Journalism unbound_ new approaches to writing and reporting 9780195189926, 2013031830

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“From the dust of creeds outworn ...” — SHELLEY, PROMETHEUS

UNBOUND

Journalism Unbound New Approaches to Writing and Reporting 7. MITCHELL STEPHENS New York University

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Stephens, Mitchell. Journalism unbound : new approaches to writing and reporting / Mitchell Stephens.

pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-518992-6

1. Reporters and reporting. 2. Journalism—Authorship. 3. Online journalism. 4. Broadcast journalism. I. Title. PN4781.8773

2014

070.4'3—dc23

2013031830 Printing number:

987654321

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

To my mother: Lillian Sklaire Stephens

BRIEF

CONTENTS pad

PREFACE

Xil

Introduction: Aiming Higher Chapter1

1

Wondering: Different Perspectives

7

Chapter 2 Learning: More Penetrating Approaches

Chapter 3 Wandering: Less Familiar Places Chapter 4 Recognizing: Deeper Truths

47

61

Chapter5

Pondering: Wiser Understandings

83

Chapter6

Enlivening: More Engaging Styles

103

Chapter7

Elevating: Finer Wordings

121

Chapter 8 Sculpting: More Shapely Forms NOTES CREDITS INDEX

165 175 177

vi

142

26

CONTENTS as

PREFACE

Xil

Introduction: Aiming Higher

1

The argument for a journalism—and a journalism education—that is more adventurous and ambitious. The Introduction uses Samantha Power's reporting on the Darfur conflict in Africa as an example.

Chapter1

Wondering: Different Perspectives

7

The journalists whose work this book is championing and suggesting we emulate help us see the world more clearly or perhaps even differently. This chapter includes a series of reporting strategies designed to help uncover perspectives that are important and unexpected. Examples include Judy Pasternak on the Navajo and uranium and John Hersey on Hiroshima, as well as the work of Leon Dash, David Gonzalez, Gay Talese, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and the photographer Jonathan Torgovnik. The chapter also discusses a muchdownloaded story from NPR and This American Life on the financial crisis and the renowned war reporting of Edward R. Murrow, Ernest Hemingway and Ernie Pyle. Curiosity

10

Smaller Perspectives Larger Perspectives Surprise

12 16

18

Alternate Perspectives Honesty

19

22 vii

viii

CONTENTS

Chapter 2.Learning: More Penetrating Approaches

26

Reporting that is fresh and revealing not only requires asking a lot of questions; it requires unusually intense efforts to see, hear, think, study and relate to people. Some of the ways of accomplishing that proposed here are standard; many are not. This chapter also considers

specific requirements of reporting with video and audio, and includes an argument for the importance of investigation. The main example here is the great CBS television documentary “Harvest of Shame,” but work by Samantha Power, Judy Pasternak, Gay Talese, Leon Dash, John Hersey and Seymour Hersh—and advice from Ted Conover and Nate Silver—is also used to support these points. Alertness

28

Telling Images and Sounds Asking

32

Whom to Ask Empathy

30

35

37

Who Are You?

40

Reading Widely Researching

Investigating

41

43

44

Chapter 3 Wandering: Less Familiar Places

47

This is a chapter about where to look for original stories. It insists on the value of visiting underreported places. That may involve travel: among the chapter’s examples are James Baldwin’s visit to the American South in 1957, Tom Wolfe's expeditions to California in search of youth culture in the 1960s and the journeys to Africa undertaken by Samantha Power and, more than a century earlier, Henry Morton Stanley. But the chapter also emphasizes journeys to unfamiliar places or neighborhoods much nearer home, such as David Gonzalez’ yearlong immersion in a Pentecostal church in Harlem or Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s decade-long visit to the South Bronx. Charles Dickens also makes a few appearances, in his role as a journalist. Far and Near

49

Bearing Witness

51

Contents

The Unfamiliar

53

The Overlooked

55

The Art of Going Where to Start Virtual Travel

Chapter 4

57 60

60

Recognizing: Deeper Truths

61

Too often reporters—in their obsession with the unusual—neglect more familiar but no less profound and revealing moments of our lives. This chapter attempts to direct journalists’ attention to such moments. As examples of the emotional and philosophical insights to be gained through such reporting it uses the work of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Lillian Ross, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin, Dorothy Thompson, Jonathan Torgovnik and Sallie Tisdale, along with a team of documentary filmmakers and a young Hmong American woman who told her own story on public radio.

Life

63

Thoughts Love

68

71

Attitudes

74

Meaning

77

Morality

79

Paying Attention

81

Chapter 5 Pondering: Wiser Understandings

83

This chapter argues that interpretation—even opinion— has an important place in 21st-century journalism. This requires criticism of a reflexive balance—“he said, she said” —as an easy way out for journalists unprepared to attempt to determine whether “he” or “she” is right. It also requires encouraging journalists to develop deeper understanding of the subjects upon which they write. Examples include Ezra Klein and Walter Lippmann, Nate Silver and Benjamin Franklin, Jane Mayer and Lincoln Steffens, Paul Berman, Rachel Carson and Thomas Paine.

Explanation Interpretation

86 88

x

CONTENTS

Argument

91

Expertise

97

Ideas

Chapter6

100

Enlivening: More Engaging Styles

103

The focus now turns to writing—and to producing video. The traditional journalistic just-the-facts, “voiceof-God” style is given its due, but this chapter is mostly devoted to a crusade against what Tom Wolfe calls “pale beige” journalism. It introduces a variety of more vibrant styles: from the Day-Glo prose of Wolfe himself to the severe black and whites of a Frederick Wiseman documentary; from the sarcasm of Mark Twain to the intricate images of Freya Stark. Among the other firstrate stylists to appear here are Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Nora Ephron, Suketu Mehta and Madeleine Blais. Hyperkinetic Vérité

106

111

Evocative

115

Humorous

116

Impassioned

Chapter7

118

Elevating: Finer Wordings

121

Here the book zooms in for a more detailed look at what makes for fluid, original, engaging, even gripping writing. This chapter features close, occasionally literary analyses of the prose of a number of distinguished journalists—Joan Didion, Gay Talese, Ernest Hemingway, Ernie Pyle, Walter Lippmann, Samantha Power, Tom Wolfe and Thomas Paine—along with three who have not appeared in earlier chapters: Margaret Fuller, Norman Mailer and Kenneth Tynan. The chapter also looks—in its efforts to uncover the secrets of good writing—at the narration of a documentary by Charles H. Ferguson, a blog post by Andrew Sullivan and a couple of tweets by Matthew Yglesias. Emerson and Aristotle are quoted. Words

123

Sentences Music

131

126

Contents

Imagery

Voice

134

136

Challenging

140

Chapter 8 Sculpting: More Shapely Forms

142

This chapter considers how stories—audio and video as well as text-based—might best start, flow, end and be organized. It includes a complete story by Ernie Pyle. Among the strategies the chapter presents are the use of leads and summary paragraphs by Joan Didion, Anne Hull, Dana Priest, and Nora Ephron; the use of repetition by Pyle; the development of a scene by Stephen Crane, an example of masterful movement among scenes by Gay Talese, the forgoing of a scene by Kenneth Tynan, a strict chronological telling by David Grann, the employment of an Aristotelian story structure by Didion, a deft conclusion by Judy Pasternak and an effort to avoid an emotional conclusion by Edward R. Murrow. Don Hewitt, of 60 Minutes, suggests that all journalism comes down to telling stories. But this chapter also considers non-narrative, even non-linear digital organizational strategies. Beginning Weaving

Scenes

145 149

151

Narrative

155

New Strategies

Ending NOTES CREDITS INDEX

162 165 175 177

160

xi

PREFACE yaa

ournalism is changing. Journalism education is changing. This book is an effort to respond and, in many cases, contribute to those changes. It argues that 21st-century journalists should look more widely, think more deeply and write more engagingly. No attempt has been made here to keep up with each new technology for moving news—some of which undoubtedly will have been overtaken by even newer technologies by the time you read this. I do discuss a few new apps and devices that have already begun to shake up journalism. I certainly acknowledge the variety of distribution devices journalists increasingly have at their disposal and consider the particular needs and strengths of these devices. But the best way to navigate a period of great change is not only to figure out what in the new is most promising but what from the old might best guide us. That’s why this book, although it is very much concerned with the 21st century, selects many of its examples from the 20th century and a few, even, from the 19th and 18th. I will certainly not insist that we all go back to writing old-fashioned, traditional stories. To the contrary: my argument is that journalism is in need of an even more thorough rethinking. But if our goal is to make journalism not just more hi-tech but better, it is crucial to remind ourselves of the best work journalists have done—particularly in stories that have expanded the range of subjects journalism covers and invigorated the forms it employs. Journalists are thinking a lot about technology nowadays. This book insists that they think, too, about quality. Journalists spend a lot of time contemplating new platforms and programs. This book insists that they ponder, too, innovations in subject matter and form. + The book is full of suggestions on how journalists might increase the range, profundity, interest and importance of their work. + It includes numerous strategies for upgrading and enlivening journalistic writing. + The book also considers how such suggestions and strategies might apply to video, audio and a variety of digital forms of journalism. xil

Preface

xiii

+ And the examples the book uses are taken, throughout, not from merely acceptable journalism but from some of the best journalism ever published, broadcast or posted in the United States—over the decades, even over the centuries.

¢ For those who will use this book in a classroom, I have worked ideas for assignments into each of these chapters. Those ideas are highlighted and expanded upon on the book's Web site—www.oup.com/us/stephens—where they are accompanied by discussion questions about each of the chapters and by links to various useful and related works, including full versions of the readings excerpted throughout the text. This book is written by a long-time journalism professor, journalism critic and journalist, with some seemingly contradictory elements in his background. Ihave freelanced for major newspapers, magazines and a radio news network, but I also participated in some small, early and odd experiments on the Web. Most of my own work has been in print, but I have written a book extolling the potential of video.' I have authored traditional print and broadcast journalism textbooks, but I have also written manifestos challenging old ways of doing and teaching journalism. I published a book called A History of News (Oxford University Press) but have increasingly been thinking and writing about the future of news and journalism. Indeed, one of my most recent books is entitled Beyond News: The Future of Journalism (Columbia University Press). The book you are reading honors journalism’s past by borrowing ideas and examples from many of its best practitioners, but this book is very much a part of that effort to improve its future. The book's first two chapters, after the Introduction, suggest that we might report more creatively, more alertly, more thoroughly, more honestly and more intelligently—for print, video, audio and digital media. Chapters 3 and 4 argue that reporters should spend time in less familiar neighborhoods and broaden their view of what might be proper subjects for their attention. Chapter 5 calls for more—and wiser—interpretation. The final three chapters focus specifically on journalistic writing, audio and video—and how they might be made less staid, more engaging, smarter and livelier. As these chapters progress, some accepted notions about journalism will be reinforced; others will be questioned. This book is designed to improve journalists’ writing and reporting, through exposure to and analysis of the best in writing and reporting. But it is also designed to help change the way journalists currently write and report. Looking back over these chapters I can see how few of the ideas in them are original to me. I have borrowed, certainly, from some of my heroes: A. J. Liebling and Tom Wolfe prominent among them. I have borrowed, too, from most of my current and former colleagues and have stolen particularly liberally from Jay Rosen, Susie Linfield, Robert Manoff, Carol Sternhell, William E. Burrows, the late Edwin Diamond, Maria Rock, Robert Boynton, Stephen Solomon, Michael Ludlum, Todd Gitlin, David Dent, William Serrin, Pamela Newkirk, Clay Shirky, Jason Samuels and, especially, the late Ellen Willis. I have also gained a great deal

xiv

REBACE

from conversations with colleagues at other universities, including Jerry Lanson, David Mindich, Loren Ghiglione, Linda Steiner, Vitaly Vinichenko, Carl Sessions Stepp and Jeanette McVicker. Many others whose journalism has inspired me— and some others of my colleagues—are named in these pages. Few, if any, of these individuals, of course, would agree with all my points here. In acknowledging my debt to them, I do not mean to imply that they do. Many of these ideas were developed, tested and improved in the classroom. Scores of students, therefore, contributed to them—most recently three lively and creative classes in New York University’s experimental Studio 20 master’s program. Sarah Hart, a remarkable former student who became a colleague, was my partner in projects leading up to the writing of this book. Many of these ideas were explored on a Web site, “The Future of Journalism Education,’ which was supported by a Knight-Carnegie grant and which is primarily her creation.” Her perspective, creativity, intelligence and high standards have influenced many of these chapters. I first published some of these ideas in the Columbia Journalism Review, then edited by my friend Mike Hoyt. I would also like to thank the publisher, Oxford University Press, for sticking with a project that, because it hopes to help journalism and journalism education change, does not provide easy answers to the question of who might be interested in such a book now. And the book was improved by the suggestions and comments of a number of reviewers, who included Jenny Atwater, Townson University; Leon Dash, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Pete Ellertsen, Benedict University; Jessica Seigel, NYU; George Sylvie, University of Texas at Austin; Yong Tang, Pennsylvania State University; and Frank Thayer, New Mexico University. I learned a great deal about journalism and education from lively discussions with the members of the first family of which I was a part. My late mother, Lillian Sklaire Stephens, returned to complete her B.A. late in life and eventually became an education professor. My late father, Bernard Stephens, though he never graduated from college, was a labor newspaper editor. My sister, Beth Stephens, is a law professor. Such discussions have continued and lost nothing in intensity with my second family. My wife, Esther Davidowitz, is a newspaper and magazine editor. Our three children—Lauren Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz and Noah Stephens-Davidowitz—have all dabbled in journalism, though only one is currently doing journalism. They all hear out and, often enough, challenge my ideas. This book is dedicated to my mother—for the example she provided of learning and teaching, as well as caring, consideration and empathy. But my love for and debt to all the members of these two endlessly stimulating families is huge.

a

Introduction: Aiming Higher

The argument for a journalism—and a journalism education—that is more adventurous and ambitious. The Introduction uses Samantha Power’ reporting on the Darfur conflict in Africa as an example.

hile Samantha Power was reporting on the Darfur conflict in Africa for the New Yorker magazine in 2004, she met a young mother who had just escaped from there: Amina Abaker Mohammed occupies a simple mud hut with a thatched roof outside a refugee camp in northern Chad. Until earlier this year, she lived in Darfur, the western region of Sudan, where the Sudanese government is pursuing a campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs.'

Power's job as a reporter was to find out what this woman had been through. She asked, presumably using a translator, and found out. Amina Abaker Mohammed and her family had become convinced they needed to flee their village because of attacks in the area by the janjaweed—Arab bandits on horse- and camelback, reportedly turned loose by Sudan’s government. However, before she could leave, the woman and her eldest child had to get water from one of the town’s wells. Just then the janjaweed struck. This young mother was separated from her son. By nightfall, the sounds of gunfire and screaming had faded, and Amina furtively returned to the wells. She discovered that they were stuffed with corpses, many of which had been dismembered. She was determined to find her son, but also hoped that she wouldn't . .

In that pile of corpses, Amina Abaker Mohammed discovered her son’s severed head. Samantha Power traveled far to report this story. At one point she snuck into Darfur herself. She asked uncomfortable, even intrusive, questions of people with backgrounds quite different from her own. She grappled with issues that were

2

JOURNALISM UNBOUND

difficult to understand. She struggled to get facts and wordings right. She produced a story that is both well written and disturbing to read. Power did all that because it would help explain what was happening in Darfur and because it would help readers feel what it was like to live through what was happening in Darfur. There were not many journalists at the time who were accomplishing that. A lot of the news journalists cover is fairly standard: a public official gives a speech; a reporter determines what was most newsworthy in that speech, asks some tough questions, then talks to a few other politicians and checks and double checks the facts. A couple of other reporters or a dozen other reporters may have attended the same speech and will be doing the same. The stories they then write or record will often be similar: most important facts here, quote there, supporting information underneath. This is a book about stories, like Samantha Power's report on Darfur, that are not—or, at least, are approached as if they are not—standard. It is important that we know what our officials are saying in their speeches. It is important that these officials be asked tough questions and that the opposition get an opportunity to respond. It is crucial that the information be correct. This is very useful work. But there are plenty of books that explain how speeches are covered or how to gather, write up and check the facts on an arrest. (I have written a couple of such books myself.”) This is not a book for reporters who want to cover the same stories reporters have always covered, in the same way, more or less, they have always been covered. It is a book about journalism that is less routine than that, for journalists who are more ambitious than that. It is a book for journalists who believe that getting the facts right is necessary but not sufficient, who want to bring the public deeper understandings in less formulaic and better-crafted stories. Most times these more ambitious journalists will not find stories as dramatic as the one of that woman from Darfur. Their work will rarely succeed, as Power’s did, in exposing human rights violations or illuminating foreign policy debates. These journalists, however ambitious, may not have the wherewithal to cross oceans: New Yorker assignments, obviously, are not widely available. This book will include plenty of examples of reporting on much less cataclysmic developments in much nearer neighborhoods. But all of its examples will be of journalism that is distinctive and journalism that is significant. Unlike most novelists, artists, playwrights and even presidents, journalists are often unfamiliar with the history of their field. They are often unfamiliar, consequently, with much of the best work that has been done in their field. This, I believe, is a shame. I have long taught courses on great journalism and have led efforts to select the best journalism in the United States in the 20th century and the best journalism in the first decade of the 21st.3 Most of the examples in this book are from those courses, from those lists or from nominees to those lists.* There will be no examples here of run-of-the-mill, merely

adequate journalism. Most other academic disciplines, after all, force their students to be humbled by the demands and inspired by the accomplishments of truly outstanding work. Literature students read history's best literature. Art students study history’s

Introduction

3

Samantha Power, right, reporting.

best art. Drama students trained in Shakespeare, the thinking is, can learn to act in commercials if need be after they graduate.” Samantha Power is not, of course, Shakespeare, but her influential piece on Darfur won a National Magazine Award. Her work and that of the dozens of other remarkable journalists whose stories will be quoted in this book offer journalists— beginning and advanced—examples that they might emulate and standards to which they might aspire. (My hope is that these short excerpts will encourage reading, viewing or listening to those works in their entirety. They can be located through the endnotes. Links to them can be found on the book’s Web site: www .oup.com/us/stephens.) This book is intended for journalists—a category it defines broadly enough to include those who do journalism for a class Web site, as well as for the New Yorker. Journalists traditionally were not encouraged to attempt work of this quality until later in their careers. And in the academic world, where many journalists will encounter this book, instruction in journalism with such lofty aspirations has traditionally been held, if it is attempted at all, for advanced classes. First it is considered necessary to work on stories that are more routine and much simpler.

