Just how, exactly, did Sarah Sacheli and Roberta Pennington find the Ortega family? Were these reporters camped out at the Windsor port of entry, and did they approach the Ortegas when they came through because they had the look of an immigrant family from Mexico who had made a wayside stop (of fifteen years, yet) in the US before continuing on to Canada? Somehow, that possibility just doesn’t seem likely.
Who had the idea for the story? Did Sacheli & Pennington go to their editor with the idea for the story, or did the editor send them out to develop a lead that was his idea? And, whoever thought of it, what was the genesis of the idea? Like a bulb, did it just light up in someone’s head? Or, as Senator Simpson was given to observe from time to time, did it come floating in over the transom unannounced?
Going back to the original question, who introduced the reporters to the Ortega family and to their story? There are a ton of candidates mentioned in the article: “Local agencies,” whatever that means; Jacquie Rumiel, director of programs for new Canadians at the YMCA; Maj. Wilfred Harbin, Salvation Army administrator or maybe hostel supervisor Marlene Dufault; someone at the city’s social services department or the Canada Border Services Agency; or maybe the Canadian Council for Refugees; maybe it was one of those “fraudulent advisers in the United States” that the article mentioned; could it be Legal Aid or possibly immigration lawyer John Rokakis, all likewise mentioned in the article.
One has to wonder. Did the reporters go out and hunt for their sources? Or, did the sources come to them (or their editor) with a ready-made story freshly pulled off the shelf?
Then there are all the details and quotes from the Ortega family. Did these two reporters actually do a face-to-face with the Ortegas? Or were all those details and quotes fed to the paper by a third, unidentified, party? Was Sacheli’s and Pennington’s only task that of sitting at their desks and writing up a pre-cooked tale? Inquiring minds want to know.
Even odds that the Ortegas are a product of these reporters’ imaginations.