John Guilfoil's Blog
Alas, the formal end has come for PRrag.com.
The blog hasn’t been active in over two years, but it is with a great deal of excitement that I announce the creation of John Guilfoil Public Relations LLC.
I’ll be blogging JGPR.net from time to time, so please check out the site!
I know I haven’t blogged in ages, but I wanted to take a second here to point to a story I wrote in today’s Globe.
The story of Dieuphete Celime, as heartbreaking as it is, is one of ultimate hope. As much as I love covering breaking news/spot news, and as good as I’ve become at running out and getting the quick story, I would write Dieuphete Celime stories every day. This story is not tragic but beautiful, and photographer Eric Jacobs did a fantastic job capturing the scene.
As I turn 28 today, it’s a great gift to be able to put a story like that in the newspaper.
Today’s front page story about the arrival of the first Yemeni LNG supply in the Boston area involved a few reporters, a photographer, and lots of hours.
I sat in car with Essdras Suarez from 2 a.m. until about 6. It’s not the situation you’d expect to be a case study in gadgetry, but it was.
We used a laptop with mobile internet to access Marinetraffic.com and track the position of the 935-foot Maran Gas Coronis tanker and its escort ships. We combined with that GPS equipment to place ourselves in the best possible positions to observe the ship and take photos and videos. I also had a police scanner programmed to the marine and Coast Guard frequencies. A lot of that was encrypted, but we were able to track updates on when the ship was about to be visible from our first vantage point in East Boston.
The police scanner was also interesting, because it allowed us to hear when the police were chasing us — which was a lot. We got stopped six times and asked for identification, including three spots in East Boston, twice in Charlestown and once in Everett.
Essdras had the Canon 1D Mark IV, one of the best cameras in the world, which does stills and videos.
I had the humble Flip camera, which failed to capture any usable video in the pitch black of 4 a.m.
I’ve penned about six stories for the Globe in the past week regarding the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and another dozen or so reporters have been working on different angles since the 7.0 quake struck on Jan. 12.
But the real news is coming from Maria Sacchetti and now Stephen Smith, who are both in Haiti sending back, by far, the best reporting coming out of that country. Don’t miss the Globe’s coverage, whatever you do. Maria and Steve are giving everyone a blunt reminder of what seasoned, professional journalists can accomplish.