4

JOURNALISM UNBOUND

Perhaps this is wise. Perhaps the material here should be reserved for journalists who have already mastered what are called “the basics.” But this book—filled with work that is not basic—is intended to at least test an alternative notion: Many beginning journalists have lofty aspirations of their own. Might they not benefit from early immersion in work that is distinctive and significant, not ordinary and simplistic? Perhaps, in other words, the best way to learn to report and write with intelligence, originality and scope is to become familiar with work that has intelligence, originality and scope and to begin to experiment with doing such work on your own. The lessons here, in other words, might also be employed in introductory courses. Is an introduction to a more adventurous and ambitious form of journalism of practical value for journalists who will need to secure jobs? Once it may not have been. When she was still quite young, Samantha Power set off for Bosnia, which was then ripped apart by war and ethnically based atrocities. And Power managed to convince an editor at the magazine US News e& World Report to consider any story ideas she might send back from Bosnia. That’s how Power ended up becoming a war correspondent—with little previous experience in journalism. But Samantha Power, who had begun developing an expertise in human rights issues while still in college, was an exception. In those days, the unwritten rule, insisted upon by journalists and journalism professors, was that careers in journalism should start with a job at a small newspaper or broadcast station. And the expectation was that at those small news organizations you would cover—albeit with energy and enterprise—the standard stories in the standard way. That has been changing. In recent decades those small newspapers and broadcast stations have mostly been laying off, not hiring. The traditional career ladder has grown rickety. And a newly minted journalist today would be well advised to demonstrate, as Samantha Power did, some unique interests, talents and aspirations. There are no sure paths into journalism today. However, it might be wise to establish a well-reported, well-written, astute, multimedia site or identity of your own somewhere in the expanding digital universe. It might be helpful if it covered an important subject such as human rights. Indeed, such a strategy—entirely in keeping with the lessons in this book—might be more likely to lead to an interesting career than some semesters practicing covering press conferences and fires. Many new digital forms of journalism, the truth is, feature quick, silly, overly familiar but thinly reported stories—gossip, mostly. However, the great cheapness of bits—the fantastic ease with which they can be shared and stored—has also opened space for more thoughtful, more innovative journalism. Scores of first-rate journalists can now be found online confronting the issues of the day, even the issues of any day, with insight and originality. Lots of them are young. Plenty of them bring a special expertise—in human rights, for example, in economics, in one of the arts, in a science, in one part of the world or another. Samantha Power is out of journalism as this is written, having followed her concern with human rights first to the Kennedy School at Harvard, then to a position on the staff of the National Security Council in the Obama administration. As this book was being completed, she had become the U.S. Ambassador to the

Introduction

5

United Nations. But a new generation of journalists interested in work like that Power did in Darfur—even if they cannot secure New Yorker assignments—can at least post their own work, themselves. Some may find ways to get paid. Most initially won't. There are many questions that remain to be answered on where the paying careers in journalism will be. But getting good, thoughtful work into public places would seem a step on the road to such a career. This is not a book specifically about the possibilities new technologies offer journalism, but some of its chapters will discuss those possibilities and all these chapters will be informed by them. This is a book for journalists who want to use the opportunities new technologies provide to create better journalism. Now that journalism is being refreshed, the dividing lines we are used to drawing within it are being rethought. Journalists can no longer so confidently announce that they do “print” or “broadcast.” The likelihood now is that most journalists will have occasion to tell stories using a variety of media: written words, images, audio, video, along with the ever-expanding capabilities of digital bits. And the likelihood is that their stories will be improved by the availability of these various tools and by the increasingly vigorous partnerships of sights, sounds and words that are becoming possible. Since this book often looks for inspiration to the great journalism of the past, most of its examples originally appeared in newspapers, magazines and books— but not all of them. The book mixes in examples of and discussions of audio, video and digital journalism—because exceptional journalism has appeared in all these forms and because a career in journalism today likely will roam among them. Thoughts on how best to educate journalists have been changing, too—in response to those changes in journalism and in response to journalism education's own increasing maturity. Media are being used in creative new combinations in journalism classrooms. Standards of reporting, of research, of writing, of thinking, are being raised. Formulas, rather than being insisted upon, are being challenged, abandoned. Students increasingly are doing journalism, not just preparing to do journalism. For many years I have been on something of a crusade to encourage and speed these changes in journalism education. And I have had plenty of company in this crusade—at New York University, where I teach, and at many other journalism programs in the United States and around the world. This book—part manifesto, part guide—is a product of what has been a revolution in journalism and journalism education and is intended to further that ongoing revolution. It is designed to help journalists aim higher.

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Wondering: Different Perspectives

The journalists whose work this book is championing and suggesting we emulate help us see the world more clearly or perhaps even differently. This chapter includes a series of reporting strategies designed to help uncover perspectives that are important and unexpected. Examples include Judy Pasternak on the Navajo and uranium and John Hersey on Hiroshima, as well as the work of Leon Dash, David Gonzalez, Gay Talese, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and the photographer Jonathan Torgovnik. The chapter also discusses a much-downloaded story from NPR and This American Life on the financial crisis and the renowned war reporting of Edward R. Murrow, Ernest Hemingway and Ernie Pyle.

he trail that would lead Judy Pasternak to perhaps her biggest story began when she heard reports about a lobbying campaign for Native Americanowned casinos. Pasternak was working as an investigative reporter in Washington for the Los Angeles Times—a job, it should be noted, in traditional journalism. Pasternak looked into that lobbying campaign. “It was one of those stories in which everybody who talks to you lies to you,’ she recalls. She struggled to find some truth. Pasternak wrote the story. But something she heard, while working on that piece, stayed with Pasternak. A government official told her that the first two things Native American tribes who own casinos spend their money on are schools and health. Health? Pasternak did some research and discovered that Native Americans tended to have significantly more health problems than most other groups in the United States. The Senate was holding a hearing on the subject. Pasternak went. And it was there, walking out of the hearing, that she got the lead to the story—a story that would become a book. Pasternak followed a Navajo man out of the hearing, and he happened to mention, offhandedly, that his father was a uranium miner. It turned out there were many uranium mines on Navajo territory.

And that man also mentioned that his father had died of lung cancer.

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This is how the series Judy Pasternak wrote for the Los Angeles Times some months later began: Mary and Billy Boy Holiday bought their one-room house from a medicine man in 1967. They gave him $50, a sheep and a canvas tent. For the most part, they were happy with the purchase. Their Navajo hooghan was situated well, between a desert mesa and the trading-post road. The eightsided dwelling proved stout and snug, with walls of stone and wood, and a green-shingle roof. The single drawback was the bare dirt underfoot. So 3 years after moving in, the Holidays jumped at the chance to get a real floor. A federally funded program would pay for installation if they bought the materials. The Holidays couldn't afford to, but the contractor, a friend of theirs, had an idea.

He would use sand and crushed rock that had washed down from an old uranium mine in the mesa, one of hundreds throughout the Navajo reservation that once supplied the nation’s nuclear weapons program. The waste material wouldn't cost a cent. “He said it made good concrete,’ Mary Holiday recalled. As promised, the 6-inch slab was so smooth that the Holidays could lay their mattresses directly on it and enjoy a good night's sleep. They didn't know their fine new floor was radioactive.!

Seventeen Navajo houses were built with radioactive materials from such mines. People who had lived in many of those houses died relatively young, as did Billy Boy Holiday and his 42-year-old great-nephew—who also had lived in that hooghan and who also had lung cancer. Government officials knew about the problem, but little had been done. After Pasternak’s series appeared the owners were given new houses. This is journalism at, most people would agree, its best. Pasternak dug for the facts. She exposed an injustice. Her work embarrassed the government into further action. It helped people. And Pasternak’s story also had a larger point to make: that, especially when it believes itself on a national security mission, a government—the government of the United States of America in this case—can hurt some of its least powerful citizens and then fail to rectify the hurt to those citizens. These are all reasons Pasternak’s series earns a place in this book. But her story also exhibits some other qualities prized in this book: Pasternak’s series concerns a group of people, Native Americans, who too rarely gain the attention of traditional journalism. Her work is particularly alert and sensitive to the lives of those people. And the way Pasternak reported this series, beginning with how she found the idea for it, offers a number of lessons on how journalism might better be reported—the subject of this and the next few chapters. There was a certain amount of “serendipity? to use her word, in the way Pasternak came upon this story. She was lucky—if it is possible to say that about so tragic a news event—that an article on casinos led to a story about Native American health. And the hearing on Native American health enabled her to meet

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Judy Pasternak.

that Navajo man—a “chance encounter,’ she calls it—who made the connection between uranium and Navajo health problems. However, Pasternak would not have had an opportunity to benefit from this serendipity if she hadn't had her antenna out for stories, if she hadn't been going where she might meet potential sources, if she hadn't been talking to as many potential sources as she could, if she hadn't been vigorously pursuing leads, if she didn't have some expertise on the health problems produced by environmental problems and if she didn't quickly research what was known and not known about uranium and illness. “You have to be as prepared as possible,’ is how Pasternak puts it. Pasternak also wouldnt have had an opportunity to benefit from that “chance encounter” if she hadn’'t—out of some combination of curiosity and diligence— followed that Navajo man out of the Senate hearing. It helped, too, that she was open to the surprise she got from him: that she was ready to pursue what in essence was a new story. “You have to be a little flexible,” Pasternak adds. She was fortunate, too, to locate someone who knew the niece of Mary and Billy Boy Holiday, the owners of that radioactive house Pasternak used to open her Los Angeles Times series. But finding that person was not just serendipity: it was

the result of an exhaustive search for contacts and connections. And when that niece failed to show for a scheduled interview, Pasternak’s decision to stick around and see what happened wasn't just luck, though it proved fortuitous. “You have to be willing to hang out,’ is how she explains it. “You have to be willing to put in time” While hanging out, after having been stood up by Mary Holliday’s niece, Pasternak was able to meet and strike up a conversation with Mary Holiday herself.

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Her ability in that and subsequent conversations to win Mary’s trust also wasn't a matter of luck: that came from the same patience and from understanding. Luck—‘“serendipity”—isn’'t something beginning journalists need to think about much. Judy Pasternak would soon enough have gotten lucky on another story if she hadn’t come upon the Navajos and the uranium scandal. What beginning journalists need to focus on and cultivate are the qualities that significantly increase the chances of finding and producing a good story. These qualities are of use in traditional journalism but are perhaps of even more value in the less traditional approaches celebrated in this book.

CURIOSITY High on her mind as Judy Pasternak reported that story were questions about the government and its responsibilities and uranium and its dangers. But Pasternak also wondered what is it like to live through all this trouble, as Mary Holiday and her family did. This last question—the what is it like . . .¢ question—is crucial in bringing a story to life because it allows us to connect such stories to specific human lives—the lives, in this case, of Mary and Billy Boy Holiday. “The most important thing . . . in the beginning,’ explains the distinguished nonfiction writer Gay Talese, “is definitely curiosity: the ability to be outside yourself, to see other people and wonder who[m they] are.” All good journalists need to wonder. Here, in support of that dictum, is blogger Nate Silver, a specialist on polls and statistics then with the New York Times, now with ESPN: “Journalists are people who need to be intensely curious about life in all its various dimensions.”’ Writing on polls and statistics would seem, at first glance, among the last subjects that might benefit from intense curiosity about life. But Silver’s blog, “FiveThirtyEight.com,’ has been one of the liveliest of reads on politics and other matters in part thanks to such a curiosity: he wonders; he puzzles—about elections, issues, events and people. And then Silver uses math to figure some things out. This post was written in the summer of 2011: If you are a Republican trying to keep your job in Congress, your feelings about President Obama notwithstanding, would you rather the economy be better or worse?

The answer is actually not so obvious. . . . ¢

A far-reaching, wide-ranging, aggressive curiosity is especially important

for reporters who are looking beyond standard approaches to journalism—as Silver, in his way, is. David Gonzalez, a reporter for the New York Times, has made clear that a lot of his best stories begin with curiosity: “You see something in the neighborhood,’ Gonzalez has explained, “and you wonder what happens behind that door.” Some of the doors that most intrigued this reporter led to storefront Pentecostal churches, which had begun appearing in Hispanic and, therefore, traditionally Catholic neighborhoods. As a former religion reporter and foreign correspondent, Gonzalez was also aware that Pentecostalism was a growing and increasingly important religious movement worldwide. Why? It took Gonzalez

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(working with a photographer, Angel Franco) a year of reporting, but he did find out what happens behind those doors and why more and more people are passing through them. The result was a three-part, prizewinning newspaper series, and an online, bilingual multimedia presentation. Leon Dash conducted lengthy investigations of the underclass for the Washington Post. His series about the family of a poor woman named Rosa Lee Cunningham, whom Dash encountered while doing interviews in a Washington, D.C.,, jail, was selected as one of the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in United States in the Twentieth Century.’ In an interview with my colleague Robert S. Boynton, Dash outlines the questions he wanted answered as he began reporting— extensively—on this woman and her children. Most begin with the same word: “Why is she in this terrible situation?” “Why is it that six of her eight children are drug addicts and criminal recidivists?” “Why did two of Rosa Lee’s eight children turn out so differently?” “Why were they able to resist being swept up into this lifestyle? And how did Rosa Lee get into this lifestyle?” “Why does a strong family, coming out of the rural South, end up with a daughter like Rosa Lee and a family of drug-addicted criminal recidivists?”®

We are curious about a wide variety of subjects, of course—many of which fit more traditional understandings of news. Some among us are quite anxious to know all we can about a sports team. Others truly want to keep up with the box office of a new movie or the doings of government officials. Should there be a shooting somewhere in the country in which many people die, large numbers of us will want to know the terrible details. However, quite a bit of what we wonder about takes a form similar to Gonzalez’ question— What happens behind . . .?; or Dashs— Why is it.. .2; or Pasternak’s— What is it like. . .? Gay Talese was a reporter for the New York Times in 1965 when he was asked to cover the appearance before a federal grand jury of Bill Bonanno, the son of a Mafia don who had gone missing. “I was close to Bill Bonanno’ age,’ Talese writes about the experience, “and while I was as curious as anyone about the whereabouts of the elder Bonanno, I was becoming perhaps more intrigued by the son across the corridor, wondering, not for the first time, what it must be like to be a young man in the Mafia?” Talese was not impressed with what passed for Mafia reporting at the time: “crime statistics and organizational charts and one-dimensional sketches,’ as he puts it, most obtained from government sources. That “did not satisfy my curiosity about life within the secret society,’ Talese explains. “I was more interested in how the gunmen passed the idle hours that no doubt dominated their days, about the roles of their wives, the interiors of their homes, what they discussed at family dinner.’ After he left the Times, Talese wrote a book about the people and history of the New York Times. His next book, Honor Thy Father, was about a subject less discussed in nonfiction than in fiction: what happens behind the closed doors of the Mafia. He learned of hours and days of boredom but also of extraordinary precautions: Bill Bonanno . . . sat in a sparsely furnished apartment in Queens listening intently as the telephone rang. But he did not answer it.

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It rang three times, stopped, rang again and stopped, rang a few more times and stopped. It was Labruzzo’s code. He was in a telephone booth signaling that he was on his way back to the apartment.®

In this book Talese had also set out to satisfy his curiosity about why Bill Bonanno—a college-educated man with other, less perilous career opportunities— would follow his father into this dying, Old World secret society: While he did not want to inherit his father’s problems, did not want to be identified with gangsterism and suffer the social ostracism that resulted from exposure in the press, he also did not want to separate himself from his father’s circumstances or feel apologetic or defensive about his name, particularly since he did not believe that his father was guilty of crimes against society.”

But mostly Talese, in Honor Thy Father, was interested in what it is like to be a young man in the upper echelons of the Mafia—to be Bill Bonanno. Talese describes, for example, how Bonanno drives, while always suspecting someone from law enforcement or a rival mob group could be trying to follow him, could be trying to kidnap or kill him: He was aware of every car that followed him, the arrangements of their headlights in his rearview mirror. Whenever he passed a car he observed its body style, the license plate, tried to get a look at the driver, and his alertness intensified whenever a car behind him gained speed to pass. He tried to maintain a certain distance between himself and the others, shifting lanes or reducing speed when necessary. Since he had carefully studied the road map before the trip, as he did before every trip, he knew the exits, the detours, the possible routes of escape.'°

For a journalist curiosity is the opposite of idle. It can lead beyond intimate acquaintance with fascinating individuals and situations to understandings of the workings of society. Before she joined the Los Angeles Times, Judy Pasternak reported for another traditional news organization: the Detroit Free Press. While there her curiosity led her to another big story: a town contaminated by dioxins, dangerous byproducts of industrial processes, was in the news. Pasternak wondered what it is like to work in the industries in which that dioxin was produced. It turned out to be quite bad for your health—a realization that led Pasternak to another investigative article. And answering the question what it is like to be in a city when an atomic bomb explodes over it led to one of the great works of journalism of all time.

SMALLER

PERSPECTIVES

At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko

Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk."!

