As if the journalists I'm working with haven't had enough distractions, a new curve ball was thrown last week- the unexpected arrival of former dictator Jean Claude Duvalier, who descended from an Air France flight after a near 25-year absence.

"Baby Doc's" appearance accelerated a tailspin that started with last year's earthquake. The disaster, which killed as many as 300,000, was then exacerbated by a hurricane, a cholera epidemic that has killed close to 4,000 people and a November 28 electoral dispute that is so mired in politicking that even the U.S. ambassador was quoted recently as shaking his head and saying in Creole "tet chaje" - what a headache. (No sign of a resolution anytime soon, unfortunately.)

Still, two of my print reporters were able to stay on track and make the front page this week with a story about a $2-million project for a waste-management plant funded by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AEIC) that has come to a halt… just two weeks from completion. Who, or perhaps what, agency or government entity or private company is responsible for the order to shut down the work is unclear, but a land dispute seems to be at the heart of the problem. How it happened that the project was being built on land allegedly owned by three different entities – including some of the most powerful families in the country – is a question under investigation by many, including my reporters.

The principle players, which include AEIC and the state water agency DINEPA, are concerned not only because more than $1 million has already been invested and 80% of the work completed, but also because the public use area (where the excreta from the 1,000 tent camps that house those displaced from the earthquake are living) is near capacity. There is no other alternative site for dumping the excreta.

Gathering information for the story was difficult, as is the case for most investigative stories here because no one wanted to be quoted. Despite constraints, the reporters from Le Nouvelliste went with what they could to time the story with the release of a statement from the AEIC deploring the situation.

After the story was released, the reporters were suddenly invited to have interviews with key players instead of being turned away from them. They learned the importance of timing, and also of fact checking, since there are two very different explanations for why the work was stopped. The story is still evolving,as is their investigation. Too often journalists have neither the time nor the resources to do follow-up even if they recognize the importance. Hopefully this story will serve as an example for them and for media owners, jump-starting a new tradition. Click here for the English translation to the second story that appeared.

I learned additional lessons from working on this story with them, and they have to do with transportation. Because of the quake, the newspaper's offices have been relocated to an area where at least several dozen other businesses have moved. This, along with the invasion of non-governmental agencies now working in Haiti, means hundreds more vehicles are on roads that were already overcrowded and are still blocked by rubble.

Had the journalists relied on public transportation, they would not have been able to get the information they needed by the deadline for this article. Even in my, car we spent more than 3 hours in traffic for just one interview.

And because of the traffic, the journalists didn't start writing the story until after 6:00 p.m. One of the reporters, who moved to the outskirts of town when his house collapsed in the quake, had to leave the paper by 8:00 p.m. to catch the last bus home. I stayed until the story was done and then made sure he got to the bus stop and was safely on before I went home myself.

This particular journalist is moving soon to a neighborhood that is closer to the newspaper's office. Not closer, really, but more accessible. Travel will still require several buses and sitting in traffic. But he won't have to worry about compromising on a story when 8:00 p.m. rolls around. In a country with worries as plentiful as cars on the road, that, at least, will be an improvement.