Washington Post reporter Chelsea Janes is switching from the Washington Nationals beat to the 2020 presidential campaign and discusses the differences and similarities of covering politics and sports.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Back on Election Day last month, Washington Post reporter Chelsea Janes had a big scoop. Now, if you’re thinking, Election Day – must be politics – think again. Janes covers baseball for the Post. And her scoop was that the Washington Nationals had just offered right-fielder Bryce Harper the biggest free-agent contract in U.S. sports history.

Janes has been all over breaking news on the Nats for four years now, which is why it caught our eye when we spotted a press release announcing she is about to switch beats to cover the 2020 presidential campaign. Chelsea Janes joins us now in our studio. Welcome.

CHELSEA JANES: Thank you for having me.

KELLY: So baseball to a presidential election – how did this come about?

JANES: (Laughter) You know, every four or five years or so they try to rotate the baseball reporters off that beat. It’s pretty grueling, as I’m sure a presidential campaign is too. But…

KELLY: I was going to say.

JANES: Yeah, (laughter) right.

KELLY: I’m not sure it’s going to be (laughter) – it’s going to get easier.

JANES: So I kind of knew my time was up. That was my fourth year. And as we started talking about what was next, they kind of said, well, how about Iowa in 2019? And I laughed it off. And eventually, it sort of started, well, actually, that would be really neat. And they were open to it, they being the head editors. And I was open to it. Just kind of felt like a no-brainer.

KELLY: Had you closely tracked politics up till that moment?

JANES: I would say I was one of the people – I think there are many – who really, you know, followed but really kind of got sucked in a couple years ago when the whole country kind of got sucked in a little bit more. And…

KELLY: It’s been hard not to be following politics closely.

JANES: Yeah, exactly.

KELLY: Yeah.

JANES: Exactly. And I think, you know, being so close to everything that’s happening in Washington and being at the Washington Post as that was happening, it was like, wow, I’m feet away from sort of being in on this period in history that I’m sure people will never forget. So you know, I figured if journalism is the first draft of history, I want to write part of it. You know, I want to be there for it. So it was an unbelievable opportunity that they were willing to even let me think about it.

KELLY: Part of what you’ll bring to it that somebody who’s been doing this for 20, 30 years can’t is a totally fresh eye. I mean, you weren’t working this beat in 2016, 2017.

JANES: Yeah. It’s really interesting. As they sort of presented this to me as an option, I think one of the things that’s very evident as I’ve talked to people is how much they thought they knew during 2016 and how little they really knew. So you know, a couple people have said to me, we need someone who can ask the dumb questions. And I was like, I can do that. That’s something I am capable of.

KELLY: (Laughter).

JANES: But yeah, I think they – there’s a sense that the rules have changed. And hopefully, you know, maybe I’ll notice something that someone who’s kind of in the weeds with it all doesn’t, or I can supplement in that way. So I at least hope that’ll be an advantage.

KELLY: Talk to me about some of the skills that you learned covering the baseball beat that will translate. You mentioned Iowa.

JANES: (Laughter).

KELLY: So I’m guessing a fondness for long bus rides and bad motels along the way might come in handy.

JANES: (Laughter) Yeah. Yeah, I think the travel logistics is a big part of it, that, you know, my stamina is very high. I’ve basically lived out of suitcases for five years, so I – I’m used to it. And, you know, that’s a big part of the campaign trail, from what I’ve heard. And having not been there, I can’t say.

But, you know, there’s a lot of sort of incremental updates. There’s a lot of noticing small changes in what people say and figuring out why. And I think that’s similar to baseball. It’s like, you might – you know, someone who’s just kind of dropping in might not see why this day or change is important, but it is important in presenting that day to day.

KELLY: What will you miss about covering baseball?

JANES: I love baseball, so even just kind of being at the park. It’s something I grew up with. I played softball in college. It’s brought me a lot of my closest friends. I’ll miss that part of it. I’ll miss the people. You spend – you know, as I’m sure you do in the politics realm – a lot of time with people that you cover and that you cover people with.

But, you know, I won’t miss rain delays, and I won’t miss writing about little injuries (laughter) while the world is burning. You know, you kind of sit there and think, what am I writing about a hamstring for?

KELLY: It’ll be awfully nice, though, to get to show up at one of those first spring games and think, I can just watch this.

JANES: (Laughter) Yeah.

KELLY: I don’t have to file a single line of copy about it.

JANES: Exactly. It’ll be nice – and leave when I want. (Laughter) Yeah.

KELLY: Well, Chelsea Janes, we wish you luck.

JANES: Thank you. I appreciate it.

KELLY: That’s Chelsea Janes. She wraps up four years covering baseball on the sports desk of the Washington Post in January in order to dig in covering politics and the 2020 presidential campaign.