Is there not something odd about this long sentence, which begins a magazine article and then a book by John Hersey? This sentence describes a clerk turning

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her head to speakto a colleague and an atomic bomb having “flashed above Hiroshima.” These two events are wildly, shockingly incommensurate: one of no particular significance, the other as important as any in the long history of humans’ efforts to wreak destruction upon each other. Moreover, it is the first of these two events—the clerk turning her head—that dominates the sentence: the explosion of the atomic bomb is relegated to a prepositional phrase. And why, for that matter, does John Hersey bother with the exact time in this sentence? It is the fact that the atomic bomb was dropped that matters, not whether it was dropped at fifteen minutes or half an hour past eight?. Why does Hersey bother at all with Toshiko Sasaki, a woman who had nothing to do with the dropping of the bomb or with the imperialistic and brutal Japanese policies that led up to it? Hersey, the explanation is, produces this odd amalgam of the small and the large because the small helps us understand the large, because the very small is often necessary if we are to try to grasp the significance of the very large, because getting, in some detail, a sense of what it is like for one woman can give us a clue to what it must have been like for a couple of hundred thousand women and men. Through the experience of a specific woman like Toshiko Sasaki, we can begin to obtain answers to the what happens . . . question—a question that, in this case, would test the imagination of just about any of us. A city devastated by a nuclear weapon is almost impossible for us to get our minds around: too big, too horrible, unprecedented. A particular time and a particular person make it a little easier to comprehend that this happened in the course of ordinary human lives. They provide scale—a human scale—with which we might take the measure of an outsized event. And they provide points of entry into that event. Using calms to help communicate the power of storms is, as Emerson journalism professor Jerry Lanson notes, a tried and true writer's strategy. A woman turning her head in an office we can visualize. And maybe with the help of her story, and this detailed view of the calm before one of history’s most terrible storms, we can then begin to visualize how, as Hersey soon recounts, “the room was filled with a blinding light,’ “everything fell? “the ceiling dropped,’ “the wooden floor above collapsed in splinters and the people up there came down.” Maybe then we can begin to imagine what it is like when a young woman, turning her head to look at another young woman, a few moments later loses consciousness because a weapon of unimaginable power has in an instant destroyed almost everything around her. Often journalists, to use a film term, need to zoom in. John Hersey did not spend most of his time, when he visited Hiroshima about nine months after the dropping of the bomb, collecting statistics from officials. Instead he concentrated on interviewing, with great thoroughness, survivors—finally focusing on six individuals. He learned in great detail where they were and what they were doing when the bomb went off. He struggled to give the story what Lanson calls “a face and a place.”!” He learned what those particular people felt and saw in that moment and in the days that followed. He learned what it is like, so he could

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John Hersey reporting in Asia in 1946.

help us understand what it was like. He did it so well that at the end of the 20th century the faculty at New York University, along with a panel of distinguished journalists, selected Hersey’s Hiroshima as the top work ofjournalism of that century in the United States. And within smaller stories, like those Hersey famously collected, it is often helpful to zoom in further still, to reveal more texture. Hersey soon provides a longer, even more detailed account of Toshiko Sasaki’s experiences in the moments before the atom bomb “flashed”: Miss Sasaki went back to her office and sat down at her desk. She was quite far from the windows, which were off to her left, and behind her were a couple of tall bookcases containing all the books of the factory library, which the personnel department had organized. She settled herself at her desk, put some things in a drawer, and shifted papers. She thought that before she began to make entries in her lists of new employees, discharges and departures for the Army, she would chat for a moment with the girl at her right. Just as she turned her head away from the windows, the room was filled with a blinding light . . .

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Some details here are included just to flesh out a portrait, to remind us that, in this case, the extraordinary is happening to an ordinary person, who shifts papers and chats with the woman at the next desk. Some details are there because they are important: The searing light and heat from the bomb first entered through the windows, so Sasaki’s distance from them contributed to her survival; this will help answer, in other words, the important question of why it is that some survived. And after the bomb explodes, those bookcases, “containing all the books of the factory library,’ will fall on Toshiko Sasaki—severely injuring her leg. Other details earn their place in a story because they are telling. Later in his Hiroshima account, Hersey gives us a sense of the massive number of unclaimed bodies through a small, close observation: A compact Red Cross hospital had begun burning the bodies of those who had died in the hospital. Scatterings of their ashes were placed in envelopes with the names of the deceased on them. Within a few days the neat stacks of those envelopes, Hersey reports, “filled one whole side” of the hospital’s main office." Many of the examples in this chapter will be, as is Hersey’s work on Hiroshima, reports on aspects of the Second World War. There is a reason for this: the great intensity and consequence of war often brings out the best in journalists. And this was among the times when American journalists particularly distinguished themselves—and not just in print. Some of the finest writing and reporting on the war was contributed by Edward R. Murrow, a correspondent for CBS Radio. Indeed, his reports from London were ranked number four on the list of the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century.” Murrow famously helped Americans “see” and sympathize with what the British were going through during the German bombing of London in 1940. He helped answer the question: What happens in a city that is undergoing regular bombing? Murrow answered it in large part through detail: There were two women who gossiped across the narrow strip of tired brown grass that separated their two houses. They didn't have to open their kitchen windows in order to converse. The glass had been blown out."°

Murrow has some large points to make—about the resiliency of London's citizenry, for example—but he supports those points by recounting small incidents: Another [bomb] hit the fence just outside the church and smashed all the stainedglass windows. Two hours after it happened the rector had sent his assistant around to tell the congregation that evening service would be held as usual.’®

Murrow was particularly impressed by the courage being displayed during the bombing. He found details with which to tell that part of the story, too: In the central district of London a bomb fell. It didn’t explode. The area was roped off. People living in the area were evacuated. . . . Peering fearfully around the corner of a stout building, I beheld a policeman standing at an intersection, about thirty yards from where that unexploded bomb lay. . .. And I saw he had taken his whistle off the chain, was tossing it idly in the air and catching it as

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it fell... . If that bomb had gone off, the bobby would have been a dead man; the

whistle would have fallen to the pavement.

After watching him for perhaps two minutes I withdrew, convinced that it would have been impossible for me to catch that whistle in a washtub.’7

Here’s another audio example, though one from about two thirds of a century later. Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson were charged in 2008 with nothing less than explaining the subprime mortgage crisis, which was leading to a global financial crisis. So how did the much-downloaded, much-honored radio documentary they produced for This American Life and National Public Radio, “The Giant Pool of Money,’ begin? It, too, began small: with the tearful comments of an Iraq War veteran who had bought one of those “fancy new mortgages with an adjustable rate” and, when the rate reset, had fallen behind on this payments: “At one point, my son had $7,000 in a CD and I had to break it. That really hurt. I was saving that money for his college. I put $2,000 back but it’s like you can't have a future. They put you in a situation where after a while you're going to fail. It's hard”®

Much of the largest journalism focuses on the small: on a man who had to use his son's college account to help pay his mortgage, on a single London policeman (or “bobby”) tossing a whistle, on a woman turning her head in an office in Hiroshima, a refugee whose son was killed in Darfur, a Navajo couple whose floor was made of the waste from a uranium mine.

LARGER

PERSPECTIVES

But the best journalism, of course, is rarely just small. At some point, usually, it zooms out from specific individuals and incidents to make a larger point. As much as she is moved by the story of Mary and Billy Boy Holiday, Judy Pasternak does not just want to tell their story. She has higher aspirations. She wants to demonstrate and make clear that government organizations did not do their job in protecting the Navajo from the hazards of uranium mining: Pleading lack of funds, officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Indian Health Service dodged responsibility, declining to study the health threats comprehensively, much less eliminate them.”

And Pasternak wants to make clear what the consequences of U.S. government policies and oversights have been. That requires the larger perspective provided by history: Fifty years ago, cancer rates on the reservation were so low that a medical journal published an article titled “Cancer immunity in the Navajo”... Today, there is no talk of cancer immunity in the Navajos.

And making her point also required the larger perspective that statistical analyses can often furnish:

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The cancer death rate on the reservation .. . doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, according to Indian Health Service data. The overall U.S. cancer death rate declined slightly over the same period.

History and statistics can both be misused, of course, but they are often enlightening and they are usually crucial in supporting journalists’ efforts to claim significance for their stories. As social scientists sometimes note: the plural of anecdote is not data. Good journalists make much use of anecdotes—“They didn’t know their fine new floor was radioactive’—but when it is time to make a point, they have to find, as Pasternak did, some data. How do we know that uranium mining on the Navajo reservation was such a big deal? Just look at the cancer rates! Samantha Power, writing in 2004, has pressing points to make about events in Darfur—as illustrated by the horrific experiences of Amina Abaker Mohammed and her son. She has pressing points to make, in particular, about what she considers to be the inadequacy of the international response to events in Darfur. Power dutifully outlines the diplomatic hairsplitting going on outside Darfur about whether atrocities inside Darfur technically qualify as “genocide.” But then Power jumps to a larger perspective—aided in her jump by the New Yorker's comfort with more interpretive, even opinionated journalism: “In the meantime, the debate over semantics has only further distracted the international community from the more important debate about how to save lives.””° Part of the trick, of course, is selecting a story that does, as Samantha Power's story certainly does, have large significance: political, sociological or—as this book will discuss in its fourth chapter—simply human. You don't want to strain for significance. You cannot, of course, exaggerate, fudge or manipulate history or statistics to play up significance. Journalists must zoom out with a steady hand—with solid, well-defended, well-supported points. John Hersey’s account of Hiroshima provides an interesting and, in some ways, contradictory lesson. Hersey here is a master at leaving things out. Since good journalists inevitably collect much more information than they will use, this is a valuable skill. Hersey sticks with impressive discipline to the story of his six characters—including lots of detail but almost exclusively detail they would have seen. He leaves out, in other words, many of the larger perspectives you would have expected on such a large story. He stays, to use another film term, focused. Nonetheless, Hersey, too, finds a few occasions to supply his readers, quickly and unobtrusively, with the necessary and horrifying statistics. One of his characters is a doctor treating overwhelming numbers of victims, so Hersey uses his story as an excuse to deliver devastating numbers on the scope of the catastrophe: “In a city of two hundred and forty-five thousand, nearly a hundred thousand people had been killed or doomed at one blow; a hundred thousand more were hurt.” Hersey is even able to work smoothly into his account of one of those six characters what may be an even larger perspective on the atomic bomb. That character is Toshiko Sasaki, the woman who had turned her head. That larger perspective is that this new device for killing vast numbers of humans is the product of the great intellectual progress made by humans:

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The bookcases right behind her swooped forward and the contents threw her down, with her left leg horribly twisted and breaking underneath her. There, in the tin factory, in the first moments of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.”

SURPRISE Adrian Nicole LeBlanc began visiting New York City’s South Bronx to do a story about the arrest of a very young man who had been very well remunerated selling drugs: he rented an apartment just to store his bags of money. LeBlanc, a freelance writer and magazine editor at the time, began to interview this young man and his acquaintances. She wrote about him for the Village Voice, a New York weekly.” But in the end, the dollar amounts and trial accounts in the drug dealer’s story proved of limited interest. Asa freelance journalist with a day job, LeBlanc had the luxury, it must be acknowledged, of investigating this story mostly for herself at the time and, therefore, could make her own decisions on what was and was not interesting. She could proceed at her own pace. It was a slow pace. LeBlanc allowed herself to remain open to new angles on the story. She even allowed herself to remain open to finding a new story. The experiences of one of the drug dealer’s acquaintances began to interest her more than the experiences of the dealer. LeBlanc grew more and more intrigued with his girlfriend, who was, loyally, attending the trial: Why? What happens ...? What is it like. . .? Eventually, she had a new story, which a dozen years of reporting and writing later became her remarkable book, Random Family: the story of the girlfriends of drug dealers and their families—a drama in which that young, rich man, soon on his way to prison, was a supporting actor.”* LeBlanc had allowed herself to be surprised. In a sense all journalism is fueled by surprise. It is found in tragic errors: the government fails to adequately warn the Navajo about the health consequences of working and living with uranium. It is found in ironies: as the first atom bomb explodes above a city, a woman is crushed by books. And, of course, surprise is found in that generator of much of the power of news, the unexpected:” a leader of one faction during a Mafia war turns out to be a college-educated young man who had other career possibilities; a woman turns her head to speak to someone at the next desk when suddenly the room is “filled with a blinding light” There is surprise, too, in making readers care—as LeBlanc does—about the girlfriends of drug dealers. Sometimes journalists make that surprise explicit, as when Edward R. Murrow observes on the radio from London in 1940 that “the bombs somehow don't seem to make as much noise as they should” or when Murrow reports that “it is indeed surprising how little damage a bomb will do unless, of course, it scores a direct hit.*° The audiences for journalism want to learn something they didn’t know. They want to be informed of something they didn't expect. But the point here is that journalists themselves need to be open to surprise, too. Journalists typically find themselves starting out with an idea for a story and then collecting information that might support that idea. That is probably inevitable

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and generally helpful. Finding an angle—an approach—for a story helps focus efforts; it helps reporters sort out the mishmash of information that collects around potential stories. We need some preconceptions, but we should hold them lightly. Sometimes, of course, the facts don’t support our initial idea for a story. And some of the best journalism happens when we are open enough, flexible enough, sensitive enough, to be surprised by new ideas, unexpected angles, even unexpected stories— when a Navajo man tells you that his late father worked in the uranium mines. Jonathan Torgovnik, a photojournalist, arrived in Rwanda in 2006 on assignment for Newsweek magazine. His job was to photograph individuals with AIDS for a story on the 25th anniversary of the epidemic—an important story, of that there is no doubt. But while talking with a woman who was HIV positive, Torgovnik came upon another story—one less told and perhaps even more wrenching. This woman had been infected with HIV while being repeatedly raped in 1994 during the genocide in Rwanda—in which members of the Hutu tribe massacred about a million members of the Tutsi tribe. She ended up pregnant. The boy she was now raising was the son of a Hutu man who had raped her and who was involved in the murder of her family.” Torgovnik learned that in Rwanda there were twenty thousand such children— conceived under this, the most horrific of circumstances. After completing his Newsweek assignment, he set out over the next 3 years to interview many of their devastated and deeply conflicted mothers and to photograph these children and their mothers.” This is an excerpt from one of those interviews: “When the genocide started, I was engaged. My fiancé was among the people killed in the first three days, and I saw his body after he was killed with a machete. After that, Iwas raped by many men that I didn’t love. The results are these children. I never fell in love again, I never enjoyed sex, I never enjoyed being a mother or having children, but I have accepted it.”

Torgovnik photographed that unsmiling woman standing with her arms around an unsmiling child. His work on this story that he had not intended to cover—on this story that surprised him when he was covering something else—led to a book, Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape, a photo exhibit and a multimedia presentation,” which was the first Web-based production to win a duPont-Columbia Award. Torgovnik also started a foundation that pays for education for these children and support for their mothers.

ALTERNATE

PERSPECTIVES

Sometimes the key to finding a fresh and revealing story is to look at a familiar story from a new perspective. War, for example, is usually covered from near the front where the soldiers are battling. The novelist Ernest Hemingway—in his other guise as a journalist—was covering the Spanish Civil War in 1937. But one of the stories he writes opens with an unexpected perspective: that of someone—Hemingway himself, thinly

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disguised by the second person—going to sleep, some distance from the fighting. This viewpoint allows him to express an emotion of great prevalence and power in war zones—the quiet joy of not being shot at: The window of the hotel is open and, as you lie in bed, you hear the firing in the front line seventeen blocks away. . . . You lie and listen to it and it is a great thing to be in bed with your feet stretched out gradually warming the cold foot of the bed and not out there in University City or Carbanchel. A man is singing hardvoiced in the street below and three drunks are arguing when you fall asleep.”

In a piece on a big boxing match (back when boxing was a more popular sport) written for Cosmopolitan (back when it was a very different kind of magazine), W. C. Heinz distinguished himself by holding discussion of the fight for the final paragraph. The rest of his article details how the boxer, Rocky Graziano, spent the day leading up to fight. It too begins with a window and a bed: The window was open from the bottom and in the bed by the window the prizefighter lay under a sheet and a candlewick spread. In the other bed another prizefighter slept but the first one lay there looking at the ceiling. It was nine-thirty in the morning and he would fight that night.*!

The boxer grows more human from this surprising perspective—in, for example, an interaction that day with his grandmother: “Graziano took her then by the arms and led her to the chair by the window . . ? What happens on the day before a major sporting event? What is it like to be facing a big fight? Answers to these questions begin to arrive. And, as the journalist Sarah Hart notes in her analysis of the piece, the tension builds: They pushed through the crowd, kids grabbing at Graziano and trying to run along at his side, and men shouting at him, things like: “Hey, Rocky!” .. . “Good luck, Rocky!” ... “Flatten him for me, Rocky!”

Large events—like stars in the night sky—are often hard to see if we simply stare directly at them. Their power—the power of a boxing match or a war—sometimes becomes clearer by examining the occurrences that surround them. No collection of highlights from American World War II reporting would be complete without something from Ernie Pyle, who covered the fighting for the Scripps-Howard chain of newspapers. His war reports were ranked ninth on that list of the 20th century's top journalism in the United States. Here Pyle is reporting on the beach in Normandy—11 days after the D-Day landing there. He captures the great cost of the Allies’ invasion of Nazi-occupied France by looking away from the fighting toward the debris left behind by those who likely perished in the fighting: Here in a jumbled row for mile on mile are soldiers’ packs. Here are socks and shoe polish, sewing kits, diaries, Bibles and hand grenades. Here are the latest letters from home, with the address on each one neatly razored out—one of the security precautions enforced before the boys embarked. Here are toothbrushes and razors, and snapshots of families back home, staring up at you from the sand.”

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One way of understanding the terrible power of the extraordinary is by viewing it from the perspective of the ordinary—socks and toothbrushes. Pyle was as adept at capturing drama this way as anyone. But sometimes this unwavering focus on drama—the characteristic perspective of the journalist—must itself be escaped in order provide a more true account of events. Edward R. Murrow provides such a corrective in one of his radio reports from London by supplying his audience with a calmer, more honest, more statistical perspective: When you hear that London has been bombed and hammered for ten to twelve hours during the night, you should remember that this is a huge, sprawling city, that there is nothing like a continuous rain of bombs—at least, there hasn’t been so far. Often there is a period of ten or twenty minutes when no sound can be heard, no searchlights seen. Then a few bombs will come whistling down. Then silence again. A hundred planes over London doesn’t mean that they were all here at the same time. They generally come singly or in pairs... .

Truth tends to be multifaceted: the bombing of London in 1940, like war in general, produced moments of terror, moments of courage and long periods of time when nothing dramatic happened. The bombing of London in 1940, like life in general, featured small things—an infinite variety of them—through which larger forces might be revealed. The number of possible larger forces there to be revealed may also have been infinite; this, too, is typical of war and of life in general. There's never a shortage of perspectives. Journalism can achieve great power by restricting

itself to one way of looking at an event, as John Hersey does by sticking mostly to the accounts of those six survivors of Hiroshima. But journalism as a whole benefits from access to a wide variety of meaningful, enlightening perspectives. Murrow had a knack for finding them. In trying to make sense out of what was happening after a trip around England in 1940, he even deploys—hypothetically, ironically, pessimistically and presciently (almost 6 years before Hiroshima)— a future perspective: High-explosive bombs are not an ideal weapon for the destruction of the human race; something more devastating is required. But many of the best scientific brains of the world are engaged on that problem and presumably they'll find a solution in time.**

Here is a one more example—same story: the bombing of London in 1940; a different, though no less distinguished journalist: the aforementioned Ernie Pyle: Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges. And standing there, I want to tell somebody who had never seen it how London looked on a certain night in the holiday season of the year 1940. For on that night this old, old city—even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it—was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.”

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Among their many virtues, these 110 words, which begin one of Pyle’s reports on the bombing, employ my favorite example of the use of an alternative perspective—a future perspective.

