy since Trump’s immigration executive orders had hit the news since his inauguration. She said that patients were extremely scared. She said that they were not showing up for visits. So she was explaining that as a result, the clinic had shifted its priorities completely and was holding legal info sessions and what to do if ice shows up presentations and had just kind of become this community resource center as well as a hospital.

(06:46):
They were trying their best to convince patients that a hospital was still a safe place to be, that their care was important enough for them to continue in treatment, but it wasn’t always working. And a lot of these mothers were just not showing up and even grappling with what to do with their newborn if they do get deported. So she was really worried about these mothers since postpartum care is so important. And I sat there listening and talking with her, and I myself started to get worried and frustrated and confused as is kind of the natural reaction I think. And it just lighted this fire in me a little bit, especially since I hadn’t yet come across any reporting about this particular issue, the healthcare fallout from immigration policy change. I hadn’t seen any reports yet on this particular kind of overlap. So on the bright side, I think that these are the moments from which the best stories are born in my experience.

(07:45):
I think when you’re passionate about something, when you find something out anecdotally like this at dinner from a real live person and a primary source, I think it’s where some of the freshest and most important reporting comes from. And so I got home that night and I knew that I was offering the Women Rule newsletter the following week. And so I started just looking into how exactly I might be able to cover this issue and doing a little bit of research. So a little bit of background, as we all probably know, Trump’s immigration policy executive orders dominated the news cycle for the first weeks in office, his first weeks in office for almost all of January. I think he obviously made a slew of policy changes related to immigration coverage in his first moments in office. And there was actually a report from my colleagues at Politico titled Mass Deportations haven’t arrived, but Trump’s PR blitz has, it’s there in the middle.

(08:45):
And this one stood out to me that week in particular because I thought that the factual distinction between the story that Trump’s media team is trying to tell versus what the actual policy outcomes were was really important to underscore and I think could be kind of conflated. And I knew that I wanted to echo that in my story. And I think it also, what this research made clear was that there was indeed a media blitz related to immigration that was intentional and concerted. And it was important to me that I established that there was actually this kind of immigration blitz happening that could be spreading fear and spreading confusion within communities. So as you can see, blitz was a very popular word in a lot of other headlines as well. So the next thing I wanted to focus on in my research was the birthright executive order.

(09:43):
This was one of the most notable immigration policy changes that Trump tried to make was repealing birthright citizenship. He attempted to undo this law that grants all children born on US soil automatic citizenship, but like many of his other decisions, it was challenged by the courts. And then the legal development of this EO started to dominate the new cycle as well. So this one stood out to me obviously because of its likely kind of long and very tumultuous legal road ahead, but also because it affects a particular demographic that I would be covering women and mothers, of course, not just women and mothers. But I think it was a kind of specific focus. And although birthright citizenship was in place then and is still now, I kind of just hypothesized that the uncertainty around its future could only add to the blitz of fear and confusion for immigrants, especially new parents or expecting parents.

(10:46):
And so I thought it was important to mention that. So another of the most notable immigration policy changes that Trump put in place was allowing ICE into sensitive locations, including schools, churches, and hospitals. And it was this executive order actually that my friend mentioned to me specifically was causing the most chaos in hospitals, which makes a lot of sense. I think she just said there was a lot of confusion about what it actually meant for ICE to be able to show up, and that’s what was kind of preventing a lot of these patients from continuing care. And I also think that it was this executive order that really cemented the policy overlap between immigration and healthcare, that now the two are kind of very specifically linked and related. And I came across a lot of really great local and more healthcare specific reporting about how patients were skipping visits.

(11:45):
Like here, there was a nurses union that spoke about it and more kind of local reports about patients skipping. I hadn’t seen any national reporting on it yet, but I found a lot of really great local stories about it. So I was glad that that was kind of being confirmed. Well, not glad, but we do what we can. So step two of course is your pitch. And I think the hardest part or one of the hardest parts for me in reporting in general is the jump from, I’m passionate about this, I’m confused. I’m wanting to figure this out to, I’m going to write about this for a political audience, or I’m going to write about this for this particular newsletter. I think pitching is a lot of fun, especially when you care about a lot of things and there’s so much going on, especially now, but my ideas and ideas in general can be lofty and hard to pin down.

