About the Story: When the new VW Beetle became a consumer hit, WFAA reporter Byron Harris saw an opportunity to help explain the contemporary economics of the auto industry. He traveled from his home base in Texas to neighboring Mexico to show why Volkswagen chose to build its cars there--and why that's important to autoworkers in the United States. Harris introduces us to autoworker Loverto Rosas, who calls the VW bug "beautiful." Harris picks up on the description. He writes that the bug is beautiful, too, to the Mexican city of three million people, where the car is produced, and it's beautiful to Volkswagen, but ugly to the United Auto Workers. The workers we meet earn $13 a day, including benefits. Their counterparts in Germany earn $55 an hour. Volkswagen's choice to move work to Mexico helps explain why US automakers are doing the same.

Behind the Story: When Harris proposed this story, General Motors was in the midst of a strike by the United Auto Workers. It was a national story, but it was also a local story in Texas, where GM has a plant. GM and other US companies build vehicles in Mexico, and the movement of work across the border was a hot issue in the strike. Harris wanted to go to the Mexican GM plant to show why work was being shifted there from the US, at the expense of American workers. GM denied him access. He tried to get into Ford and Chrysler plants in Mexico. No luck. But VW allowed him in. It wasn't a perfect scenario, says Harris. VW had no US plants, so Harris would have to compare the company's Mexican plant to its German operations. But the comparison mirrored the issues facing US automakers and autoworkers as work shifts to Mexico.

Beyond the Story:

• The newsroom values issue coverage. WFAA has a longstanding tradition of covering issues, not just events. Some newsrooms back away from business stories. They can be complicated. Research can be time consuming. Corporate PR people may throw up obstacles. Viewers may find them boring. Why then, does WFAA invest in sending a reporter to Mexico to see VW Bugs on the assembly line? The station sees it as part of its mission. Says former news director John Miller, now a corporate news executive with the station's parent company, Belo: "Our challenge is to take a business story and make it broader in interest. Byron did a great job of making this business story interesting."
  
  
• The station encourages training. Even with a highly experienced staff, WFAA encourages additional training and professional development. "Education is a perk," Harris says. "It is exciting." Harris attends the Investigative Reporters and Editors convention every other year, has attended the Brookings Institute to study economics, and attends FACS (Foundation for American Communications) conferences.
  
  
• The reporter stays informed. Harris says he reads everything he can get his hands on about all kinds of issues, from science to economics. "Knowledge is the precursor of reporting," he says. "The first good news director I worked for took me into the newsroom and said, 'This is your file cabinet. I expect you to do research and here is where you will keep it.' I always felt I had to know more than anyone else to win. I want to create the illusion that I am the smartest guy here." To make issues understandable, Byron Harris tries to put a human face on them. He has a 25-year track record of doing good work at his station, including a duPont-Columbia award for his early coverage of the savings and loan scandals. "The difference between reporters is energy; intellectual as well as pursuing the story. The big issue for me is trying to find ways to compete with myself." Even the best reporters don't get to do their favorite stories every day. Harris works on stories he enterprises as well as stories that come his way from the assignment desk. He believes in giving his best effort to both. In typical Harris fashion, he finds a metaphor to describe his efforts: "I help row the boat."