It seems a particularly odd moment for a future perspective. For look at what is happening around Ernie Pyle at this moment—as he is writing. Surely this is one of the most dramatic times in the history of one of the world’s most important cities. One great power is bombing another. Should Germany, with its genocidal Nazi leadership, succeed in weakening and then invading Great Britain, the direction of the world might change. And Pyle is there—with the citizens who are living with the threat of a bomb falling on their homes, living with that threat himself, observing on the evening he describes the destruction and violence from a balcony that itself could be bombed. What a moment for a journalist! Yet, Pyle is imagining himself at another time: “someday”— “someday when peace has returned? some much less dramatic and important day, in other words. You would think this escape into the future would lessen the drama. Instead, it increases it. Because as Pyle understands, or seems to understand, we need perspective in order to measure events, in order even to comprehend events. We have to separate ourselves from things to see them. We need to compare: our situation today versus our situation yesterday or in some imagined tomorrow. By imagining himself returning “someday”—a visit Pyle, who was killed near the end of the war, would never make—he helps us feel the gravity of what is happening on this day. That placid, nondescript future—the calm after the storm— helps bring out the drama of this astonishing present. Pyle succeeds, too, by taking this almost incomprehensible event and helping us conceive of it as a story that might be “someday” be told to “somebody”—the story of that night “when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.”

HONESTY I am now going to ask you to read those 110 words by Ernie Pyle for the second time. (Fair warning: they will be back one more time—in Chapter 7, for an analysis of the extraordinary musicality of Pyle’s language.) I myself have probably reread these words many hundreds of times—often out loud in seminar rooms and lecture halls. And I continue to learn from them—about writing, about journalism. Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges. And standing there, I want to tell somebody who had never seen it how London looked on a certain night in the holiday season of the year 1940.

For on that night this old, old city—even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it—was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.*°

Here I want to talk about Pyle’s honesty: about what he “must bite” his “tongue in shame for saying” but does say.

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All, journalists, being in the truth business, must be honest, of course: no lying, no fudging, no leaving out contradictory evidence, no making things up. And journalists try to elicit honest responses from their sources. But in journalism, as in life, people learn to hide certain truths behind platitudes and conventions—hide them from others and maybe even from themselves. And in journalism, as in life, people learn not to discuss certain matters that may prove discomfiting or embarrassing. We all do this—with one degree of awareness or another, with one degree of success or another. (People, in my experience, figure out more about us than we think.) We lie, in other words, by shading, by overlooking, by ignoring, by obfuscating, by omission. We construct internal and external facades. If the goal of the journalism esteemed in this book is truth and wisdom, it is necessary for journalists to try to break through some of those facades. That means struggling to obtain more candid comments from those they interview. Jonathan Torgovnik succeeded in eliciting a bitter and painful frankness from one of the raped and impregnated Rwandan women he interviewed: I must be honest with you. I never loved this child. Whenever I remember what his father did to me, I used to feel the only revenge would be to kill his son. But I never did that.

Perhaps this woman, given her experiences and circumstances, was disposed to be blunt. Perhaps she was just unpracticed at the art of dissembling. Probably Torgovnik was an understanding and encouraging interviewer. But that is, for anyone who has been a parent or a child, a searing, distressing honesty. Getting more truth into journalism often requires shucking off some of the routines and assumptions of traditional journalism. In his autobiography, the path-breaking, muckracking journalist Lincoln Steffens provides an example of a reporter befogged by such routines and assumptions: himself. Steffens, then trying to master the “cool, dull, matter-of-fact” style of serious journalism, was reporting on Wall Street in the 1890s. Wall Street was going through a tumultuous time: If a leading financier, at the end of a dark day of disaster, sat tight denying something I was sure of till, worn out, he fell across his desk, weeping and confessing, I picked up not the hysterical man but the confession, and that I wrote without tears, statistically.*”

If journalism is to be more honest, it cannot continue to ignore the “the hysterical man.” Indeed, a more honest journalism might go further than tears. Steffens also notes that some on Wall Street during the panic of 1893 were not at all upset. They had bet against the market—bought “short”—and were, therefore, benefiting from that crash. “The shorts rejoiced in the ruin;” Steffens writes, “they made money and they were happy.” But what he calls their “wild joy... on a day of tumbling prices” was not getting into his newspaper or the others: too counterintuitive, too threatening to the story’s predominant angle—a crash is supposed

to be sad.*8 It takes a brave, confident journalist to push beyond routines, assumptions, prevailing sentiments and angles. Here's more from Ernest Hemingway, reporting

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on the Spanish Civil War. A bomb has exploded near his hotel and a headless body is lying in the street: “Did you see him?” asked someone . . . at breakfast. Sure, you say.

iss

»

“That’s where we pass a dozen times a day. Right on that corner.” Someone makes a joke about missing teeth and someone else says not to make that joke. And everyone has the feeling that characterizes war. It wasn’t me, see? It wasn't me.

People sometimes make jokes—even about death. People often feel some relief that a death was not theirs. Hemingway does not retreat from these truths. Ernie Pyle, similarly, does not retreat from the fact that a city under bombardment, a city where innocent people are dying, might still be—although he “must bite” his “tongue in shame for saying it’—“the most beautiful sight” he has “ever seen.” That’s a daring honesty. And Pyle is also flirting here with a larger truth: that war, for all its horrors, holds its excitements, its pleasures—for those who fight it, for those who report it. You don't see that acknowledged too much in journalism. The grip of good taste and convention is too strong. It ought to be acknowledged more. Journalists need to be more honest, too, about their role in a story. Ted Conover is known for taking risks in reporting some of his stories—including, for his book Coyotes, traveling with a group of illegal immigrants across the MexicoUS. border. In Robert S. Boynton’s 2005 collection of interviews, The New New Journalism, Conover explains why he made himself a character in Coyotes: The reader needs to know that I am a blond-haired, college-educated guy standing there along with ten rural Mexicans who are destitute and about to risk everything to cross the border into the United States. My presence changes things: it changed what happened when we were caught by the Mexican judicial police on the border, it probably changed what the guys said to each other in front of me.”

Conover’s book, in other words, would have been dishonest if it did not discuss his presence.

Explaining, acknowledging—telling—is, as a rule, more honest than keeping quiet. Indeed, journalism runs on openness, is about openness. The late David Foster Wallace was capable of taking that openness to new levels. His inclination as a novelist and a sometime journalist was to tell and tell. Journalists usually don't burden their readers with their thoughts about their assignments. Wallace, on

assignment for Harpers magazine, does: I'm fresh in from the East Coast to go to the Illinois State Fair for a swanky EastCoast magazine. Why exactly a swanky East-Coast magazine is interested in the Illinois State Fair remains unclear to me. I suspect that every so often editors at these magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90% of the United States lies between the Coasts and figure they'll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlandish. I think they decided to engage me for this one because I actually grew up around here, just a couple of hours’ drive from downstate Springfield. I never did go to

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the State Fair, though, growing up—I pretty much topped out at the County Fair level.*°

Watch out, though: for Wallace’s honesty, in this same article on his encounter with the Illinois State Fair, can get intense—psychologically intense: One of the few things I still miss from my Midwest childhood was this weird, deluded but unshakable conviction that everything around me existed all and only For Me. Am I the only one who had this queer deep sense as a kid? . . Maybe what I really miss now is the fact that a child’s radical delusive selfcenteredness doesn't cause him conflict or pain."

That's more of an admission than just noting you're blond, you think fires are beautiful or you're weirded out by a magazine assignment. Are we not exploring new levels of honesty here? Might we go further? One of the marvels of human consciousness is the unlimited range of subjects on which it is possible to find new perspectives and about which it is possible to wonder, to be curious, to be surprised, to be honest. A goal of this book—particularly in the next few chapters—is to expand the range of such subjects that might be approached by journalism.

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Learning: More Penetrating Approaches

Reporting that is fresh and revealing not only requires asking a lot of questions; it requires unusually intense efforts to see, hear, think, study and relate to people. Some of the ways of accomplishing that proposed here are standard; many are not. This chapter also considers specific requirements of reporting with video and audio, and includes an argument for the importance of investigation. The main example here is the great CBS television documentary “Harvest of Shame,” but work by Samantha Power, Judy Pasternak, Gay Talese, Leon Dash, John Hersey and Seymour Hersh—and advice from Ted Conover and Nate Silver—is also used to support these points.

Ds Lowe, a producer for the television documentary series CBS Reports, was looking for someone whose story might illustrate the pressures faced by migrant farm workers. He found someone—at the Okeechobee camp for migrant workers in Belle Glade, Florida. Lowe's example was a 29-year-old woman, Aline King, who was spending the day picking beans, while her 9-year-old son was back at the camp watching three other of her children. Lowe found this woman and obtained her moving story through a skill justly prized in journalism: reporting. He made contacts. He observed. He investigated. He asked. He listened. And he learned. The year was 1960: DAVID LOWE: Aline King, I saw your children yesterday at the Okeechobee camp. Why didn’t you put them in the nursery? ALINE KING: I don't make enough to pay for it. LOWE: How much does it cost to put them in? KING: Eighty-five cents... LOWE: Aline, what time did you come out to the field this morning?

KING: Six oclock. LOWE: What time will you get home? KING: About three-thirty, four oclock. ... 26

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How much did you earn? A dollar... Is that because the beans were of poor quality? That's right. Has this happened before? That's right. How much will your food cost you today? About two dollars.!

Reporting is a powerful method of inquiry. But like all methods it can sink into routine: you talk to the same people—usually officials or otherwise powerful people. Your stories, since these experienced news sources are skilled at making announcements, often follow their agendas. Perhaps, since youre with these people so much, those stories even begin to reflect the point of view of officials or the otherwise powerful. You look for conflict, but often what you focus on is conflict within their world—political disputes, mostly. The documentary David Lowe was working on for CBS Reports, which would be broadcast under the title “Harvest of Shame,” was not entirely original. A reporter for the Miami News, interviewed in the hour-long documentary, had won a Pulitzer Prize in 1959 for an exposé on the plight of migrant workers in Florida. And Lowe was hardly working alone: the idea for a television documentary on the subject came from the accomplished executive producer of CBS Reports, Fred W. Friendly, and the program would be narrated, and partially written and reported, by the legendary CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow. But Lowe's achievement stands. Here he is interviewing, on camera, a person

who is not at all powerful: Aline King’s 9-year-old son, who is sitting, as Lowe talks with him, in a bedroom with her three, even younger, daughters: DAVID LOWE: How did you get that hole in that bed, Jerome? JEROME KING: The rats... LOWE: Now Jerome, you are taking care of Kathy, of Beulah and Lois. JEROME: Yes sir.

LOWE: Now, are you going to give them lunch today? JEROME: Yes sir. LOWE: What are you going to feed them? JEROME: | don't know, sir.”

Lowe’s reporting was anything but routine. And the documentary he produced with Friendly and Murrow would be selected as number 11 on that list of the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century.” Now that facts, transcripts, tweets and YouTube videos on news stories are so readily available on the Internet, routine reporting has some competition: those officials and other powerful people can sometimes make their own cases and air their own conflicts. Their critics sometimes now speak for themselves, too. But there isn’t much competition for the sort of reporting David Lowe contributed in 1960: entering an important but not widely known culture—a culture rife with

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injustice; gaining people’s confidence; talking to a wide variety of individuals, many of them totally without power, about what is going on; seeing, hearing, researching and investigating conditions; and then communicating those conditions, and the attendant injustices, along with the perspectives of the people who are experiencing them. This chapter is about reporting that, like David Lowe’, is out of the ordinary.

ALERTNESS When Gay Talese first encounters Bill Bonanno, who would be the subject of his book on the Mafia, Honor Thy Father, he seems fascinated by the alertness exhibited by this son of a Mafia don: He was standing with his back to the wall in a dimly lit corridor of the federal court building in Manhattan talking to one of his attorneys during a recess. Though he seemed deeply engrossed in private conversation, nodding with his head bent low as he listened, he also seemed to be watching through the corner of his eye everyone who came along through the marble-floored corridor, and he seemed very aware of the detectives and newsmen who stood talking in a circle near the door to the jury room. At one point he noticed that I was watching him.

However, as this excerpt from the “Author’s Note” to his book Honor Thy Father surely demonstrates, there was at least one other very alert person in that corridor at the time: Talese himself was clearly “watching”; Talese himself was clearly “very aware” of what was going on. Members of the Mafia may have to be alert to stay out of jail or stay alive. Journalists have to be alert to do their job. Talese could not write so well if he did not notice so well. Most of us were not born with artists’ eyes or musicians’ ears. But alertness can be developed, and alertness can be practiced. The blind may sometimes have to rely on others or find other approaches to scene setting, but, if we look hard enough, the rest of us can learn to see: clothing, landscapes, the configuration of a face, a nodding head. The following description by Samantha Power in her New Yorker article on Darfur employs an extraordinary conceit and will, therefore, reappear in Chapter 7 as an example of the use of a simile. But it is based on an alertness to color and texture:

Our journey across the inhospitable terrain of northern Sudan resembled a virtual tour of the solar system: we saw the soft yellow powder of Earth's great deserts; the red-rock mounds of Mars; the volcanic gravel of Venus; the deep gray craters and gullies of Mercury.

Desert sands, stones and furrows can have a number of forms and a number of hues, as can most natural formations. Most of us don’t spend a lot of time delineating which textures and colors are currently appearing before us. But if we want to write like that we will have to spend that time. Here is Power describing the physical appearance of a leader of the janjaweed, the bandits behind, she explains, much of the terror in Darfur:

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[Musa] Hilal, who is six feet four and has an athletic, commanding build, wore a

white turban over a white lace skullcap; a pale-blue, crisply starched djellabah with a white, black-striped gossamer sash; and dark-brown loafers.

Power must know something about or have educated herself on fabric and North African male fashion, but the rest is just observation. And you can train yourself to observe—anywhere. Practice: How would you describe that floor, that chair, that person's face? Test yourself: What color were the walls in that room you just left? What color was that person’s hair? Modern readers—spoiled by access to so many images—sometimes lack interest in or patience for paragraphs thick with description. They may not care that this man’s long robe is pale blue. They might not get much from the design of his sash. They may suggest that seeing a picture of him with their own eyes might be worth a few such paragraphs of description. That’s too bad because Power’s words, if we attend them, can take us closer to this janjaweed leader. They can help us see him—in some ways better than we, with our uneducated eyes, might see him in a picture. And that’s not all: through physical description, she can increase our understanding of this man. “Hilal’s skin is the color of sand—much lighter than that of most Arabs in Darfur,’ Power reports. Skin color, unfortunately, is an issue in a conflict in which Arabs have been accused of atrocities against darker-skinned Africans. Then Power informs us that the janjaweed leader “has the confident gait of someone who has spent his life in charge.” When description is at its most effective, seeing and understanding arrive together. Observations, the point is, can provide what the hyper-alert journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe has called “status details,” which he defines as the “behavior and possessions through which people express their position in the world or what they think it is or what they hope it to be” Wolfe has a long list of what might qualify: everyday gestures, habits, manners, customs, styles of furniture, clothing, decoration, styles of traveling, eating, keeping house, modes of behaving toward children, servants, superiors, inferiors, peers, plus the various looks, glances, poses, styles of walking... °

Wolfe suggests that to qualify as tokens of “status” such details must be “symbolic.” A better word might be revealing. Power’s comment about that janjaweed leader’s “gait” is revealing. The possessions noted at the end of her description of him also qualify as “status details”: During our encounter, he carried only two items: a wooden walking stick capped with the head of a hound dog (“a gift from Switzerland”) and a Nokia camera

phone, which, when opened, displayed a photograph of himself on its screen.

These possessions help readers place Musa Hilal, janjaweed leader, in society— even a society as foreign for many of Power's readers as that of Darfur. They attest to money (that was a fancy phone then) and cosmopolitanism—or, at least, the hope to be seen as possessing money and cosmopolitanism. And, perhaps, they bespeak a certain self-regard.

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When she flies deep into Darfur on a military helicopter with this janjaweed leader, Power's alertness provides a small insight into how things there work: Incongruously, female flight attendants were on board, as was a box of Thuraya satellite phones and a cooler filled with soft drinks. The flight attendants and the cooler made the return journey; the phones did not.

And Samantha Power's alertness is not restricted to her eyes. In one paragraph she hears men “chanting” and shouting praise, women singing a “screeching song” and a comment as being made “sarcastically.” Reporters, and here we must make an exception for deaf reporters, might also want to train themselves to pay attention to noises, background sounds and tones; they might want to train themselves to distinguish some of the varieties of accents, intonations, verbal tics and phrasings that flavor human speech. This form of alertness also can be practiced— through intense and precise listening and by then trying to attach words to what you have heard. Park rangers leading a walk through a thick wood will sometimes insist on quiet so that visitors can learn to hear the forest. Journalists, too, might occasionally hush and listen—in Darfur, on a Navajo reservation, on a city street, in a college dormitory, during a war. When reporting on the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Ernest Hemingway invents his own words to describe sounds: The rifles go tacrong, capong, craang, tacrong, and then a machine gun opens up. It has a bigger caliber and is much louder, rong, cararong, rong, rong.

It is impossible to read those sentences and not hear something like what Hemingway heard.

TELLING

IMAGES

AND

SOUNDS

Through the wonders of recording devices it has become possible, of course, for journalists’ audiences not just to see and hear something like but to see and hear: the serious tone of voice and slight shoulder shrug of Aline King’s 9-year-old son Jerome in “Harvest of Shame,’ for example, as he admits that he doesn’t know what, with his mother out in the fields, he will feed his three younger siblings for lunch; the leftover mix of what looks like beans and flour, partially covering the bottom of a burnt pot, that likely will serve as their meal; the foot-wide hole made by “the rats” in the mattress upon which these children sleep. As cameras, microphones and recorders become ever smaller, and smaller devices become ever better, the chances improve that alert journalists can similarly show not just tell. But having been relieved of some of the responsibility for turning the scenes they witness into words doesn't relieve journalists of their responsibility to select and present—to direct the camera or microphone and to edit what they capture. And they have an added responsibility: making sure those well-chosen and well-edited sights and sounds work together with any words that might accompany them.

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“Harvest of Shame” cuts away from a shot of young Jerome explaining that he stepped on a nail “by the washhouse” to a close-up of the bottom of his bare and dirty foot with a pencil-wide mark just below his toes. John Schultz, the film editor on “Harvest of Shame,” has said it followed what he calls “the CBS ReportsMurrow-Friendly dogma,” which meant, in part, that images and words were tightly coordinated.* Those who write to video have to avoid being too pedantic— “you are looking bottom of Jerome's foot”—or too random—showing his foot when talking about what he will serve for lunch. Coordinated is a good word for what video writers and editors want to achieve. : With still or video cameras the lighting has, of course, to be decent; the focus has to be, in most circumstances, crisp. And journalists have to be alert for wellcomposed, interesting, aesthetically pleasing or meaningfully unpleasing sights. Fred Friendly has been quoted as championing shots that capture “the power of the human face: the way the eyes move, the ways the head tilts, the pauses, the silence . . °° Shots of “talking heads” in “Harvest of Shame” do indeed add great “value” to the story: we see and feel the earnestness and dignity, along with the burdens, of those struggling migrant workers. However, images of faces talking add much less to journalism when the faces are those of the composed, unemotional middle-aged, middle- or upper-class men and women who so often appear on screen in television news—officials, the powerful and, much too frequently, reporters themselves. Journalists have to remain alert for images and sounds that are more revealing than that, more surprising, more compelling and, of course, more connected to the meaning of the story—shots of objects, places, bodies, not just “talking heads.” Good images can shoulder a considerable part of the burden of telling the story. Many of the shots in “Harvest of Shame’—the food in that burnt pot, the hole made by rats, the small wound at the bottom of Jerome's foot—are not pretty.