(12:41):
So I really wanted to make sure that I packaged this very complicated issue in a way that would land for my editor primarily, and of course for our audience, which is what she has in mind. I sent her this pitch. I have a screenshot of the slack that I sent her. I told her that I wanted to figure out how to cover the mass deportations and their effect on women on. I later wrote, I wonder if we could look at how deportations affect mothers or something to that effect, and how medical and maternal care professionals slash childcare professionals are responding our adoption services, seeing a boost. Are childbirth complications increasing as mothers choose not to seek care? So I wanted to focus on policy, action and reaction and just causes and effects specifically what do people need to know about how these policy changes are affecting people in daily life?

(13:37):
And then also, how are these policy changes affecting large organizations, including government organizations like welfare groups or government finances or businesses. So I wanted to make sure that the scope of the effects was broad, and I wanted to say not just this is happening and I think it’s important and it’s devastating and it’s hard, but I wanted to go further and say, what’s happening here is going to impact this, this, and this specifically, and this is why that matters. This is how long the effects are going to last. This is exactly who will be affected. So I wanted to make sure that that was mentioned in my pitch from the get-go. And luckily, yay, she wrote back saying that she was on board with the pitch. And so I got to work finding sources. So for this project, I wanted both immigration experts and also healthcare experts to speak on the issue.

(14:37):
And I also really wanted to get a specifically women slash mothers centered organization. And then within that, I of course wanted to make sure I got both sides of the aisle, both perspectives or at least one each, and then an established nonpartisan voice. So what I landed on was KFF is a nonprofit health policy research organization. I spoke to the director of immigrant health policy there. Then the Migration Policy Institute is a nonpartisan think tank. I spoke to a senior policy analyst there. The Center for Immigration Studies is a pro-immigration restriction think tank. So they’re in favor of Trump’s eos. I spoke to a director of policy studies there. And then Moms Rising is a really amazing organization. I found they’re an on the ground coalition of moms and others with members across all 50 states. And so I spoke to the executive director and CEO of Moms Rising for the story.

(15:41):
So first sourcing on this story, I think sourcing on a strict deadline like a newsletter that comes out weekly can be slightly challenging just because there’s a very limited window and you want to write about something timely of course, too. But I find that when you are writing about something timely, usually you get responses pretty readily, especially from groups like these who want to share information and spread knowledge. So luckily I did hear back from all of them and I was able to set up my interviews. So here is a list of all of the interview questions that I had prepared. Things I want to highlight here is just the focus again on the cause and effect of the immigration policy changes how this could affect people in real time and how it was affecting people in real time. Anecdotally, I also really wanted to make sure that I had the most up to date hard data on what exactly was going on, the number of deportations, the demographics of those deported, how many are women, how many are children?

(16:47):
I think especially because of what I mentioned in the beginning, there’s potential for a lot of confusion about what actually is happening with the policy changes. So I wanted to make sure that I got straight from the source accurate and up-to-date information. And then after that, I wanted to zoom out and just get big picture perspectives on how all these changes might have. I think what I said is cascading effects on healthcare, childcare, hospitals, and anything else that I might not have thought of for just the larger zoomed out perspective on what this all means for the country and for healthcare professionals and everyone involved. So yeah, these are the ones that I had prepared. I think during the interviews, obviously there was a little bit of more back and forth and conversational questions, but these are the ones that I had prepped. So my findings, what I found in the interviews firstly, and I think most importantly was confirmation of what my friend had been telling me about how the policy changes were affecting patients in real time.

(17:53):
From the Mom’s rising conversation, I heard a lot about family separations, children in schools being afraid that they might not be able to go back to school or being afraid that their best friend might not be able to go back to school. She told me some really kind of harrowing stories about ice raids in public. I think she mentioned one was at a waffle house. There was one that even I think Dr. Phil went to. So it was this kind of public entertainmenty thing. It was a fascinating conversation and really, yeah, just harrowing. But I got a lot of really great on the ground information from her because she was in touch with this really big network of people across the whole country, which was amazing. And then I also heard from Valerie LeCar, who was the MPI researcher, the nonpartisan think tank in her own words that trump’s EOS were making pregnant people particularly insecure.

(18:53):
And she emphasized that it was because of the birthright changes, which also confirmed my initial hypothesis that this birthright confusion and uncertainty can only be adding to the fear. And she also added that the uncertainty around birthright makes women with even semi-legal status insecure as well, which I wouldn’t have thought of. And I found that really important to speaking to the larger cascading effects of these policies that they’re affecting not just even the undocumented migrants or even just their children, but even people who are going through the legal process and people who are allegedly doing it the right way. So I thought that was a really important thing to have in the story. And then after parsing through the transcript for anecdotal quotes, I wanted to look for the best policy argument related quotes. So in red here I have quotes from the Center for Immigration Studies researcher, or I guess maroon, I dunno, that’s red.

