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When Sarah Maslin Nir, a Metro reporter for The New York Times, awoke in the pre-dawn darkness on Thanksgiving, it was cold and raining, a day when one would normally avoid venturing outside.
But when her alarm went off at 6:45 a.m., she didn’t crawl back under the covers. She grabbed her notebook and press credential and set off for La Farine, a French bakery on the Upper West Side, where she would grab a baguette and coffee before taking the subway to the 98th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
“It’s the best time — everyone is high as a kite on happiness,” said Ms. Nir, 41, who for 12 years has volunteered to write The Times’s annual parade report, through freezing temperatures, gusting winds and, this year, a dreary downpour.
When Ms. Nir began covering the parade in 2011, she would collect quotes in her notebook throughout the morning as she followed the parade from its start at West 77th Street down to Macy’s at 34th Street. She would then walk a few blocks away to write her article at The Times’s headquarters.
Now, she writes an article beforehand that is published online when the parade begins, and she continues to file updates throughout the morning, which an editor on the Metro desk — Judy Tong this year — weaves in.
She keeps the article fresh each year, she said, by focusing on the spectators.
“My idea, my concept that I go in with, is that the people are the parade,” she said.
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