Yet, the black-and-white camera work, by Charlie Mack and Marty Barnett, is consistently skillful—Aline King’s head, protected from the sun by a bright white turban, is, for example, carefully framed by low bean plants rustling in the wind. And the documentary repeatedly uses a shot that is indeed attractive: long rows of vegetables converging as they reach the horizon. Journalists wielding cameras also have to remember that just including what they consider to be a telling detail in a shot does not necessarily mean that their audiences will have gotten the message. Had we simply seen the small wound at the bottom of Jerome's foot in “Harvest of Shame”—without his explanation of how he got it—it would have conveyed significantly less meaning. Too often video journalists cede responsibility for the noticing—for picking out gaits or status details—to their audiences, forgetting that viewers haven't spent all those hours with the person being photographed, getting a sense of what might be revealing and what might not be. Too often journalists who employ photos or video replace precise language—“the confident gait of someone who has spent his life in charge”—with glimpses of someone whose way of walking their audiences may be in no position to focus on let alone evaluate.

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More precise shots help. Were we to produce a documentary based on Samantha Power's article, we might want to make sure that the audience sees clearly that the janjaweed leader displays his own picture on his cell phone. Editing often helps: a quick cut, say, from his face to the face on his phone. Words often help: don't just show us the fancy walking stick, tell us that that it was “a gift from Switzerland.” Documentary producers nowadays are much taken with what is called cinema verité, in which the camera seems merely to show life being lived, without a journalist’s narration. This style, as will be discussed in Chapter 6, can have great power. But it requires more, not less, precision and control on the part of the journalist— especially if the power of explanatory language is to be entirely surrendered. Audio recordings, too, sometimes benefit from the addition of a few words of explanation. And audio recorders, too, can give us more than just people talking. German bombs had shattered windows all over London in 1940. Edward R. Murrow was then working for CBS Radio. While explaining what he was doing, he held his microphone near the ground to pick up the sound of someone sweeping broken glass. “Natural sound,’ it is called in radio news. Technology ought to be used to bring us more similarly revealing natural sights and sounds.

ASKING Often, however, we are not present to observe, let alone record, the most dramatic sights and sounds ourselves: John Hersey’s reporting on Hiroshima resulted in a monumental work of journalism, but Hersey was not in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb “flashed.” He arrived there about 9 months later—in time to see only the physical and human aftereffects. Otherwise almost every detail Hersey obtained— “turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk” —he obtained by asking someone. Had Hersey brought a camera, we might have been able to see what Toshiko Sasaki looked like as she told her story. But there would have been—in those days before video cameras existed let alone were everywhere—no image of the bookcases as they “swooped forward.” As it was, Hersey was left to build a narrative based on what he was able to elicit in extensive interviews with his six characters— some of whom, not coincidentally, spoke English. When Judy Pasternak was reporting on Navajos and uranium, she understood the importance—for reasons small and large—of the moment when a helicopter equipped to measure radiation flew over Mary Holiday’s house. Holiday, whose husband had already passed away, saw that helicopter. She knew it was measuring radiation. She did not know—because the government did not tell her—that the helicopter had picked up particularly high levels of radiation emanating from their old hooghan, with its floor made from debris from a uranium mine. It would have been a useful piece of information: members of Mary Holiday’s family still sometimes played or slept there. This small scene illustrated Pasternak’s larger point about the government’s failures and helped sharpen her close-up on the experiences of the Holidays. She

needed to describe the helicopter incident, but that would require a lot more detail.

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“I want to be able to see the scenes,” she explains. In order to see, Pasternak had to do what good reporters do, incessantly: ask. “You spend a lot time sitting there, making them come up with lots and lots of details” Since Mary Holiday was most comfortable in the Navajo language, Pasternak employed a translator. Holiday said she was going through her daily routine when the helicopter flew over. What was that routine? Pasternak obtained the information that Holiday chopped wood, cooked and then set up her loom under a tree. Pasternak asked, what kind of tree? And so on. Question after question; detail after detail. “It was draining for her and for me,” Pasternak recalls. “The translator thought I was crazy,” Many, perhaps most of the responses to her questions would not make it into anything Pasternak wrote on the subject. That’s the way it is with good reporters: in order to make sure they understand, in order to make sure they see, they usually collect much more information than they will end up using. To ensure against forgetting anything, most good reporters write out ques-

tions in advance, when they can—even though they know they may not often glance at those questions, even though they know that many of the best questions are improvised in the course of an interview. For beginning journalists, working on some lists of questions can be useful: What would you ask a veteran of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, someone who has just dropped out of high school, someone who works at a casino, a personal trainer? In difficult interviews good reporters hold the toughest questions for the end,

hoping not to alienate before they get going. They are not afraid of allowing a silence to linger, knowing that the person they are interviewing might feel disposed to end that silence with something they might not otherwise have said. Most good reporters take extensive notes: training themselves to reserve scribbling time for the quotes they might actually use, trying not to lose eye contact with the person they are interviewing entirely, but, unless blessed with a strong memory, inclined to err on the side of jotting down too much rather than too little. They are not shy about asking the interviewee to wait a moment while their hand catches up to their ears. They are prepared to repeat a question if they did not catch the answer or were dissatisfied by the phrasing. They may use an audio recorder to make sure they get the words of the quotes right and to help with that eye contact.

They will almost always take out the “uh’s and “like’s from the quotes they obtain. They will correct minor errors in grammar. After all, interview subjects, unlike article writers, have no chance to go over and clean up their wordings. But good reporters will not otherwise change the wording of quotes. They will cut paragraphs, sentences and even parts of sentences for concision and to help people get to the point. However, good reporters—and even not-so-good but still ethical reporters—will never make any edit that potentially could change the meaning of what a person has said. The result of Judy Pasternak’s exhaustive interrogation of Mary Holiday was just one paragraph in the book she later wrote about the Navajo and uranium mining, Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed:

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Under the copter’s whirling blades, Mary Holiday went about her daily chores, clad in the “grandma” uniform of velveteen blouse, long skirt, thick socks and dusty shoes. She chopped wood for the stove, cooked tortillas, brewed tea. She set up her loom outside to weave in the shade of a juniper while the grandchildren played dress-up for hours inside the old hooghan. The radiation flights were an annoyance, with the insistent whupping noise so loud and harsh, breaking the morning hush, but they were nothing more than that. After a week or so, the copter moved on to a different part of the reservation, and was soon forgotten.

Of course, reporters don't just ask to get information, to learn the details on what has happened; they ask, too, to learn how people are responding to what has happened, to capture voices: the actual words of a story's protagonists—the individuals who went through it all: “Tt brings chills when youre told that your house is like this,” said Mary Holiday, now in her early 70s. “All the years that you've lived here,” she said, her voice trailing off.

People’s personalities often come through in their choice of language; people’s emotions can often be felt in the way they express themselves. Readers themselves— seeing this quote and the reporter's description of Holiday’s voice trailing off—may get “chills.” Edward R. Murrow, who narrates “Harvest of Shame,’ speaks with eloquence and moral force:

Edward R. Murrow in “Harvest of Shame.”

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This is CBS Reports, “Harvest of Shame.” It has to do with the men, women and children who harvest the crops in this country of ours, the best fed nation on earth: these are the forgotten people, the underprotected, the undereducated, the underclothed, the underfed.°

Murrow’s blunt yet poetic words are part of what makes this such a superb piece of journalism. Yet the documentary’s greatest strength may lie in the words and voices of the often taciturn migrant workers themselves. Journalistic credit for this goes to David Lowe and his skill as an interviewer. Here he is talking with a 34-year-old woman as she sits on a stoop with her nine children. (He doesn't give her first name, and I am guessing at the spelling of her last name.) DAVID LOWE: Mrs. Dobie, what things do you pick up north? MRS. DOBIE: We pick strawberries and cherries. LOWE: Who works with you out of this family here? MRS. DOBIE: Everybody, except the baby. LOWE: Who takes care of them in the field? MRS. DOBIE: Well, they just kinda stay along with us or take care of their self. . . . The next question Lowe asks elicits information but also, especially since we are looking at the mother and children in question, more than information:

LOWE: What do you want most for your children Mrs. Dobie? MRS. DOBIE: Well, I'd like for them to have a career: whatever they want to be. ... The older girl, shed like to go to school if she could, though she'll probably be like the boy: have to quit soon as she’s old enough. She really likes to go to school, but she had to miss last week because she had to keep the baby for me to work.’

WHOM

TO ASK

If the title of this section were a question, the best journalists might answer, everyone you can, anyone from whom you might be able to learn something. Often the most useful leads, the most interesting perspectives, the most telling details are going to come from unexpected sources like a Navajo man walking out of a hearing. John Hersey ended up using the stories of only six of the survivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. But, he has explained, “I must have talked to forty or fifty people, trying to find the ones that would work for what I wanted to do.”* Time is never limitless. Deadlines enforce themselves. But still the best journalists spread their nets widely—because, as in Hersey’s case, they may need to talk to seven people to get one account that they can use; because the more different types of people they interview the broader the perspective they get on a story. Murrow, Friendly and Lowe put on camera a remarkably wide variety of sources in “Harvest of Shame.” Among them are the United States secretary of labor, who is calling, with passion, for more protections for migrant farm workers; a US. senator proposing legislation that would include such protections; and the

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president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, who, not surprisingly, opposes such protections.

In this documentary we hear, too, from a crew leader—one of those who takes bus- or truckloads of migrants from farm to farm: “A crew leader in a way he have to be a father and mother and all when he takes his crew out.” But then we listen as a minister who travels with the migrants charges that most crew leaders are “bad .. . They are trying to skin alive these migrants. They take every dime they make.’ A woman who helps run a special school program aimed at the children of migrants makes a moving appearance. An organizer for a fledgling farmworkers’ union in California is interviewed, along with an anti-union farmer in California. Indeed, a few sources arguing that the treatment of migrant farm laborers is not unjust get to have their say in “Harvest of Shaame”—none, more notably, than this farmer, who employs hundreds of such workers: Well, I guess they got a little gypsy in their blood. They just like it. A lot of em wouldn't do anything else. A lot them don't know any different. That’s all they want to do. They love it. They love to go from place to place. They don't have a worry in the world. They're happier than we are. Today they eat. Tomorrow they don't worry about. They’re the happiest race of people on earth.’

The “other side” is, in other words, certainly represented; yet this is not really a “balanced” piece of journalism. The documentary provides plenty of evidence to refute the claims of those with no compassion for the migrant workers. And it does that best by asking the people closest to the situation: the farmworkers themselves, not the officials at the top. DAVID LOWE: Mrs. Dobie, wouldn't you ever care to have a house of your own? MRS. DOBIE: Id like to have a house. We plan to buy one if we could ever get enough to pay down on one... LOWE: Do you think this will ever happen?

MRS. DOBIE: Well, it don’t seem like it.!° And at this moment this pleasant, composed woman, whose face fills the screen, makes a small but telling gesture: she bites her lower lip. Ask almost everyone. The secretary of labor and a senator make fine sources. Quote a representative sample of almost everyone. Let that grower, with his fantasy about gypsies, weigh in too. But if the goal is getting at what is really going on—not merely producing a ping-pong match of charges and countercharges— make sure you ask the people who are most affected, the people about whom everyone else is talking. Find out, for example, a little more about Aline King’s life:

DAVID ALINE LOWE: KING: LOWE:

LOWE: Aline, how old are you? KING: Twenty-nine... How old were you when you first started working in the fields? Eight. You've been working twenty-one years in the fields?

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KING: That's right. LOWE: Do you ever think you'll be able to get out of this kind of work? KING: No sir.'! The term “bottom-up reporting” was not in use when “Harvest of Shame” was produced, but this documentary features plenty of “bottom-up reporting.” It continually returns to the people who are on the ground—in this case literally: picking fruits and vegetables in the fields. Beginning journalists can practice this by selecting an issue in the news— illegal immigration, for example, health care, housing foreclosures, abortion, unemployment—and trying to find, and interview, the people at the bottom of it: the people most affected by it.

EMPATHY I am arguing that David Lowe's interviews with migrant workers deserve as much credit for the success of “Harvest of Shame” as Edward R. Murrow’s narration. It is often difficult to get people—educated or uneducated, parents or children—to acknowledge their frustrations and failures: DAVID LOWE: How many quarts of milk do you buy for the children? MRS. DOBIE: Well, we don't have milk ‘cept maybe when we draw our paycheck. We have milk ‘bout once a week... . The baby, she then explains, does get cans of milk more regularly, but not her other eight children. LOWE: Do they like to drink milk, Mrs. Dobie? MRS. DOBIE: Yes they like milk. LOWE: The only reason I ask that question . . . I was quite shocked that they have milk only once a week. MRS. DOBIE: You thought they didn't like it. They like milk, but . . . there’s so many, a gallon of milk will make them a glass around. So we just cant afford it every day.’” What is Lowe’s skill here? John Schultz, the editor of “Harvest of Shame,” has

explained that “Lowe had . . . a way of asking very difficult questions.’ And that’s certainly part of it: these are tough, even embarrassing questions. Lowe is forceful and direct. He is not afraid to ask the questions his audience would want answered. But Schultz also mentions another of Lowe’s talents: “He would allow people to keep their dignity” That comes through on screen. Lowe—Harvard educated but the son of poor immigrants—is not condescending. He does, that one time, express shock. He does not express pity. He never says on camera that he cares about these people, but he communicates it. He must have communicated it to them. That is how he was able to get many migrant workers to sit down with him in front of the camera and discuss, in essence, what had gone wrong with their lives.'° Caring about people is not a journalistic sin. Samantha Power cares about the

nightmare Amina Abaker Mohammed

experienced in Darfur. Judy Pasternak

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cares about what Mary Holiday and her family went through. David Lowe cares about those migrant workers. You want to say for all these examples: how could you not? Certainly, it would be difficult to accept an ethic for journalism that says you should not. But the concern evidenced by these journalists does not express itself through unhelpful and inappropriate displays of emotion. Their concern does not cause them to paper over, pretty up or otherwise distort. Anna Nicole LeBlanc cares, really cares, about a probably less innocent group: the girlfriends and relations of heroin pushers. Indeed, she spent about a decade following them around. But that does not stop LeBlanc from reporting that the 2-year-old daughter of one of those girlfriends was found, in the hospital, to have been the victim of sexual abuse." These writers try to tell the truth. Still, the fact that they empathize with most of those about whom they are trying to tell the truth contributes to the emotional power of their stories. It makes it easier for their audiences to care. Their empathy also helps establish the rapport these journalists need to enable their subjects to open up. And their empathy keeps these journalists from judging too quickly—which might destroy that rapport and dissipate that emotional power. Leon Dash was a long-time reporter for the Washington Post, specializing in “immersion journalism”: he would spend a great deal of time immersing himself in the lives of the individuals about whom he was writing. Later Dash became a journalism professor. “I teach my students that you can't be a journalist if you are going to be judgmental,” Dash explains in Robert S. Boynton’s The New New Journalism. “If you have a judgmental reaction in your eyes during an interview, or a judgmental nuance as you pose a question, people will close down.’ Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s book—a classic example of immersion journalism— would have been a lot less interesting if she had devoted it primarily to telling us what most of us already believe: that dealing drugs is immoral and getting pregnant at the age of 16 is unwise. If she were disposed merely to sneer at or pity the people she met in the South Bronx, LeBlanc could have saved herself a dozen years and quickly churned out yet another dismissive opinion piece or blog post about the irresponsible choices some people make or about the failings of society that contribute to poverty. But LeBlanc wasn't there to dismiss, preach or confirm her prejudices. She was there to learn. That's not as easy as it might seem. Many of us are prone to thinking that we already know—which is another way of saying what Isaid in the previous chapter: we sometimes allow our conclusions to precede or even preclude efforts to study what is actually happening. We have to fight that tendency. Jacob Riis is an example of someone who didn't fight it enough. Riis immigrated to the United States from Denmark and then, in his early years in New York and Pennsylvania, experienced poverty in many of its varieties. After he finally succeeded as a journalist in the late 19th century, Riis devoted himself to photographing—he was among the first to use flash photography—and writing about the horrid conditions the poor endured in New York City slums, here a neighborhood then known as “the Bend”:

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Look into any of these houses, everywhere the same piles of rags, of malodorous bones and musty paper . . . Here is a “flat” of “parlor” and two pitch-dark coops called bedrooms. Truly, the bed is all there is room for. The family tea-kettle is on the stove, doing duty for the time being as a wash-boiler. By night it will have returned to its proper use again. ... One, two, three beds are there, if the old boxes

and heaps of foul straw can be called by that name; a broken stove with crazy pipe from which the smoke leaks at every joint, a table of rough boards propped up on boxes, piles of rubbish in the corner. The closeness and smell are appalling. How many people sleep here? The woman with the red bandanna shakes her head sullenly, but the bare-legged girl with the bright face counts on her fingers—five, six! “Six, sir!” Six grown people and five children.!°

Riis’ book, How the Other Half Lives, was published in 1890. It was a landmark in the struggle to improve those conditions. Overcrowded tenements were torn down as a result of Riis’ efforts; new parks were built. But his work can be difficult to look at today. Although Riis’ photographs contributed significantly to his exposé of the condition of the city’s poor, they are consistently distant, even detached—in part because of the limitations of his cameras and flash: the faraway faces just stare straight ahead. Riis’ writing, too, is distant. Quotes from those whose cause he is championing are rare. Ethnic stereotyping is common—of Jews, of Chinese, of Italians: “The Italian comes in at the bottom, and in the generation that came over the sea he stays there . . . content to live in a pig-sty.”!” It is unfair, perhaps, to evaluate crusading journalists of one era by the standards of another. But Jacob Riis does provide a lesson: on the dangers of not listening and, therefore, not learning. David Lowe's subjects speak for themselves and earn respect in “Harvest of Shame.’ Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s subjects, who live among the drug dealers or who are the drug dealers, speak (though not always between quotations marks), feel and come alive on her pages: Coco was looking for distraction—anything but the same people doing the same old things. She wasn't a church girl and she wasn't much of a schoolgirl, either, but she wasn't raised by the street. She was a friendly around-the-way girl who fancied herself tougher than she could ever be. She liked action, although she preferred to watch from the periphery. Boys called her Shorty because she was short, and Lollipop because she tucked lollipops in the topknot of her ponytail; her teacher called her Motor Mouth because she talked a lot."*

In photographs or in prose, Riis’ subjects, on the other hand, remain flat, silent and strange. The Jews, for example, have a “queer lingo” and the men wear “queer skull-caps.”!” We are asked to feel sorry for them but relieved of responsibility for identifying with them. Riis may feel for the poor Jews, Italians and Irish he writes about, but he fails to feel with them. The dictionary definition of empathy is useful here: “understanding of another's feelings.” The lesson LeBlanc and Lowe teach by example and Riis sometimes teaches by negative example is that we should try to understand the people about whom we write. This is another way of saying, be a student before you presume to be a teacher.