(19:56):
But what I gathered from the conversation with her was that her perspective was that this conundrum, I guess this issue with healthcare and maternal healthcare, while very difficult and sad, was just a representation of how lax immigration restrictions in the past have caused harm. And she said that the concerns coming out of communities, so patients skipping appointments, avoiding treatment, was actually a result of politically motivated fear mongering from within immigration advocacy groups. So as she saw it, it was liberal groups trying to paint the president in a bad light and exaggerating the potential negative effects of his policies to be able to achieve that. And that this wasn’t what the government was doing trying to spread fear or trying to get people not to go to their appointments. It was actually the advocacy groups that were doing it from a political vantage point. And she also added, which is another important policy argument, I thought that the healthcare fallout from this kind of issue would cost Americans a lot financially since a lot of the government funding was being allocated to helping undocumented migrants and their US-born children rather than helping American citizens.

(21:20):
And on the other hand, the quote that’s not in red here is from the KFF healthcare researcher. And what she thought was that what’s happening right now, the patients skipping visits, the people avoiding healthcare because of the executive orders and because of immigration related fears is actually going to cost Americans a lot more in the long run because they’re their issues and healthcare problems can become more complex and more expensive to treat later on. So that was an interesting contrast, the other researcher. And then it was also really important for the story, like I said in the beginning, that I get hard data and statistical quotes, statistical evidence, and these two are actually as well in contrast with what the researcher was saying in the previous slide, that actually according to a study report from the state of Florida, immigrants without legal status accounted for just 0.8% of hospital visits and just 0.8% of emergency department visits.

(22:24):
So the numbers were actually very, very small and not significant enough at all to cause taxpayers a big change. And then she also mentioned that data from Trump’s first administration showed that his immigration policies, although maybe it wasn’t the government doing that, it still showed that his immigration policies led to growing reluctance among some families from participating in programs either for themselves or their children who are us born because they didn’t want to draw attention to their immigration status. So that was another kind of counterpoint to the other quotes. And I think something I want to mention here is that one of the biggest challenges to this story, and I think maybe generally for timely immigration related stories, is that everything that I’m writing about is happening in real time and is ongoing. So there isn’t yet the data’s unfolding in front of me right now, and there wasn’t yet any analysis or really comprehensive conclusive info on what the effects the policies were having in the past three weeks since he’d been in office.

(23:32):
So I had to rely a lot on just data from the past administration. And when I was asking these researchers, how many mothers have been affected? What is happening exactly right now in the past two weeks, they were like, well, we don’t really know that yet because we don’t have enough data. But I think all of this past information can really help inform what’s happening now since we do have another administration to compare it to. So step five for this story, since it’s a newsletter format that comes out weekly on Fridays, like I mentioned, it was important that I establish a news hook to let readers know why this is all timely. And for the news hook, I wanted to choose the most grabby, jarring bit of recent immigration news to start the piece. And that to me was the Guantanamo Bay plan. It also worked well because the first flight of migrants had been sent to Guantanamo Bay just that Tuesday, so days before the story ran.

(24:34):
So I thought it was a good hook and a good kind of piece of color for what was going on immigration wise in this administration. And then of course, we have the nut most important part of the story, as they all say. And I think for the nut graph, I wanted to underscore, like I mentioned in the beginning, the factual distinction between Trump’s media blitz and the actual number of deportations. I wanted to highlight the overwhelming nature of the news around the deportations and how that might mismatch with what’s actually happening and how this might be contributing to the fear and confusion among communities. And then after that, I wanted to bring in the whole point of the story, which is that there is a specific subset of those immigrants that could be uniquely impacted by these policies. It’s not just patients skipping healthcare appointments in general.

(25:26):
It’s specifically people who are expecting a child or have just had a child. And then after the nut, I had my top quote, which was a quote from the nonpartisan think tank researcher, Valerie, and then I went into the rest of the story. But yes, we love a nut graph. And then step six is edits. Of course, I always stare at the Google Doc, they tell me not to stare at the Google Doc, I stare at the Google Doc anyway. But some things that I find helpful in final edits are linking to background reporting. I think obviously this has a benefit to the reader, but I think for me, it actually helps me be more concise in my writing because I can trust that if the reader does need a longer explanation of what’s happening, that they can just follow the link. I can get caught up in wanting to specify and explain everything really well and thoroughly.