(SOUNDBITE OF QUANTIC’S “PAINTING SILHOUETTES”)

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The 2018 farm bill legalized industrial hemp, after decades of restrictions. Hemp looks like marijuana, it smells like marijuana, but it’s not marijuana. Hemp growers are now anticipating a boom.

ESTHER HONIG, BYLINE: The 2018 Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp after decades of restrictions. Hemp looks like marijuana and smells like marijuana. But it’s not marijuana. Esther Honig of Harvest Public Media reports that hemp growers are now anticipating a boom.

HONIG: Farmers can already grow hemp in more than half the country. States like Colorado where Kristen Kunau grows it with her husband. Come December, most of what’s left of her crop sits in her fridge. She pulls out a mason jar of thick dark syrup. Does that smell more hemp-like or?

KRISTEN KUNAU: Kind of. Kind of sweet.

HONIG: Yeah. But still a little – it smells like…

KUNAU: Cannabis.

HONIG: …Marijuana.

KUNAU: Yeah.

HONIG: I’m always…

KUNAU: It is cannabis.

HONIG: This is CBD or cannabidiol. An oil made from hemp flowers. Unlike marijuana, there’s hardly any THC. So it won’t get you high. It’s increasingly popular for its purported health benefits.

KUNAU: I gave it to my kids. I put it on my face, burns, cuts. We’ve had so many different people tell us how much it’s helped them.

HONIG: CBD is driving the hemp market, which was once a common crop in the U.S. until lumped together with marijuana and banned in 1937. Then in 2014, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for hemp to be grown again as part of state-run research programs. This year, he pushed to remove hemp as a controlled substance.

KUNAU: With the Farm Bill passing and everything, we’re going to be doing more full time.

HONIG: Like many of today’s hemp farmers, the Kunaus have a small operation, just one acre. They also work day jobs. But with the law change, they can finally access bank accounts and low interest federal loans even to be eligible for crop insurance. It all comes at a time when the market for hemp CBD is booming.

JAMIE SCHAU: It’s extremely versatile. It can be used for a whole host of different applications.

HONIG: That’s Jamie Schau with Brightfield Group, a market research company. She says CBD is used in everything from lotions to sports drinks, even dog treats.

SCHAU: It has treatments for everything from epilepsy to MS to arthritis to anxiety, depression, insomnia. The list goes on and on and on.

ESTHER BLESSING: We don’t know that. We don’t have the clinical trial evidence to support that.

HONIG: Esther Blessing teaches psychiatry at NYU and is studying the effects of CBD on people with PTSD and alcohol abuse. The FDA recently approved CBD in a drug that treats a form of epilepsy but that’s it. She says all the hype around CBD is getting ahead of the research.

BLESSING: But on the other hand, as a scientist, I really feel like it is one of the most promising medications that has come along in the last 50 years.

HONIG: Meanwhile, hemp growers like the Kunaus are bracing for change. The price for a pound of hemp flowers reached $75. But with legalization, that’s likely to drop.

KUNAU: I do know everybody’s going to be wanting to grow hemp and CBD. And this one acre is going to seem like nothing compared to people doing 10s and 30 or 50.

HONIG: As more hemp is planted in the country, she hopes falling prices don’t squeeze out small farmers. For NPR News, I’m Esther Honig.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

That story comes to us from Harvest Public Media, a reporting collaboration focusing on agriculture and rural issues.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Michel Martin talks to Vox business reporter Chavie Lieber about what it’s like to work in an Amazon warehouse during the holidays.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It’s just a couple of more days until Christmas. And if you are like other last-minute shoppers, you may be wondering how on earth you’re going to get those last gifts on time. And if you just cannot stand the thought of a crowded shopping mall – and, frankly, even if you can – you’re probably thinking about turning to Amazon. Amazon is now the 800-pound gorilla of e-commerce, accounting for some 60 percent of purchases on Black Friday, according to the web traffic analyst Hitwise. And, yes, it is an NPR sponsor.

But we were wondering what it’s like to work at an Amazon warehouse during the holidays, so we called Chavie Lieber. She’s written extensively about working conditions at Amazon for Vox, and she’s with us now. Chavie, thanks so much for joining us.

CHAVIE LIEBER: Hi. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

MARTIN: How much does the workload increase at Amazon during what they call peak, between Thanksgiving and just after Christmas? Can you give us a sense of that? And tell us – as we said, you have sources who speak to you usually without attribution. But what are they telling you about what that’s like?

LIEBER: A lot of the Amazon warehouse workers that reached out to me, they all say that they are grateful for the job. They want the job. It’s really just that it is high-intensity. It is so aggressive. All Amazon warehouses abide by this number called a packing quota. And basically, what that means is every Amazon warehouse worker has a number of boxes that they have to pack per hour. And during the holiday season, when the orders are kind of running in, the managers are trying to get the warehouse workers to pack faster and faster.