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Empathy is a skill beginning journalists can practice just about anywhere in their communities: find someone different from you—a high school dropout, a biker, a stripper, a financier, a telemarketer, a young person recently arrested for a crime, someone with a terminal illness, a particularly demanding college professor or, perhaps, a migrant farmworker. (There are still some and the conditions in which they live can still be quite difficult.) The more different the better. Spend some time with them. Interview them. Follow them around. Then try to capture their voice, their perspectives, their struggles, their triumphs. Let your subjects instruct you. Let them explain their lives, as you would want the right to explain your own life.

WHO

ARE YOU?

Care, yes; empathize, yes; understand, yes; but journalists intent on expanding the boundaries of traditional journalism might learn something, in this regard, from traditional journalists: the discipline not to get too involved. It is usually a bad idea, for example, to allow yourself to play a role beyond that of journalist in the lives of the individuals upon whom you are reporting, while you are reporting on them. Some of the individuals with whom Leon Dash immersed himself included individuals who were very poor and involved with drugs. But, Dash has explained, he made clear from the beginning “that under no circumstances would I give anyone... money.”° This rule should not preclude, however, certain later charitable endeavors: Jonathan Torgovnik’s decision to set up a foundation to help those mothers who were raped and impregnated during the Rwandan genocide, after he interviewed them, seems unimpeachable, noble. And it is hard not to be impressed by what that reporter for the Miami News, Howard Van Smith, who had exposed the plight of migrant workers in Florida before “Harvest of Shame, told David Lowe on camera: “After seeing what I have, I am sure that I will devote the rest of my life to doing what little I can to help solve this problem.” I wont pretend walking this line between caring and fairness, between empathy and dispassion, between helping now and helping later, is always easy. And a book that challenges traditional rules is no place to insist on a new set of hard-and-fast rules on precisely how close journalists should get to their sources. Some basic ethical rules are inviolable, of course: honor your promises, don't take bribes. Some come close to achieving that status: don’t hurt innocent people, don't allow your presence to distort a situation without acknowledging that it did, and always do your best to tell the truth about others and yourself. But beyond that journalists have some leeway in determining the most effective posture to adopt with their sources—in determining whom they see themselves as being with them. Ted Conover—a colleague of mine at NYU, quoted at the end of the previous chapter—has reported on illegal immigrants, hobos and life in Sing Sing prison, where he worked undercover as a guard. This last—undercover reporting— requires a special set of ethical considerations: Is what will be exposed through

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hiding the fact that you are a reporter—in Conover’s case, the brutality of the prison system—sufficiently important to relieve you of that basic journalistic responsibility, discussed at the end of Chapter 1: being honest about whom you are and why you are there? Are the innocent individuals with whom you are dealing being properly protected from the dangers of dealing with a reporter who has not been announced as a reporter? Conover, a particularly thoughtful journalist, has struggled with these issues and worked out rules for himself. He wouldn't, for example, accept an invitation to a colleague's house while working undercover at the prison: that would take his deception into someone’s private space.”! But Conover’s effort to determine how he should deal with the people he encounters on stories where he has not gone undercover is also thoughtful and has more universal relevance. Here’s how Conover explained his “reportorial persona” in Robert S. Boynton’s The New New Journalism: I’m the interested listener who is seldom disputatious. I am fairly self-revelatory so that people have a sense of who I am and why I'm there. I often try to position myself as a student to their teacher. Sometimes I am a person who doesn't know much: can you help me? Most people respond to that.”

This is not, of course, how all reporters will present themselves. Some may adopt less reserved personas—in situations where they think that will be more effective or because that is simply whom they are. Some may, upon occasion, act as if they know a lot—either because they do or because that may seem the best way to convince someone to help them learn more. But Conover’s characterization of himself is a pretty good guide to how reporters might interact with those on whom they are reporting: because it emphasizes being unobtrusive, because it emphasizes honesty (except, of course, when he was going undercover) and because it emphasizes learning.

READING

WIDELY

Nate Silver may be one of the journalists who best represent the way journalism has been changing. He did not work his way up through a news organization. Instead, he started blogging. And Silver now writes a blog—a hugely successful blog—with a seemingly narrow focus: using advanced statistics to analyze politics and society. When Nate Silver delivered a lecture during graduation at the Columbia School of Journalism in 2011, he suggested some skills that ought to be mastered by all journalists trying to “differentiate” themselves, as he put it, in the current “competitive environment.” He suggested learning how to be entrepreneurial. He suggested learning how to make an argument.

He suggested, not surprisingly,

learning how to work with data and statistics. But the first skill on Silver's list is so elemental it is odd even to call it a journalistic skill: reading. Definitely spend a lot of time reading. Dont feel guilty if you spend the first ninety minutes of your day drinking coffee and reading blogs—it'’s your job. Your ratio of reading to writing should be high.

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And, Silver advises, “You should read broadly”—including works by “people who come from different backgrounds and different sides of the political argument. You should read critically; Silver adds. Read blogs, newspapers, trade magazines, books, interview transcripts, financial filings. And this is an important one that a lot of journalists miss: academic papers...”

What do journalists gain from reading—and let’s include perusal of highinformation, low-chitchat video or audio in our definition of “reading”? First, it enables them to keep up with the conversation. The two publications that top journalists in the United States are most likely to follow are the New York Times and the New Yorker. Many conversations begin with them. That's one reason to keep up with them; the other is because they are very good. However, the fact that this is what so many read means the entrepreneurial journalist, looking for less well-known perspectives, will also want to look elsewhere: Read the Web sites, listen to the podcasts, locate the books that everyone else is not reading. Check out, to the extent that you can, the take on events in other countries. Reading widely has the great value, too, of making journalists more cultured. And culture helps in all aspects of the writing and reporting business. “Harvest of Shame” contains allusions to John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about the exploitation and suffering of farm families, as well as to John Ford's 1940 film based on that novel. Obviously, journalists who read a lot also become more knowledgeable. You can never tell when some random piece of information you picked up somewhere—maybe in Nate Silver's blog—is going to come in handy on a story. Reading, in addition, often leads to stories. Leon Dash was contemplating focusing his immersion journalism on the subject of poverty when he came upon a small piece in his newspaper, the Washington Post. It reported on a study the Urban Institute had published that defined the “underclass’—one of those academicsounding papers to which Nate Silver says journalists don't pay enough attention. Dash read the study. “First, it gave me an intellectual framework, which most journalism doesn't have,’ Dash has said. “Second, it gave me an idea of where to look.” Families in the “underclass,” the study explained, are usually headed by females, dependent on welfare, only marginally educated, chronically underemployed, prone to petty crime and in and out of prison. Dash set out to find such a family. He began spending time at the Washington, D.C., jail, with those criteria in mind. That’s where Dash met Rosa Lee, a 51-year-old struggling with an addiction to heroin, who had been selling drugs to feed her grandchildren.”* The newspaper series Dash wrote about Rosa Lee and her family won a Pulitzer Prize. Fred Friendly got the idea for “Harvest of Shame” from a radio commentary he heard on migrant farmworkers. That inspired him to send David Lowe to Florida.” Adrian Nicole LeBlanc found the initial item about a young, rich, Bronx drug dealer that led to his girlfriend, Jessica, and thus to Random Family, in the Long Island, New York, newspaper, Newsday.”© Reading can also provide approaches to a story. While John Hersey was on a Navy ship in the Pacific, trying to figure out what he might say about the dropping

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Leon Dash.

of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, someone handed him a copy of Thornton Wilder's then-popular novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. “Reading that, I sensed the possibility of a form for the Hiroshima piece,” Hersey has explained: The over that with

book is about five people who were killed when a rope suspension bridge a canyon in Peru gave way, and how they had happened to find their way to moment of fate together. That seemed to me to be a possible way of dealing this very complex story of Hiroshima; to take a number of people—half a

dozen, as it turned out in the end—whose paths crossed each other and came to

this moment of shared disaster. So I went to Hiroshima and began right away looking for the kinds of people who would fit into that pattern.”

RESEARCHING One type of reading is particularly important: when we read for the purpose of locating specific information. That's called research. Good reporters, of course, do a tremendous amount of research. Sometimes they are looking for leads, as Judy

Pasternak was when she was trying figure out why Native American tribes that own casinos spend so much of their money on health. Sometimes reporters are just trying to become wiser on a specific subject. Before David Gonzalez immersed himself in the life of that Pentecostal church he had spent 2 months doing research: not only talking to scholarly experts on evangelical Christianity but reading books, including a number of academic books, on Pentecostalism and its history. Reporters who have done the research can ask wiser questions and produce a wiser account. Who are the janjaweed? What is the

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etymology of the term? What is the history of this group, if they even qualify as a group? What are the sources of the allegations against them? Reporters also do research to check facts. Is “janjaweed” indeed the best transliteration in English for the Arabic term? Is it fair to assert, as Samantha Power would, that they are “bandits”? There is no good reporting that is not supported by thorough fact checking. The computer revolution has made doing research much easier. Once it might have been necessary to make a trip to a library or to telephone some experts in order to educate yourself on a group like the janjaweed. Now numerous articles can be found online. Once it might have been necessary to search through microfilm in order to track down and mull over possible spellings of “janjaweed.’ Now the various considerations and versions—“janjawid” and “jingaweit” are others— can be located and evaluated online. But the locating and evaluating must be done. A wide variety of sources must be consulted. Their reliability must be weighed even more now that the evergrowing, ever-changing Wikipedia, with its manifold strengths but persistent weaknesses, has increasingly replaced the staid and reliable Encyclopedia Britannica as the go-to first source. When necessary, a library must be visited and experts must be queried. At stake in a journalist's research are what may be journalism’s two most important attributes: wisdom and accuracy.

INVESTIGATING Journalism is never more research intensive than when it is trying to uncover malfeasance or get to the bottom of some mystery. Investigative journalism this is called. It may be the most potent and respected form of reporting—traditional or nontraditional. And investigative journalism is decidedly not routine. Seymour Hersh, who had been a reporter for the Associated Press, was working as a freelance journalist when, in 1969, he received a tip that an American soldier was being court-martialed for allegedly having shot some civilians in Vietnam. Hersh ran what little he knew past an army general and was lucky enough to get the soldier's name. Hersh then managed to find that soldier’s lawyer and to get a glimpse of the indictment. That gave him a number—the number of civilians this American soldier was supposed to have murdered. That number was shockingly high.” Hersh continued investigating and, when he pinned down the details of what became known as the My Lai massacre, distributed the stories he wrote on the massacre through the tiny Dispatch News Service. They would be ranked number 12 on that list of “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in United States in the Twentieth Century.’ Here’s how Hersh’s initial report began: William L. Calley Jr., 26 years old, is a mild-mannered, boyish-looking Vietnam combat veteran with the nickname “Rusty.” The Army is completing an investigation of charges that he deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians in a search-and-destroy mission in March 1968 in a Viet Cong stronghold known as “Pinkville?”?

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The list of those “Top Hundred Works of Journalism” contains, of course, quite a few such investigations. Ida Tarbell’s 19-part series in McClure’s magazine exposing the Standard Oil company’s monopolistic practices, which first appeared in 1902, was ranked number five. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s reporting in 1972 and 1973 for the Washington Post on the Watergate scandal, a scandal that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, was ranked number three. Investigative journalism often requires poring through documents. Tarbell searched through huge piles of publicly available records—from court transcripts to newspaper articles—in an attempt to detail the unfair business methods of the head of that oil monopoly, John D. Rockefeller. In some ways this work has gotten easier: such documents increasingly can be found and perused online or through computerized databases. But in handling those documents and any statistical patterns the computers discover in them, investigative reporters still must be, as Tarbell was, diligent, patient, thorough and—since reputations are often at stake— tremendously careful. Investigative journalism also usually requires crucial assistance from sources— individuals with information about a scandal and a belief in the importance of exposing, sometimes at great personal risk, that scandal. Woodward and Bernstein had one secret source they referred to, famously, as Deep Throat. (We learned decades later that he was an FBI agent, W. Mark Felt.) Their rule, a good rule, was that they needed two reliable sources before they would go with a story. In dealing with sources, investigative reporters must not only be honest and clear but careful, where appropriate, to protect them from unwarranted harm—sometimes by withholding their names and other data that might reveal their identities, as Woodward and Bernstein did with Deep Throat. With sources who are sophisticated in the ways of journalism, reporters often make deals—either in advance of an interview or before getting the answer to certain difficult questions: “I can only tell you if you agree not to attach my name to this information. Otherwise, I might lose my job. You can refer to me as ‘a source close to... 2” This arrangement is called “background” or “not for attribution.” “Deep background, the deal Deep Throat operated under, means the reporter cant refer to the source in any way: Bob Woodward could consult Deep Throat only for leads to possible stories or to double check information he obtained elsewhere. The final deal sophisticated sources can insist upon is that something they are about to say will be “off the record.” That means it can’t be used at all—unless the reporter can obtain the information elsewhere. That is generally not a very useful arrangement for a reporter. Unsophisticated sources—people unused to dealing with the press—should be given a little more leeway by reporters. No one wants to see individuals providing tips on corruption at an organization, for example, fired because they neglected to tell a reporter before talking that they didn’t want their names used. Many news organizations have been trying to restrict the use of anonymous sources—asking that reporters agree to withhold names less and make clear, in their stories, why they are allowing a source to remain anonymous when they do

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feel the need to agree to anonymity. Sources, after all, can use unattributed quotes to attack without risk. Journalists can use unattributed quotes to cover the fact that they really don’t have such impressive sources. Anonymous sources are not just used, or overused, on major, Woodwardand-Bernstein-type investigations. Indeed, investigative journalism is not some isolated outpost of reporting. Judy Pasternak was wondering and asking and looking for anecdotes and details in her account of the Navajos and uranium, but she was also investigating a story of government neglect and failure. David Lowe was trying to fill the screen in “Harvest of Shame” with the faces and stories of migrant farm workers, but he was also trying to expose unfair practices and the inadequacy of existing government protections for those workers. Most good journalistic investigations—on the level of the work discussed in this book—include anecdotes, details and the voices of those affected by the alleged malfeasance. Seymour Hersh, after all, began his series on the My Lai massacre by telling us that the soldier being investigated in connection with the deaths “is a mild-mannered, boyish-looking Vietnam combat veteran with the nickname ‘Rusty.” And much good journalism has investigative elements and requires the investigative journalist’s diligence and care with documents and sources. Samantha Power’s New Yorker article on Darfur manages to summarize a small but revealing investigation in one long paragraph. That paragraph begins with a claim by Sudanese government officials that rather than encouraging the janjaweed in their atrocities in Darfur, the government was arresting them for those atrocities. In one town Power visited, 17 janjaweed, a judge said, had been convicted and another 19 had been arrested. The judge, Power reports, showed her the indictments. But Power began studying those indictments. She noted that they all listed the same date of arrest: July 14—a week before her visit. Then she continued her little investigation by walking into the courtyard of the local prison, where those convicted or just-arrested men were supposed to be held, and asking how many of the 63 prisoners gathered there had been arrested on July 14. None had. None had even been arrested in the past 3 months, and none had been arrested for the crimes the janjaweed had committed. “The Sudanese government was attempting to pass off criminals arrested several years ago as janjaweed but hadn't informed the prisoners of the ploy,’ Power concludes. Investigative reporting emphasizes many of the traditional journalistic virtues: doggedness, thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and a compulsion to expose lies and hypocrisy. But nontraditional journalists should display those virtues, too. And they can combine them—as Samantha Power did, as Judy Pasternak did, as David Lowe and his colleagues did—with an alertness to the people who have been victimized by those lies and hypocrisy.

CHAPTER 3 oi)

Wandering: Less Familiar Places

This is a chapter about where to look for original stories. It insists on the value of visiting underreported places. That may involve travel: among the chapter’ examples are James Baldwin's visit to the American South in 1957, Tom Wolfe’s expeditions to California in search of youth culture in the 1960s and the journeys to Africa undertaken by Samantha Power and, more than a century earlier, Henry Morton Stanley. But the chapter also emphasizes journeys to unfamiliar places or neighborhoods much nearer home, such as David Gonzalez’ yearlong immersion in a Pentecostal church in Harlem or Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’ decade-long visit to the South Bronx. Charles Dickens also makes a few appearances, in his role as a journalist.

his paragraph from the opening chapter of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family describes a street-—East Tremont Avenue—in a very poor neighborhood in New York City, the street upon which one of her main characters, Jessica, lives: Car stereos thudded and Spanish radio tunes wafted down from windows. On corners, boys stood draped in gold bracelets and chains. Children munch on the takeout that the dealers bought them, balancing the Styrofoam trays of greasy food on their knees. Grandmothers pushed strollers. Young mothers leaned on strollers theyd parked so they could concentrate on flirting, their irresistible babies providing excellent introductions and much-needed entertainment. All along the avenue, working people shopped and dragged home bags of groceries, or pushed wheelcarts of meticulously folded laundry. Drug customers wound through the crowd, copped, and skulked away again.’