(26:21):
And I think linking is a good interactive way to get the reader engaged and also can just make you kind of trust that you can say what you need to say and leave it at that. And then a top quote and a kicker quote, I love a kicker quote. I think especially when you have a subject that’s sensitive and emotional, I think kicker quotes can be a really good kind of final flourish to the story. And if you have good quotes, I say throw ’em in there. They’re always fun. So yeah, I think lastly, I wanted to leave you with four tips on how to do this in your community. So I can go through each one first. Know your audience. I think a lot of this is self-explanatory, but specifically here what I’m trying to get at is your idea. If you have an idea and it’s yours and you believe in it, it’s probably a very good one.

(27:19):
I think the only thing that stands in the way of a good idea and a good story is the packaging of that idea. So I think if you can figure out how to package something in a precise and digestible way, I think you can write about anything that you want. I think it’s about knowing who, who’s going to read it from your editor to your actual readers. I think of course, your editor has your readers in mind, but keeping that in mind and understanding that you have to frame it in a way that will be understandable, I think is really important. And just knowing them, get to know what your editor likes and what your readers like. And I think that, again, very self is mandatory, but trust that your idea is a good one. It just needs to be packaged in the right way.

(28:07):
Secondly, and I think this is a little bit more specific, but it does get at what Rachel and I were talking about in the beginning, and it’s focusing on small overlaps in policy outcomes, I think can lead to fresh angles. I think finding the intersection point between two very long lines of reporting can be very insightful and can be a helpful way to just come up with a story idea. Even in the beginning. These two lines in this case are immigration coverage and healthcare coverage. And finding a point where they both intersect, I think can provide really important and necessary reporting when covering huge topics that are already getting so much attention. I can be intimidating and hard to just find a new angle. And I think finding that intersection point can be great. Thirdly, follow your gut. I know these are all kind of very cliche, but I promise I have something to say about them.

(29:07):
And this relates to what I said in the beginning, but if you have an idea for a story, it is probably a good one. If you’re passionate about something, if you’re sitting at dinner feeling fired up or observing something happening in your community, it’s probably going to be an amazing idea. And I think if you have a gut reaction to it, readers will probably have a gut reaction to it. And if you’re talking with people and feeling like you’re getting excited about something, it’ll probably be a great idea. And then the last one, I know I’m just out of time, but it’s just source widely. I think for these stories, you can be passionate about them and it can be difficult to want to hear from all sides of the puzzle, I guess, or all pieces of the puzzle, but making sure that you get every single perspective in there is only going to make your reporting stronger and only going to make your whole argument and everything that you’re trying to say even stronger. So making sure to talk to as many people as you can, even on a deadline. So yeah, that’s all. I hope this was helpful and I can take questions if we still have time.

Rachel Jones (30:16):
Emma, I got to tell you, this is probably one of the most brilliant presentations I’ve seen for Widening the Pipeline. I think what you have highlighted here is something that I think a lot of particularly young journalists don’t unshare your screen by the way, so that we can see the full

(30:37):
Emma here, but something that sometimes young journalists forget in that we must become experts on five different topics every other week. And the work and the commitment of doing the research, finding the right people to talk to, thinking deeply about these issues can yield some tremendous work. And this has been a terrific example of that. So I’m so grateful I clicked on my newsletter that day when I saw it. It’s just the perfect addition to this conversation. So while we wait to see if there are any questions, I had one question that I wanted to ask you, and that is, it’s related to sourcing and your source was your friend, your sitting, having dinner with and your whatever. As the idea developed in your brain and you thought maybe this is something to pursue, how do you navigate that relationship? Did you ask her to validate some things that you were thinking about? Do you touch base with her? Do you worry that maybe you’ll obsess and make her feel like, I’m not going to talk to Emma again because she’s going to turn everything I say into a story. Tell us about that relationship.

Emma Cordover (32:01):
Yeah, that is a great question and something that, yeah, I experienced it while it was happening, but I didn’t think about it afterwards. So I’m now kind of processing that in real time. But yeah, there is always a kind of interesting relationship. I feel like as reporters, when you say, oh, I’m a reporter and I want to write about something that you said, A lot of people can be like, wait, there’s just kind of a frenzy. She is my good friend and she knows what I do and she supports me very much. But there was definitely, I think initially a, I sent her a text, I think an audio message saying, oh my God, who I really want to talk about what we were talking about. I’m writing the newsletter this week and I think it would be a really good topic. And I said, call me later if you want to talk about it.

