Aug
10
Facebook, Twitter, social media — they are more than the future, they are the present. But no device for interconnection can take the place of people-to-people relationship building.
Let me explain why I believe this, and why I am making this argument now.
In the spring of 2011, I was preparing for a pilgrimage of sorts to northwestern Spain, to Galicia, from where my father’s family originated. The trip followed my father’s death and it was an effort to reconnect with the only family I had left from my paternal grandfather’s side of the family.
-
-
Bio |
E-mail |Recent columns
I went through my father’s papers looking for phone numbers, contact information, but found nothing. I went ahead and booked the trip anyway, figuring I had months to find them — and with Facebook, Twitter et al at hand I expected to easily find them.
But they were nowhere to be found on the Internet. I then went old school — word of mouth.
A friend of mine, Weston middle school teacher Margaret Giraldo, connected me via email to a friend of hers who was a member of Galicia’s provincial parliament.
I sent him an email expalining my plight and ofering the few tidbits of data I had — my grandfather’s name, the town outside of Santiago de Compostela from where he was from and an assortment of cousins first names that I recalled from my last visit to the family homestead in the 1970s.
The parliamentarian replied that it wasn’t much to go on, and proposed a “Hail Mary” play of sorts. Meaning that I write a letter to the editor explaining my family search for publication in a Galicia newspaper.
I must tell you I though the idea rated somewhere from desperate to ridiculous. I have been the Sun Sentinel’s editorial page editor for six years, and no one reads op-ed pages to join ancestry haystack searches.
Figuring I had nothing to lose, though, I batted out a three-paragraph letter and emailed it.
Within a few days, I was happily surprised to receive emails form people in Galicia offering to help. One came from a Pati Muxia, a genealogist who found the origin of my family name Fins.
Fins is no Garcia, or Fernandez, or Diaz. It is among the unlikeliest of Spanish surnames.
But sure enough, its roots are in northwest Spain. It actually derived from a Galician parrish, San Fins de Brion, just kilometers from the town and church where my grandfather was baptized and where my great grandfather is buried.
Then there was cryptic email from a Mr. Corneira — a phone number for me to call. When I inquired who the number belonged to, he replied it was my cousin’s, and gave me her full name.
Indeed, it was hers and I found my grandfather’s family. I also subsequently learned my grandfather had a brother in Cuba that I never knew about, and that I had set of cousins there I have now been in touch with.
The motto of the story is that technology is a great format for conveying information — and fast. But it’s not a substitute for people-to-people assistance.
Unfortunately, we’ve become so focused making sure blogs get updated, and video gets shot, and online views increase that we’ve lost sight of the nuts-and-bolts of our trade: allowing reporters and editors to build the relationships that yield the information worthy to be delivered to the public via traditionala nd new media channels.
At the end of the day, journalism is all about building relationships with readers, sources, and public figures.
Now, skeptics can dismiss my soap boxing here. You can say it’s last gasp of penguin trying to hold on to a melting iceberg.
Except I have no vested interest in making this argument, today is my last day as the editorial page editor here at the Sun Sentinel. I am moving on to take a position as executive director of the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation.
You bet I’ll pursue social media there, and tap into the next big i-thing, too.
But I’ll invest as much, if not more time, in building relationships with people. In our age, machines are great for disseminating data. But it’s people who create that information, that history.
Contact Antonio Fins at afins@sun-sentinel.com.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.