LeBlanc did not report Random Family while eating Danishes in the pressroom at a government building. She was not accompanied, as she reported it, by a wisecracking gang of cynical fellow reporters. Her book is instead the result of observing and asking questions in a place distant from its author’s own experiences—a place where there were no other journalists. LeBlanc was a regular visitor to the apartment 47

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Adrian Nicole LeBlanc with the daughter of one of the women profiled in her book.

in which Jessica lived. She interviewed the young mothers. She interviewed the drug dealers, their friends, their families and, of most interest to her, their lovers— some of whom were also or would soon be young mothers. LeBlanc spent weeks, months, years on East Tremont Avenue. We like to say in newsrooms and journalism classes that reporters must expend “shoe leather,’ that they must go “out” on “the street” There's plenty of wisdom in that: alert journalists see and hear a lot more when they undertake excursions away from the laptop, away from a newsroom or their own room. Out on the street they will more likely encounter people affected by the news, not just those who are making that news or obsessing over it. They can—with eyes open— get a sense of conditions and spot trends. They can—with ears out—pick up buzz that hasn’t made it to Gawker or overhear concerns that haven't gone viral. People’s satisfactions and dissatisfactions with the way they live will often be displayed and audible on the street. Little observations there can help make interesting points. Wasn't that takeout food the kids are eating, in that paragraph by LeBlanc, given to them by drug dealers for a reason: to procure loyalty, lookouts and, should the need arise, assistance? Ifa cute toddler, rather than being an impediment to flirting, can facilitate it, doesn't that tell you something about the state of marriage? However, too often, journalists with a deadline looming walk too fast and see and hear too little. They miss the flirting and neglect to ask who bought the takeout. Too often reporters satisfy themselves with the same familiar streets: the avenue that runs between City Hall and police headquarters, the road to their favorite hangout or, should their careers progress that far, Wall Street or Pennsylvania

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Avenue. Too often our accustomed byways blend into the background—behind whatever is happening on an iPhone. And too often reporters walk the streets together, in “packs,” going to or from a speech or press conference, chasing after some newsmaker. Too often journalists begin to see, hear and think similar things. Hanging out, wisecracking, getting filled in, remaining plugged in, keeping up to date, certainly have their virtues. But journalists need, upon occasion, to search more widely for news—alone, with some time to nose around. They need, upon occasion, to wander more frequently to other thoroughfares—such as East Tremont Avenue—in other neighborhoods, even in other countries. They need, upon occasion, to visit places that are starved for reporters. Journalism that has wandered unfamiliar “streets” might more easily achieve unfamiliar understandings—about the culture of poverty and drugs, for example, and how it is perpetuated. This chapter is about taking less-traveled roads and the difference that can make. Charles Dickens, who worked as a journalist before and during his career as a novelist, expanded the reach of both nonfiction and fiction by wandering where most other writers in mid-19th-century England did not wander. This is from one of the many pieces of journalism he wrote calling attention to the conditions of the poor: How many people may there be in London, who, if we had brought them deviously and blindfolded, to this street, fifty paces from the Station House, and within call of St. Giles’s church, would know it for a not remote part of the city in which their lives are passed? How many . . . may there be, that could look round on the faces which now hem us in. . —the lowering foreheads, the sallow cheeks, the brutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, vermin-haunted heaps of rags—and say “I have thought of this. I have not dismissed the thing. I have neither blustered it away, nor frozen it away, nor tied it up and put it away, nor smoothly said pooh, pooh! to it, when it has been shown to me”??

Journalists, following the example set by Dickens, should be among the few who do go to such streets, who do look and who, in response to what they see, do not say “pooh, pooh” (or, in the current vernacular, “whatever”).

FAR AND

NEAR

To discover their new worlds some journey, as LeBlanc did, only miles north of where they live. Some—like Jonathan Torgovnik, who reported about those Rwandan children born of rape—wander on another continent. Henry Morton Stanley's expedition in 1871 deep into what he continually referred to as the “Dark Continent” was among the most famous reporting trips in history. In the 19th century, Africa was a mysterious and forbidding place for Westerners—generally aggressive and insensitive Westerners.

Stanley was on a

quest to find a British medical missionary and explorer, who had gone in search of the sources of the Nile River and from whom not much had been heard for 6 years. After more than 9 months of travel through East Africa, after repeated bouts of fever and after the loss of a third of his party, Stanley found his man:’

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I am shaking hands with him. We raise our hats and I say: — “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” And he says, “Yes.”

Charles Dickens mostly stayed closer to home. He had, of course, a remarkable ability to help his more fortunate neighbors confront the circumstances of London's much less fortunate. One of his points was that the destitute inhabited the same city, even some of the same neighborhoods, as his readers. But his own need to experience, learn and, yes, have a bit of an adventure also inspired Dickens to undertake a minor version of what Stanley undertook: a journey on another continent. Dickens, too, set out for a distant continent. There he explored a wilder, more

primitive country than his own—a country that harbored even greater injustice than Britain and some men, women and children even more downtrodden than anything Dickens saw in the poor parts of London. In 1842, Charles Dickens boarded a steamship and set out for the United States of America. With his usual eye for outrages, Dickens visited the notorious jail in New York City known as “the Tombs.’ The conditions he found shocked him. This dialogue is from the book Dickens wrote about his journey, American Notes: A man with keys appears, to show us round. A good-looking fellow, and, in his way, civil and obliging. “Are those black doors the cells?” Byes

“Are they all full?” “Well, they're pretty nigh full, and that’s a fact, and no two ways about it.” “Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?” “Why, we do only put colored people in em. That’s the truth” “When do the prisoners take exercise?” “Well, they do without it pretty much” “Do they never walk in the yard?” “Considerable seldom?’ ... A prisoner might be here for twelve months, I take it, might he not? “Well, I guess he might.”

This exchange also demonstrates, of course, how outrageous treatment of African Americans—“colored people”—was in 1842, even in the North. Slavery had been outlawed in the British Empire in 1833 but remained legal in parts of the United States until 1865. On his trip Dickens also entered, though not very deeply, the American South.

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He saw what he, feared seeing but believed he needed to witness: “We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were waited on, for the first time, by slaves.” This initial encounter with slavery, Dickens writes, “filled me with

a sense of shame and self-reproach.’> There would be other encounters as he headed to Virginia, the southernmost state on his journey. The great writer’s celebrity status made it impossible for him to make unannounced, undercover visits to places where slavery might be observed at its most brutal, but Dickens did manage to catch glimpses of that brutality just by reading public notices in the newspapers: “Detained at the police jail, the negro wench, Myra. Has several marks of Lashing, and has irons on her feet.” And Dickens did seek out what opportunities he could find to bear personal witness: In the negro car belonging to the train in which we made this journey, were a mother and her children who had just been purchased; the husband and father being left behind with their old owner. The children cried the whole way, and the

mother was misery’s picture.®

In describing the perpetrators of such abominations Dickens goes out of his way to note the distance between their behavior and their nation’s founding principles. The slave owner responsible for the heartbreak Dickens witnessed in the “negro car” was also a passenger on the train, keeping an eye on his just-bought “property.” Dickens refers to him, with bitter irony, as a “champion of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Often it is easier to see failings in far-off lands than nearby, but this is not a blind spot that can be attributed to Charles Dickens. He was ready to call out his London neighbors for their indifference to the ravages of poverty as well as to bear witness to the manifold injustices and hypocrisies of America in 1842.

BEARING

WITNESS

The world today, tragically, continues to offer journalists plenty of terrible ironies and brutal injustices to witness—including lingering forms of slavery (in the international sex trade, for example, or the treatment of lifetime servants by their lighter-skinned masters in Mauritania and Sudan). Bringing word of such ironies and injustices is surely among the most honorable work journalists can do. Samantha Power did not just interview officials in Sudan for her New Yorker piece about what was going on in Darfur; she did not only interview survivors of massacres in their refugee camps; she did not just follow around a leader of the janjaweed in Darfur. Power decided she needed to enter Darfur without such an escort. She wanted to visit the village from which the woman she was going to write about, Amina Abaker Mohammed, had fled. I decided to travel .. . to see the wells in Furawiyah where this women said her son had been killed by janjaweed forces. In order to make our way to Furawiyah, which was in an area said to be in rebel hands, we had to cross the Chad-Sudan border illegally. ... This done, we began the long, slow drive through the Sahara toward Furawiyah.’

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Power and her companion, another author and human rights activist, did not remain alone on their expedition. They encountered members of Darfur’s liberation movement. And, with their help, they eventually found the wells in Furawiyah into which those corpses had been stuffed. The janjaweed, Power concludes, had buried the wells in sand in an attempt to cover up their crimes. Stylists might appreciate the literary merit of Power's writing for the New Yorker. Adventurers might appreciate her courage. But as a reporter Power's greatest achievement in this story is that she took her readers someplace where they might see, feel and better understand a major and ongoing contemporary atrocity— someplace that might even inspire or embarrass some few of those readers into taking action. And, with the help of new, cheaper, more portable, easier-to-operate technologies, it is not always necessary to speak for the victims of the world’s horrors, such as that mother from Darfur. More and more the people of the world are equipping themselves to speak for themselves: through their own Web sites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and YouTube videos. Increasingly, traveling journalists are looking for ways to help put smart phones or microphones and cameras in the hands of those not yet familiar with them and to offer.a little training. Witness, a human rights organization founded by the musician Peter Gabriel, has been doing that for individuals who have witnessed human rights abuses—from Oakland, California, to the North Caucasus in Russia (http://www.witness.org/).

And here, from another such organization, Radio Diaries (www.radiodiaries.org), is an excerpt from the audio diary of a 19-year-old South African woman, Thembi Ngubane, who had HIV/AIDS: Testing, testing, one-two, one-two, test test test, okay. Hi, this is Thembi. It’s time for my prayer. Every morning when I wake up I run off to my drawer, take out the mirror, and look at myself. Then I start to do my prayer. I say it every day. Every time when I’m feeling angry, like when you are angry at someone you always have that thing in you that you need to tell that someone what you feel. I say, hello HIV. You trespasser. You are in my body. You have to obey the rules. You have to respect me, and if you don’t hurt me, I won't hurt you. You mind your business, I'll mind mine.®

There's still plenty of room for those who, like Samantha Power, go and bear witness themselves. But journalists must be increasingly sensitive to the possibility of helping their subjects report on their own situations—as audio producer Joe Richman did when he gave Ngubane, who eventually died of tuberculosis at the age of 24, a tape recorder. Actually going—in an attempt to bring attention or help people gain attention— usually does not, thankfully, require undertaking physical risks of the order that Samantha Power undertook. But the kind of wandering this chapter is encouraging, whether near or far, does entail mental risks. For 1am suggesting that in order

to take our audiences somewhere that might agitate them we consider going somewhere that might discomfit us.

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THE UNFAMILIAR Robert Manoff, who now teaches at Boston University, once created a course called “Reporting the Other” in which students were specifically assigned to write about people with whom they were not comfortable: a committed liberal might write about staunch conservatives, an atheist about the orthodox, someone with a distaste for skin piercing about individuals with large numbers of studs in their bodies. This is an even more challenging version of the exercise in empathy suggested in the previous chapter: report on someone you find not just different but difficult. The goal remains the same: to achieve understanding, to achieve that empathy. This is not an easy assignment to be sure, but it is an excellent exercise for journalism students and not a bad stratagem for journalists: try to see the world and help your audience see the world from an unfamiliar, uncomfortable, perhaps even unpopular perspective—the perspective of heroin dealers, for example, and their circles in the South Bronx. In the kind of journalism being celebrated here both author and audience have the privilege of these unfamiliar perspectives. Loren Ghiglione, a long-time newspaper editor and publisher who became dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, has suggested that the best overseas experiences for American journalism students, who often are predominantly middle class, are in countries that are predominantly poor. That, too, is useful advice. Go looking for those whom Edward R. Murrow called, in “Harvest of Shame,” “the forgotten people . . . the underprotected, the undereducated, the underclothed, the under-fed”? Go where people’s lives are more difficult and the consequences of policies and events, therefore, are larger. And go where people's lives are more different from your own—more “other”—and, therefore, where there's more for you and your audience to learn: a Navajo reservation, for example, or Darfur. Journalism students—an increasingly diverse lot—can still take advantage of what they know as they set out in search of injustice, poverty or otherness. If you have family in the Philippines, that might encourage you to begin your wanderings there rather than in Vietnam. If you studied French, Ivory Coast might be a better country to explore than Honduras. Similarly, a connection to the gay, lesbian, transgender community might open up a perspective on still-thriving forms of discrimination—in Russia, say, or in parts of your hometown. When Edward R. Murrow and Executive Producer Fred Friendly were screening a section of “Harvest of Shame,’ a migrant farmworker who was down to his last dollar and a half appeared on the screen. Friendly quipped, “Say, looks like your father, doesn't he, Ed?”'® Murrow’s father was not a migrant worker, but Murrow had spent part of his childhood on a farm without electricity and plumbing. He knew something about farmworkers. That helped. Reporters should use their strengths—especially if they will help them report on people a large portion of their audience will find “other.” But it is often wise not just to use your strengths. “Harvest of Shame” concerned migrant farm workers mostly on the East Coast, not in the state of Washington, where Murrow had grown up. And the men who

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made this documentary were all, by that time, successful urban professionals. It is often wise not to stick too close to home. James Baldwin had two big advantages in reporting on the situation of African Americans in the South in 1957, with the struggle to end discrimination and segregation finally under way: Baldwin was an African American writer at a time when African American writers remained, thanks to that discrimination and segregation, unconscionably rare. And his family came from the South. But Baldwin had grown up in New York City and moved to Europe. He had not before been to the American South. He brought with him an understanding of his people and their tragic history—slavery, lynchings. But Baldwin was wandering: In the fall of last year, my plane hovered over the rust-red earth of Georgia. I was past thirty, and I had never seen this land before. I pressed my face against the window, watching the earth come closer; soon we were just above the tops of trees. I could not suppress the thought that this earth had acquired its color from the blood that had dripped down from these trees."!

David Gonzalez.

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David Gonzalez is a New York Times reporter with a Puerto Rican background. His 2007 series on the growth of Pentecostalism was mentioned in the first chapter. Gonzalez was prepared, as Baldwin was, to use his background as an advantage in reporting. And Gonzalez certainly had a head start in covering this significant new religious development. He had been a religion reporter. He was familiar with the culture. He spoke Spanish. The fact that Gonzalez had grown up in a neighborhood very much like the one he was reporting on—his father was a handyman, his mother a school “lunch lady’—helped make those he observed and interviewed more comfortable, and it helped him understand them and their concerns. “When you are reporting on something you are mostly unfamiliar with” Gonzalez advises, “find the familiar thing.” There was a lot there with which Gonzalez was familiar. Nonetheless, he, too, was wandering. Gonzalez had been raised Catholic and had never before been inside a Pentecostal Church. “I grew up in the South Bronx in the 1960s,” Gonzalez has explained, “and there were always these little churches . . . and youd hear the tambourine, youd hear the singing, which kind of sounded familiar, but was very different from the kind of singing I heard in Mass in Catholic Church.” So Gonzalez tried to get inside one of those churches: “I went out to find a Pentecostal congregation that was willing to take me in and let me spend a lot of time with them,” he explains. Gonzalez was able to spend on average about five days a week for a year with the members of a small storefront, Hispanic, Pentecostal church in West Harlem: Among them are reformed drug dealers and womanizers, cafeteria workers who earn barely enough to pay the bills and women whose sons or husbands are in prison. What they share inside this unlikely temple on Amsterdam Avenue near 133rd Street is a faith in God, in miracles and in one another. Religion here is not some sober, introspective journey or Sunday chore, but a raucous communal celebration..."

THE OVERLOOKED Of course, the store of the world’s knowledge is less likely to be increased if you travel to a place where you'll find a lot of other reporters. Go somewhere that has been overlooked. The pope is well covered. Famous evangelists, who get to meet with presidents, are well covered. But there isn’t a lot of journalism about storefront churches in Harlem. The poor and their cultures are often overlooked: that is another reason why so many of the examples in this chapter are of reporting on the sort of locales that might have interested Charles Darwin. Injustices should not be overlooked. Examples of reporting on injustices also dominate this chapter. The ravages of war are usually well covered—except, sometimes, when the ravaging has been done by the journalists’ own country. In August 1946, a year after the end of a war in which Japan's military had sometimes been particularly brutal, the sufferings the Japanese people had experienced were certainly overlooked in the United States. And because of that the horrific consequences of the new kind of weapon the United States had used against Japan, helping to end that

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war, were underreported. That changed after John Hersey traveled to Hiroshima and published his detailed, understated yet devastating account of the experiences of six individuals after an atomic bomb was dropped on their city. Here he details the experience of another of those individuals when the bomb “flashed”: As Mrs. Nakamura stood watching her neighbor, everything flashed whiter than any white she had ever seen. She did not notice what happened to the man next door; the reflex of a mother set her in motion toward her children. She had taken a single step (the house was 1,360 yards, or three quarters of a mile, from the

center of the explosion) when something picked her up and she seemed to fly into the next room over the raised sleeping platform, pursued by parts of her house. Timbers fell around her as she landed, and a shower of tiles pummeled her; everything became dark, for she was buried. The debris did not cover her deeply. She rose up and freed herself. She heard a child cry, “Mother, help me!,” and saw her youngest—Myeko, the five-year-old—buried up to her breast and unable to move. As Mrs. Nakamura started frantically to claw her way toward the baby, she could see or hear nothing of her other children.*

Overlooked stories do not, of course, always involve victims of impoverishment, injustice or war. Tom Wolfe earned a Ph.D. in American studies before embarking on a career as a journalist, then as a novelist. He has an eye for the significance of social and cultural phenomenon that others are ignoring or dismissing; he has an eye for behaviors and attitudes at the raggedy front edges of American society and culture. That came in particularly handy in the 1960s. The world was changing then not so much because of anything happening in city halls and statehouses, but because of what was happening where teenagers hung out. For the next half-century a significant percentage of humankind would wear some version of what was being worn at those hangouts, listen to some version of the music being played on stereos at those hangouts and begin to view the world in some ways as those teenagers were beginning to view the world. Wolfe was among the first mainstream journalists to realize that there were compelling and important stories in this brightly colored youth culture: teenaged surfers in Southern California, long-haired, LSD-swallowing dropouts in Northern California. He was no radical, no hippie. Wolfe lived and worked in New York. But he went to California. He mastered the jargon of the surfers and the metaphysics of the “acid heads.” Wolfe himself—with the manner of a Southern gentleman, the outfit of a Miami hustler and the sophistication of an Upper East Sider—did not exactly hang out, but he spent days, weeks or months at the hangouts. In so doing, Wolfe grabbed, for a time, something of an exclusive on a large swath of contemporary history. In the middle of the 1960s, for example, Tom Wolfe implanted himself in a chaotic Skid Row, San Francisco, garage, known as “the Warehouse”—a space that, although buzzing with colorful young people, lacked, as Wolfe was quick to point out, toilet facilities. Wolfe observed and interviewed its denizens: the novelistturned-LSD-guru Ken Kesey and his gang of “Merry Pranksters.’ He examined their extensive multimedia archives. The Pranksters had recently completed a journey of their own: across the United States in a psychedelic school bus, probably the original psychedelic school bus:

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... glowing orange, green, magenta, lavender, chlorine blue, every fluorescent pastel imaginable in thousands of designs, both large and small, like a cross between Fernand Léger and Dr. Strange, roaring together and vibrating off each other as if somebody had given Hieronymus Bosch fifty buckets of Day-Glo paint and a 1939 International Harvester school bus and told him to go to it.!®

Wolfe has contradicted himself on the question of whether, in the name of “immersion journalism,” he took one additional trip: whether he himself ingested the drug in question.'® But he unambiguously saw a lot, heard a lot and was there a lot. The result was the book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, an early and revealing tale of hippie culture at its most philosophical, portentous and, at the time, underreported.