(32:50):
I want to make sure that it’s OK with you that I write about it, and I want to make sure that whatever you want, whatever involvement you want in the story you can have. So I was willing to quote her of course and get her as involved as she wanted to be. She was worried, so we had a call and she was worried about going on the record, I think, which makes a lot of sense that healthcare providers are always reluctant to go on the record. I tried to get other healthcare providers for the story. There’s a lot of HIPAA stuff there though that they can’t really breach, so she wasn’t willing to go on the record, but she, I think felt a lot better. After I told her my entire plan for the story, I said, I just want to write about this on a national level.

(33:38):
She asked, are you writing about it locally, about New York specifically? And I said, no, I want to talk about it broadly. This is who I want to talk to. This is who I think could have this opinion and that kind of thing. And so I kind of walked her through my whole process. I told her that I sent my editor my pitch, so I talked to her. I sent the editor my pitch, and then once the editor confirmed, I was like, yes, OK, we’re good to go. And then we had another call. We are friends, so we call a lot, and not all of them were related to this report, but I just kept her very much in the loop and she was really excited. I think for stories like these, there can be a hesitation about, I want to make sure this is represented well, but ultimately they want this coverage.

(34:26):
They want people to talk about this. It’s going to help them in the end. I think reporters have such power in that way. And again, like I said in the beginning, this story is just such a reflection of how amazing journalism can be because you hear about something, you hear about something hard and devastating, and then you can actionably do something and write about it. And however the impact manifests is not up to you, but you know that you have informed the public and that you have done your kind of informational duty, which I think is really powerful. But yeah, I hope I answered the question. I think I just kept her very involved, and I definitely asked her before I had any sort of communication with my editor, and I sent her a draft right before it was going to publish, and she was very, very happy with it, but she wasn’t willing to go on the record, of course, even though I didn’t.

Rachel Jones (35:23):
I get that. I guess another thing I wonder about, I guess if you had to give advice to the fellows is to really be mindful of these kinds of reactions. In other words, if you do have a friend or somebody you meet at a party or whatever, who offers you a tip, if they do sort of back off or recoil or whatever, don’t let that be sort of, you drop it, find someone else to talk a little bit about how to sort of navigate that.

Emma Cordover (35:58):
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point. I think it may seem like your idea came from this one interaction from somebody, but I think ultimately your ideas are your own and an original, and you gather inspiration from myriad things throughout life. So I think you can treat a tip from somebody as, oh, this was pointing me in the direction of this story. Whether or not they want to be involved is of course up to them. But I think don’t discount the idea completely just because the person that gave it to you no longer wants to be involved. I think if it’s in your head, there’s always a way to execute it. And persistence is everything that is. I think the one thing I’ve learned throughout reporting is I think if you have an idea, I said, this is probably a good one. And I think even if it doesn’t end up as the exact story that you thought of, it will end up if you persist with it. I think I can’t name a single time where this hasn’t happened for me, that if I’ve been persistent with something, maybe I didn’t break the exact news that I thought I would break, but I ended up with a story, a product at the end that I was proud of. So yeah, just take ownership, I guess, over your ideas. I think just because it came from somebody doesn’t mean that you weren’t involved with it as well.

Rachel Jones (37:24):
Great advice. Let’s start with the hands I see. Raise Gabriella, introduce yourself and ask your question.

Gabriella Nunez (37:32):
Hi, Emma. Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciated the dissection of all your steps. I’m Gabriel Nunez here in Atlanta. I have a two-part question. One, what was it like or what sort of edits did you receive or type of questions you received during the process of writing your piece? And then second, did you learn any new information that perhaps inspired your next piece?

Emma Cordover (37:54):
OK, great questions. I think in editing for this one, I often get this, I think every journalist will get this, but just making sure that tone is even and not charged with emotion, I think is the biggest thing for me, especially with talking about this current administration. I think it’s been a thing for other stories that I’ve written that my editor just wants to make sure that my tone is factual and even toned and not too punchy or too exaggerated. And I think that’s the most amazing, I think, as a writer to just detach herself a little bit. And it can be hard again with sensitive topics like these, but I think I got a lot of feedback on that. And then otherwise just kind of conciseness cuts and wording choices. And she was the one that suggested that I talk to the NPI, which is a nonpartisan think tank.

