The Sri Lanka Angle   

Placed at the Toledo Blade as an Alfred Friendly Press Fellow, reporter Keith Noyahr of the Sunday Times in Colombo, Sri Lanka, was determined to question both Bill Clinton and George Bush after his homeland came up in campaign rhetoric. Clinton was fond of comparing America's economic growth unfavorably to that of the poor Indian Ocean nation, while Bush rejected the comparison.

Rather than bristling at the exchange, Noyahr smelled a compelling story with a great local angle. "I thought I must follow up," he says.

To get his story, the 29-year-old reporter relied on equal parts shoe leather and ingenuity. When the candidates visited Toledo on consecutive days in October, he positioned himself in receiving lines and in crowds surrounding their cars. He hoped to pass them notes asking them such questions as "Why are you belittling Sri Lanka?" and "What will be your southeast Asian trade policy?"

After darting past the Secret Service, ducking under a rope barrier and wading through a gaggle of reporters, he reached Clinton as he boarded his campaign bus. To catch Bush, he jumped into a receiving line after being brushed off by assistant press secretaries and security guards. As the president offered his hand, Noyahr dropped in his mini-questionnaire. "He looked puzzled," says Noyahr. "He may have felt he was meeting some kind of dignitary."

Bush later pulled the note out of his pocket during an interview with Blade reporter John Nichols and told him to tell Noyahr that "Clinton started it." Sri Lankan readers are still waiting to receive a response from the president-elect.