So, you know, the average can be, let’s say, 240. But then, during the holiday season, the number of boxes you have to pack per hour can go as high as 400. And basically, if you are slowing down, you’re not keeping up or your productivity levels aren’t as high, workers can get write-ups, and they can also be terminated.

So it just seems like, you know, working under these type of conditions is pretty demeaning. And some employees that I’ve talked to have said, you know, by the end of the holiday season, a lot of people just feel like they can’t make it.

MARTIN: Well, first of all, why do you say it’s demeaning? I mean, I can see that it’s demanding. But why do you say it’s demeaning? Do they say it’s demeaning?

LIEBER: Yeah. Yeah. The line that a lot of people say to me when they talk about, you know, people that are protesting and they’re rallying against Amazon, they want Jeff Bezos and they want Amazon to know that we are not robots.

And basically, it’s this idea that, you know, they want to do the work load. And they want to pack for Amazon. And they want to do this job. But they don’t want to work in this type of environment. And basically, Amazon has this really codified system where it’s not like you can talk to a manager and explain, you know, I’m not feeling well this day or I’m doing this. Like, you know, people describe it as like a well-oiled machine.

MARTIN: So I was going to ask you about that. Are there rules about breaks – how long, how often people are allowed to have them?

LIEBER: I will tell you what I know about people that are working there full-time, which is, according to federal law, you need to have breaks. And Amazon’s break system is two 15-minute breaks and then a half-hour lunch break. And, you know, some of the complaints that Amazon workers have told me is that these breaks are definitely not enough, especially if some – you know, some of the Amazon warehouse workers in Minneapolis are protesting because a lot of them are Muslim. And they don’t have enough breaks to, you know, eat, drink, get water, go to the bathroom, grab lunch and then also abide by their praying schedule.

So even though, you know, the 30-minute break and then the 15 – and the 15-minute break add up to an hour, which I guess is pretty typical in a lot of workplaces where people are given an hour lunch break, it’s extremely rigid. And if you go over your break time, like, you can get penalized.

MARTIN: What about overtime? Are people expected to work overtime? Are they required to work overtime during peak?

LIEBER: Yeah. During peak season, according to my understanding, overtime is mandatory. Some of the people have told me that their schedules are something like four days a week, 12-hour shifts. And if you try to use vacation time or paid time to call out during peak time, it can be a fireable offense, or it could – it could get you penalized.

MARTIN: If you don’t come, like if you call in sick, for example?

LIEBER: Yeah, exactly.

MARTIN: OK. So you actually alluded to this. There have been various boycotts at Amazon warehouses in – mainly overseas. Would that be accurate?

LIEBER: I think that there definitely are a lot of strikes and walkouts in Amazon fulfillment centers in Europe. We’re definitely seeing a little bit of this movement in the United States. One Amazon warehouse manager that I interviewed had told me that, on Prime Day, the facility that she was working in, people were handing out flyers that they wanted to stage a mass walkout on Prime Day about two years ago and that the managers had been ordered to kind of collect the pamphlets and get rid of them.

You know, the flipside to that is that if people – I think if people were really, really concerned and they heard that these type of conditions were going on, I think that you’d see more boycotts. I think consumers are definitely interested in the story, but I’m not sure if it’s going to stop them from shopping on Amazon.

MARTIN: We know that you’ve heard from a number of disgruntled Amazon employees or employees who say that they found the conditions – well, in some cases, intolerable, but in other cases, tolerable but unpleasant. Have you heard from others? I mean, have other people commented on your stories to say that that’s not the full picture or that they just feel that it’s, you know, for whatever – the good outweighs the bad? Have you heard from other perspectives?

LIEBER: Sure. Sure. Well, I mean, Amazon has reached out to me specifically and have, you know, they’ve told me that these employees that I’ve been speaking to are one-off and it’s not the case all around. Actually, I was able to tour a fulfillment center in Staten Island a few weeks ago and, you know, talked to a few employees there who said that they were, you know, they were happy with the jobs, and they were happy with the wages. They were thrilled with the benefits.

I had a story go up on vox.com about what it was like to work the Black Friday shift. And I had people reach out to me who said that they worked at a warehouse, and this is what the job is. And, you know, they don’t agree with people who complain that it’s high-pressure and that it’s this type of job because the job is the job.

And what I want to say to that is, you know, at a certain point, people have to step back and, you know, wonder, like, what goes on inside these warehouses? What are workers saying? And the bottom line that the warehouse workers want me to tell people is that they are human beings that are packing their boxes, and it’s not always easy for them. And they want the company to kind of step up and listen to their demands.

MARTIN: That’s business reporter Chavie Lieber. She reports on Amazon for Vox, among other subjects that she covers. Chavie Lieber, Thanks so much for talking to us.

LIEBER: Thank you for your time.

MARTIN: We also reached out to Amazon for comment. In a statement, company officials said they work hard to provide a safe, quality work environment for their 250,000 employees across the U.S. They added, quote, “associates are the heart and soul of our operations.”

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.