(38:59):
I think initially I was only going to talk to kind of the opposing sides, but she was the one that suggested specifically someone from the center. So I appreciated that a lot. And then the second thing, second question, I definitely learned a lot of things that I didn’t know of before, and I’m writing the newsletter again in a couple of weeks, and so I’m hoping to integrate that. I mean, the thing about this topic is that it’s changing every single day. I think there’s been, just this week there was more developments on the birthright executive order being challenged again, there’s more Guantanamo Bay updates. So there’s a lot of timely things to write about, I think. Yeah, I just hope I, I would love to cover what happens with the birthright EO and how that, I feel like if that gets changed, I mean, obviously it’s going to change a lot of lives and a lot of decisions and just change the framework, I think, even culturally of the United States. So I would love to do a kind of deep dive on that fallout and just keep up with the immigration news and how it’s affecting healthcare. I think I can only imagine it continuing to spread confusion and fear and uncertainty. So I hope to keep up with that. But yeah, again, I’m just watching for all the developments and making sure that I’m up to date and reporting on the newest news. So I hope that answers your question.

Rachel Jones (40:36):
Thank you. Let’s go to Elisha.

Elisha Brown (40:44):
Hi, Emma. I’m Elisha Brown. I work at States Newsroom. I’m based in North Carolina, and I write a reproductive brights newsletter. Thank you so much for your insight today. I have a little bit of setup for my question. It’s just retracing what you said about your process for the story, which came from a friend, which sometimes are always the best ideas. So you set your peg because the news was, I mean, the cycle is still very quick, but obviously it was causing a lot of fear among immigrant women and pregnant women. So you said your pack at the time was Guantanamo that I noticed from your time sent the newsletter. Around the same week, five immigrant pregnant women filed a lawsuit over Trump’s EO questioning the 14th Amendment or Birthright Citizenship. So when the suit came down, did you say, okay, I’m going to have to just talk about that next time, or had you already filed your story just because I know, I think, does your newsletter come out on Fridays? I just subscribed. But yeah, just wondering what that process is like because newsletter writing can be so laborious and you’re like, oh, this just happened and I have to talk about it tomorrow or next week or something. Does that make sense? Does my question make sense?

Emma Cordover (42:04):
Totally, totally, totally. Actually, there’s another newsletter that I write that comes out on Wednesdays, and there’s been so many times that, and it comes out in the morning. So there’s been so many times where something happens at night and I have to rewrite the entire top, and I’m just like, Ugh. But that’s news. But in this case, I think this particular newsletter is particularly laborious. I think the top is always original reporting, and it’s pretty long and it’s kind of a intense process. And edits usually get done on Thursday before so that we can get it to production for a copy edit on Friday and then get it scheduled. So there is kind of a shift back in the timing. And so I think I had the news hook set by Wednesday night, Thursday morning, and wanted to get it over to my editor around Thursday morning, Thursday midday.

(43:02):
So I think it wasn’t a dramatic enough change in news for me to rewrite. And I also really wanted to put the Guantanamo based stuff in there just because I feel like so representative of the vibe that it’s just a kind of very grabby kind of ridiculous thing, or just, what’s the word, rare, odd, out of the ordinary thing for Americans. It’s kind of like we all know Guantanamo Bay as what it is. Anyway, so I thought I really wanted to keep that in because I feel like it was reflective of the fear spreading and the fact that the facility is only equipped to hold 130, and he’s planning to send 30,000. It was also a reflection of the mismatch in speech and media speech and then action. So anyway, I think yes, sometimes it’s definitely worthy to rewrite to my own chagrin and to all of our chagrin.

(44:09):
But in this case, I really liked the Guantanamo Bay Hook, and I wanted to keep that in. But yeah, I mean, in this case, I think there could have been another case where I had to rewrite it. And I think, again, yeah, since this is an ongoing thing and the birthright legal process is so long and it’s going to be long, the experts that I spoke to, they’re just, yeah, I mean, it’s going to be very, very long and complicated multi-step thing, and I think there’s probably going to be more lawsuits like that one. So I thought it was appropriate to wait and cover all of the birthright legal developments in another piece or just as they come separately from this particular newsletter. But yeah, I hope

Rachel Jones (44:58):
That Monique,

Monique Welch (45:02):
Yes. Hi, I am Monique Welch. I’m a diverse communities reporter from the Houston Landing. I apologize, my voice, Jesse, I’m battling a little cold symptoms, so losing my voice daily, but want to really appreciate your presentation at this kind of moment, historic moment in journalism in the country, really, a lot of journalists, even if they don’t directly cover immigration, will probably have some immigration stories. And I think I’d be foolish to think that I probably won’t be looped into something. So this provides me a really great kind of roadmap on different story angles. But I’m thinking from a local level, because I’ve covered a lot of done stories within the black maternal health healthcare space, particularly with disparities in Houston, it’s pretty bad, so it’s never ending to write about. So I’m thinking that this could be a good fresh angle with some of my expertise in that to kind of pair, but focus on immigrant communities.

(46:02):
And so working in a local publication, I’m thinking about any suggestions you might have to finding some of the people who are going through this. I know you spoke to a lot of experts, but just talk about what that can look like and trying to convince people to go on record or even off record or on background to try to tell the story with our stories. We have to focus on that human interest and have a subject. So I’m just trying to think of how to get around that and knowing how difficult it can be within the immigration space.

Emma Cordover (46:39):
Totally, yes. I think for this story, one of the challenges was, or just, yeah, I wanted more human and firsthand accounts. I think I kind of circumvented that by talking to the Mom’s Rising Source, which was an organization. So she was kind of the spokesperson for all of these other communities. And she actually, she told me, she shared some off the record things that she had heard from the moms specifically that gave me kind of color and context, obviously not necessarily useful for the story, but she was in contact with all of those people. So I think if you could find something similar to that, if you really can’t get anybody on the record. I think I called several for this one to just try to get at least some sort of, not even a healthcare provider, but someone administrative or something like that. I was on a deadline, so I wasn’t able to, but I think that could be another interesting way of maybe trying avoiding the healthcare providers themselves.

(47:46):
And obviously the patients themselves, I think can’t probably, again, with an undocumented community won’t want to be on the record, but just finding people that are near them, I guess, and that can have eyes on the scene and can speak to that. And then I think the other thing I was going to say is another thing that I learned in this story, and that actually is a good answer to a question a little bit ago, but was about morbidity rate, and that was something that I hadn’t really looked into as much, but I know that there’s a lot of disparities between morbidity rate based on race and community maternal morbidity. So if you could get some statistics on that, I feel like that could also be a really good way to show, sometimes statistics can be a good placeholder for a human, not replacement, but can be a good fillers for human stories because this many people have had healthcare complications because of childbirth, and the CDC does a maternal morbidity rate calculator, and I think states, local governments also track it.

(49:01):
So that could be helpful as well. Then yeah, I think talking off the record, I never say no really to talking off the record or on background, just because I think it can always bring up something and just, I like talking to people, so I’m like, yeah, talk to me. So yeah, just you can trust that even the off the record conversations will help. And yeah, I think that’s it. Just trying to get people maybe who aren’t living it themselves, but it’s like, oh, this person has worked in this community for X many years as this. They clearly have insight on what’s going on. And then, yeah, I mean, I’m sure you have sources in the community that also trust you and trust the newspaper and trust what you’re doing. So I feel like that can only help on a local level. But yeah, if I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.

Rachel Jones (50:03):
Mark, did I miss — Did you have a question?

Mark Edwards (50:08):
I felt like it was pretty much answered. The only other thing, maybe it was about from the inception of your initial idea from having that conversation to it actually going out, what was the timeline on that? And I guess also when you’re being persistent, like you said on a story, trying to find the right angle it, what are you looking for, especially if it’s working on something for 14th Amendment stuff right now, which is a longer timeline thing. What kind of aspects are you looking for to keep the story alive, keep it correct, and how do you know when to switch angles and stuff like that?

Rachel Jones (50:44):
Before your answer, tell her who you are.

Mark Edwards (50:47):
Yeah, Mark Edwards video producer for the Washington Examiner.

Emma Cordover (50:51):
Nice to meet you. Yeah, it’s a great question. I think, well, so to answer the timeline question, I had the conversation with her on Friday night, and then the newsletter was coming out the following Friday morning, and then on Sundays before the newsletter comes out is when I sit down and start thinking about topics. And that’s when I started thinking about it. I sent in my pitch Monday morning, I got confirmation for the pitch Tuesday morning, and then I had all four of my interviews Wednesday morning, I had back to backs. It was wild. And then, yeah, so then I drafted it all Wednesday evening to Thursday morning, and then had it ready for her on Thursday midday. So I think to answer also your question about keeping it fresh, I think we have to kind of just cut it close on timing in order to keep it fresh. I can’t start brainstorming the newsletter more than a couple days before it comes out just because something crazy could happen. I tried doing that one time and then Trump got shot on Saturday, and I was like, I’m never going to plan ahead ever again.

(52:05):
So yeah, I think that the benefit to that, the downside is you’re on a time crunch, but the benefit is that whatever you’re writing about is going to be timely. And then I saw the Guantanamo Bay stuff happen on Tuesday, and so I was like, OK, that’s a great hook. Then all of my conversations were Wednesday, so I knew the story would be coming out two days later so I could ask about things that were very timely and relevant, and thankfully, I guess nothing bombshell level happened on Thursday or Friday morning. But yeah, I do keep it on a pretty short time crunch just because I would rather do that than have to restart. So yeah, I hope that answers your question.

Mark Edwards (52:54):
Yeah, thank you.

Emma Cordover (52:56):
Of course.

Rachel Jones (52:56):
Last call for questions. I don’t see any more hang out. I want to ask a question because quite frankly, I’m exhausted just hearing you describe the timeframe of that, coming up with the idea, the next newsletters coming out on a Friday, you’ve got to get the pitch approved, you got to do the interviews, you got to write it. I want to ask you something that many of the Widening fellows through the past three years have talked about, and we’ve had sessions talking about the work-life balance or how to keep from literally getting your brains fried in this process. So tell us a little bit about how you manage, again, this ability or this necessity to be an expert on a new topic every week. How do you deal with that?

Emma Cordover (53:54):
Yeah, I mean, definitely it is time consuming and emotionally kind of consuming as well, because to become an expert, you do have to be steeped in everything that’s going on. I think I can just, I mean, won’t say I’ve figured it out and that it’s totally easy and chill for me. I will not allege that at all. I think I have learned certain things to kind of keep me sane. I think the first thing that came to mind was I can tend to, there’s a lot of which I feel like no one talks about, no journalist I’ve heard yet talk about, but there’s a lot of interim time as a reporter when you’re waiting for somebody else, whether that be your source to get back to you, whether that be in between interviews or your editor. Of course in editing, you can’t do anything until your editor gets back to you.

(54:47):
I think when I first started, would use that interim time to freak out, just be like, I need to keep doing something, but I can’t do anything. But so I think being able to take those breaks as full on breaks and just be like, all right, this is out of my hands now. And just trusting that your source will get back to you or you don’t need to use all of your time to prepare as I think I was trying to do, just rehearsing, rehearsing again, I think you don’t need to do that. You’ll be ready when it happens.

(55:23):
And those times can be kind of a gift. You can either relinquish all of your power and just be like, all right, I’m waiting. Or you can use it to do something else on your to-do list that takes 10 minutes. Although don’t do that. Just relax. But I think, yeah, using that interim time as just, I’m doing everything that I can and should be doing, and that’s it. And I can chill now. I think. So yeah, that provides a lot of, a certain amount of downtime. And I think the other thing is just, I mean, love, enjoy it and feel like I can get very stressed out for sure and feel just very, especially I think now, I did want to bring this up at some point today, just I know now the news cycle. The news period is just, it’s a lot a of change.

(56:26):
There’s a lot of competing opinions and a lot of it’s very overwhelming. And I think especially for us in news, that’s what everyone tells me. I’m like, I’m a journalist. And they’re like, are you OK? And I’m like, yes. So I think I try to frame it as that I get to do this. I’m so lucky that I get to write about these things, this story particularly, I’m like, I’m so lucky that I get to talk with my friend, feel annoyed about something and then do something about it. I think a lot of people are sitting with their hands tied or don’t really know where to start. And I think we have this amazing opportunity in front of us to do something and to just be embedded within the fabric of the world and to actually have a little bit of a steering hand shaping a conversation or shaping something, shaping an outcome.

(57:23):
So I think the gratitude and the loving what you do also helps a lot. The term work-life balance always is interesting to me. I think I’m like, yeah, I mean, there’s definitely, there is a balance, but I think also I want to love both work and life, and I want to love my life because of my work, and I want to love my work because of my life. So keeping those things in mind and then just generally taking it chill and being like I am doing everything that I need to do, and also leaning on other people. I think I started this conversation by saying that a lot of what I’ve learned is thanks to reporters and editors that have held my hand through things and have given me incredible advice and taken the time to edit hard on my Google Docs. So yeah, leaning on the community that you have. And the amazing thing also about I think being a reporter, I’m rambling now, but is that there is this specific kind of community and mentorship. I feel like your editor is your mentor in certain ways, and I feel so lucky that I have people whose job is to help me write something better and have to be as involved with the story as I am. So it’s kind of like a really lovely partnership. I think. So, yeah, those three things I think and stay strong out here.

Rachel Jones (58:56):
Well, this has been a terrific conversation and I personally am so grateful that we have such a brilliant new member of the Widening the Pipeline family in Emma Cordova of Politico. So thank you so much for being with us, and we will definitely be in touch.

Emma Cordover (59:18):
Amazing. Thank you so much all. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

###