THE ART OF GOING Dickens and Power were looking for those left behind or trampled as the world went about its business. Wolfe was interested in what America’s kids were up to because he thought that might illuminate where America, and the world, were heading. Henry Morton Stanley had a noble, ifnot precisely journalistic, purpose, too, in searching for David Livingstone in Africa: coming to the aid of a man seen as a great Christian and a great explorer. However, if one of Stanley’s former assistants is to be believed, he also admitted to seeking “a story and a sensation” and “both fame and money”—not the most selfless of motives, though, if truth be told, one to which many of the journalists discussed in this chapter might also own up. Stanley had, too, a powerful yearning for adventure—also common in these intrepid journalists. And he needed to be on the move: “It is only by railway celerity that I can live,’ he had once explained.'” Such an addiction—today the intoxicant would be airplane celerity (speed)—is also prevalent in journalists with an inclination to travel far, the journalists celebrated here. How did Stanley get himself in a position to help Livingstone; to get his story, sensation, fame and money; to satisfy his yearning for adventure and celerity; to experience great hardship and great success? In his telling, he had been assigned to find Livingstone in Africa by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the editor and publisher of what was then one of the world’s most adventurous and widely read newspapers, the New York Herald. But Stanley’s biographer, Tim Jeal, argues convincingly that Stanley had hatched the plan on his own first and then encouraged Bennett, upon whom he depended for funding and future assignments, to think the idea of finding Livingstone had been his. Having an editor send you off on your wanderings—as Stanley, in the end at least, had—has major advantages, beginning with funding: it usually means you will get your expenses covered, and it generally means you will get paid for your labor. In addition, an assignment increases the chances that what you produce will eventually find an audience. James Baldwin had, as Stanley apparently had, come up with the idea for his reporting trip to the American South on his own. But, before he set off, he wanted an assignment from a magazine. Harpers eventually came through."®

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John Hersey received the assignment to go to Hiroshima from William Shawn, then managing editor of the New Yorker. And Hersey also had gotten another gift from Shawn: the idea (or, in Hersey’s telling, help in coming up with the idea).” Hersey was heading to Asia anyway with other assignments: various reports on the aftermath of World War II. Shawn suggested that he should also go to Japan to

examine the impact of the atomic bombs the United States had dropped there. Shawn’s assignment worked out, of course, quite well for all concerned. When the New Yorker received Hersey’s three-part report on Hiroshima, the editors decided it was sufficiently revelatory and important to do something they had never before done: devote an entire issue of the magazine to just one story. They published all three parts of Hersey’s report together. Hiroshima then became a book—widely read by generations of American high school students, not widely enough read by generations of American journalism students. Not everyone, of course, is in a position to secure an assignment to report on

another part of their country, let alone another country. It helps if you have—as Stanley apparently had—a grand idea. But Henry Morton Stanley also had one great advantage in convincing Bennett to send him into Africa in search of David Livingstone: he had already done, successfully, some reporting for Bennett's Herald. That really helps. When he received the Hiroshima assignment, John Hersey was already among the country’s most successful journalists, and, as an added bonus, a novel he had written about World War II had just won the Pulitzer Prize. Getting such a choice assignment, even from a publication as respected as the New Yorker, was, consequently, not that difficult for Hersey. James Baldwin was not as well known as Hersey when he journeyed down South, but he had produced high-level journalism. It took some effort for him to get the Harper's assignment, but he succeeded.” Others, without a track record, will usually have more difficulty. But how do you begin to develop a track record? Is it worth it, when trying to get started, to go without an assignment? David Bornstein is an example of someone who did. He had recently obtained a master’s degree in journalism from NYU, but he wasn't disposed to spend decades covering stories that didn't seem all that “meaningful” to use his word, in order to have the opportunity to maybe someday cover a story that, again in his words, added “a fresh, needed perspective to the world” Bornstein had no family to support at the time; he had some freedom and some courage. So he decided to see if he could forgo the intermediate steps. He found an important and underreported story: a bank in Bangladesh was making tiny loans to impoverished women to help them with very small businesses— making ice cream sticks, for example, or repairing radios. It was, at the time, a new approach to reducing poverty. And, although these women seemed to have few resources, these “microloans” were being repaid. The approach was working. Bornstein thought this would be a perfect article for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, but he didn't have sufficient clips (examples of other articles he had written) to persuade the editors of the Atlantic. So Bornstein saved $6,000 to pay

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for travel and translators, did his homework and set out on his own for Bangladesh— without an assignment. He was there from January to May 1992, talking to bank officials and reporting on the village women who received the loans. When he returned, Bornstein wrote an article and sent it the Atlantic. Several weeks later he received a form rejection letter. He resubmitted the article with a cover letter saying why he thought the editors should reconsider. They did—a very unusual occurrence. It took an additional research trip to Bangladesh, a half-dozen rewrites and lots of waiting, but in December 1995 the Seas Bornstein thought should print his article did: One afternoon in 1976 Muhammad Yunus was taking a walk in a village a mile from Chittagong University, where he was the head of the Department of Economics, when he encountered a woman weaving bamboo stools. . . . She earned two cents a day. When Yunus asked why her profit was so low, she explained that the only person who would lend her money to buy bamboo was the trader who bought her final product—and the price he set barely covered her costs.”!

“Yunuss instinct was to dig into his pocket,’ Bornstein writes. Instead this economics professor arranged to give this impoverished woman a tiny loan. The fact that the Atlantic was going to publish the piece helped Bornstein sell a book on the subject of the bank Muhammad Yunus had founded: The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank. (After he got the book contract, Bornstein returned to Bangladesh for 5 months of additional reporting.) Yunus would win the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006. Bornstein was well on his way to a career as perhaps the top journalist reporting not so much on social ills but on what he terms “the other half of the story”: promising responses to social ills. “Solutions journalism,’ Bornstein calls it. In some sense David Bornstein is the exception that proves a rule. Most journalists with ideas they think will be great for one news organization or another fail to persuade that news organization. Space is usually too tight, and the number of aspiring journalists too large. Priority usually goes to experienced journalists— journalists who, preferably, have produced for that news organization before and have proven adept at satisfying its needs. Assignments usually are not given to those without experience. Stories produced without assignments usually are not published. There aren't many success stories like Bornstein’s, but there are some. And what if Bornstein had had a more typical experience and had not succeeded in selling his article to the Atlantic or another top magazine? Given how far he had traveled and how much he had seen, such a piece of reporting even in a small publication—or, today, published somewhere on the Web—would still have made for an impressive credential. And the experience still would have taught him a great deal about the world and about reporting. Perhaps you can fit a reporting trip into your life. Perhaps you can save up some money. (Poorer areas do have the virtue of offering inexpensive places to stay and eat.) Perhaps you can handle the likelihood that you won't succeed in saving the world or achieving renown. If so, picking up and going—even without an assignment, even if only for your own Web site—might be something to consider.

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WHERE

TO START

If you can’t afford the plane ticket or can't currently bestow upon a story Bornstein months, Gonzalez’ year or LeBlanc’s decade, a newly minted journalist might commence wandering just by taking some new routes to and from work or school—on foot as often as possible. See what you can see: Who lives there? What condition are their houses in? What's being built? What lies vacant? Chat with people (even if you’re not naturally gregarious). Be curious. Be alert. What's going well? What’s going poorly? Where are people finding work? What are they doing for fun? How about the young—or the very old? Otherness, fortunately, is not in short supply. Poverty and injustice, unfortunately, are not either. Plenty of individuals with recent experience of the trials and terrors of war can be found, nowadays, in American neighborhoods. And cultural phenomena ofa sort that might interest a Tom Wolfe might be discernable on such nearby but unfamiliar streets, too. Turning such observations and conversations into a story will require a lot more reporting and research, of course. Gonzalez’ story included quotes not only from the pastor and members of the congregation but from a professor and a theologian. Tom Wolfe knew enough and learned enough to view the hippies in the context of America’s history of recurring religious awakenings. But observations and conversations in unfamiliar places are often a good place to start.

VIRTUAL TRAVEL This chapter has been very much on the side of what we normally mean by travel: walking or riding something to somewhere—somewhere else. But there are, it must be acknowledged, other ways of getting around and seeing unfamiliar things. If something appears in a newspaper, magazine or book or on television or the Web, it hasn't been entirely overlooked: somebody has written about it or aimed a camera at it. But there are still underreported gems to be found there. That is one reason reading, as discussed in Chapter 2, is so important—reading widely. In fact, the unprecedented breadth and density of information currently being posted to the Web increases the likelihood that precious story ideas might be buried on some URL somewhere. The fact that the Web can be so easily accessed and searched also helps. So, yes, read, watch, surf—peruse! Look for hints, glimmerings, clues, oddities— small items that might lead to larger stories. Let your fingers, your eyes, do some of the wandering. Stay alert to all that. But the lesson here is that at some point you will want, as Adrian Nicole LeBlanc wanted, as Tom Wolfe wanted, to take

your physical self—complete with eyes, ears, nose and all the traditional social sensibilities—to wherever that story is to be found. And, eventually, you will want to spend a lot of time there.

CHAPTER

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Recognizing: Deeper Truths

Too often reporters—in their obsession with the unusual—neglect more familiar but no less profound and revealing moments of our lives. This chapter attempts to direct journalists’ attention to such moments. As examples of the emotional and philosophical insights to be gained through-such reporting it uses the work of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Lillian Ross, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin, Dorothy Thompson, Jonathan Torgovnik and Sallie Tisdale, along

with a team of documentary filmmakers and a young Hmong American woman who told her own story on public radio.

‘hese chapters have been using examples from Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s book Random Family, but do descriptions like this really qualify as journalism? For Jessica, love was the most interesting place to go and beauty was the ticket. She gravitated toward the enterprising boys, the boys with money, who were mostly the ones dealing drugs—purposeful boys who pushed out of the bodega’s smudged doors as if they were stepping into a party instead of onto a littered sidewalk along a potholed street. Jessica sashayed onto the pavement with a similar readiness whenever she descended the four flights of stairs from the apartment and emerged, expectant and smiling from the paint-chipped vestibule.'

The 16-year-old girl described in this paragraph from the opening pages of LeBlanc’s book is not famous. She is not involved in politics, film, sports or war. She didn’t win the lottery or gain a spot on some reality television show. Although Jessica, who lives in New York’s South Bronx, would eventually plead guilty to “participating in a narcotics conspiracy,’ she is neither a big-time criminal nor the victim of a big-time crime.’ By most traditional standards of journalism, Jessica— LeBlanc does not provide her last name—is not news. Still, it would be wrong to call Jessica unexceptional. She is, as are we all, ordinarily extraordinary. She walks her own particular set of sidewalks. She has her own way of emerging onto those sidewalks, her own mix of sassiness and timidity, 61

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her own particular set of hurdles and aspirations. We may or may not find some aspects of Jessica’s experiences familiar: she lives, for example, with brothers and sisters who have a few different fathers. We may or may not be able to relate to her emotions as she attempts to deal with those experiences. But if you look closely enough at Jessica, as at any of us, there is plenty to see, plenty to ponder, plenty to feel. As it has most often been practiced, however, journalism has not been inclined to look. Jessica and most of the rest of us have not soared or sunk sufficiently to be dubbed “newsworthy” and, therefore, to catch a reporter's eye. Most of the examples used in the first three chapters of the book are examples of approaching stories—many of them about injustice—from nontraditional directions. This chapter proposes unleashing journalism on nontraditional subjects— such as Jessica's life.

If traditional journalism does not often concern itself with individuals like Jessica, it certainly has little interest in the private thoughts or emotions of such people. Indeed, it has little interest in the private thoughts and emotions of anyone who is not a celebrity, a murderer or someone caught up in a tragedy or scandal. And sometimes reporters fail to note emotion even when it is right in front of their eyes. Lincoln Steffens’ own confession, quoted in Chapter 1, is an example of just how blind reporters, stuck in their routines, can be. Recall that when, during a difficult time on Wall Street, a leading financier begins “weeping,” Steffens, then apprenticing in just-the-facts journalism, writes up the statistics and leaves out the “tears.” Emotions—including Jessica's specialty, falling in love—are generally not a subject to which journalists devote much attention. Attitudes, too, are rarely considered to be news: how often does a journalism Web site indulge in a verb like “sashayed”? And how often will journalists help us understand how individuals think about their lives—where they turn for meaning? Individuals’ thoughts, loves, attitudes and attempts to find meaning are usually pretty interesting, however. The lives, in other words, even of individuals who are not famous are usually pretty interesting. Readers eagerly turn the pages of Random Family to learn about Jessica, her friends and her nontraditional family. Moreover, lives and how they are understood inevitably impart lessons. By making us intimate with Jessica’s crowd—their relationships, their emotions, their concerns, their occasional victories and more frequent defeats—LeBlanc helps us envision and feel not just what it is like to live in a particularly poor and troubled part of the United States but, when LeBlanc is at her best, what it is like to live. That

is indeed a legitimate accomplishment for journalism—in many ways more important, I would argue, than the predictable what-famous-person-has-done-what, what-politician-has-said-what, what-crime-has-been-committed-where stories with which journalism is more often occupied. LeBlanc’s book shares many attributes with novels: its development of character, its intimacy, its ability to approach some of the deepest human issues. But her book, of course, is nonfiction—as all journalism must be. Indeed, not only does it traffic in truths but, arguably, in deeper truths—psychological, sociological, homan—than most of what passes for traditional journalism. A distinguished

panel organized by New York University placed LeBlanc’s 2003 book, Random

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Family, second on its list of the “Top Journalism in the United States in the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century’—behind only coverage in the New York Times of September 11. We need, of course, accounts of great tragedies like September 11. We need to know what politicians and criminals are up to. And keeping tabs on the famous is not only diverting; it, too, occasionally provides models of how to, or how not to, live. This chapter is not arguing that such standard subjects for journalism be ignored or replaced. This chapter is arguing that coverage of politics, crime and celebrity doings should more often be supplemented: with stories that bring out the drama and profundity of our struggles with love, our searches for meaning and our efforts to decide what to do with our lives. This chapter is arguing for the pursuit of deeper truths.

LIFE Lillian Ross, a long-time New Yorker magazine writer, wondered what it must be like for teenagers from the country to visit the big city on a high school trip.

Lillian Ross.

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A few Sundays ago, in the late, still afternoon, a bright-yellow school bus, bearing the white-on-blue license plate of the State of Indiana and with the words “Bean Blossom Twp Monroe County” painted in black letters under the windows on each side, emerged into New York City from the Holland Tunnel. Inside the bus were eighteen members of the senior class of the Bean Blossom Township High School, who were coming to the city for their first visit.*

This is the lead—the beginning of the long first paragraph—of Ross’ 1960 article on the students’ trip. Nothing happens to them that would fit traditional definitions of newsworthiness: they are ordinary rural American high school seniors on a fairly typical, not particularly well-thought-out, school trip. These young people will not be the beneficiaries of any great good fortune. They will not be the victims of any tragedy beyond clouds obscuring the view from the Empire State Building. What does happen, as Ross with her unembellished style helps us realize, is that New York City in profound ways disturbs or fails to disturb the views of life held by these small-town young people. (The potential for disturbance was probably greater then, before Starbucks, Sex in the City, MTV and TMZ had infiltrated towns big and small.) News, as traditionally defined, focuses heavily on the exceptional—that which does not normally happen. And it is true that there is a terrible power in the unexpected—in moments when dictators fall or innocents die.” It is true, too, that most of the expected moments in most of our lives—“Hey, I’m drinking some green tea now —arent going to make for compelling journalism (or tweets or Facebook posts). But there is power, too, in what this chapter is labeling the “ordinarily extraordinary”: consequential but commonplace occurrences in the lives of individuals, such as a first visit to the city by young people from the country or a 16-year-old in a difficult neighborhood using her looks to find love. These situations have resonance: the number of people who have experienced and puzzled over them at one time or another amplifies their significance. They have within them the power of life. Film, television, music and literature have long been more alert to such everyday profundities than journalism. Might this help explain why so many— particularly so many of the young—have been turning away from journalism? Shouldn't we try to find ways of allowing questions about how life might best be lived into our stories? Those Bean Blossom Township High School seniors, whether they want to or not, end up struggling with the issue of where it might be best to live. One of the first salvos is fired shortly after they arrive by a student named Larry Williams: “Man, you can keep this New York, said Larry. “This place is too hustly, with everybody pushin’ and no privacy.” Three of the young women conclude on the first day, in Ross’ paraphrase, that “people in New York” are “all for themselves.” Their classmate Mike Richardson is similarly unimpressed: “The whole idea of it is just to see it and get it over with; Mike said.” However, when it turns out they have some money left over, the students end up voting to visit Niagara Falls and stay in New York City an extra day:

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‘Tm glad,” Becky;Kiser said, with a large friendly smile, to Dennis Smith. Several of her classmates overheard her and regarded her with a uniformly deadpan look. “T like it here,’ she went on. “Id like to live here. There’s so much to see. There’s so much to do.” Her classmates continued to study her impassively until Dennis took their eyes away from her by saying, “You get a feel’ here of goin’ wherever you want to. Seems the city never closes. I'd like to live here, I believe. People from everyplace are here.”

Many of the students, however, remain unconvinced: ... [hate it” Connie Williams said, with passion. “Oh, man, you're just not lookin ahead,’ Mike Richardson said to Dennis. “You got a romantic notion. You're not realistic about it.”

“This place couldn't hold me,’ Larry Williams said. “I like the privacy of the farm.”

These teenagers are not philosophers. They may sound unsophisticated compared to Internet-raised teenagers today. But the concerns they are expressing, as their debate continues, are important sociologically and politically: because cities, of late, have mostly been winning such debates. And the concerns of these students raise questions that continue to perplex: for no philosopher has as yet settled the debate between the vibrancy of the city and the quiet seclusion of the country. We don't know where Larry, Mike, Becky, Dennis and Connie ended up spending their lives. We do know that our positions in debates like this can lead to moments when our lives turn. Kao Choua Vue had once arrived, as most of us have, at such a crossroad. “I chose a different path,” Vue reported in a public radio piece in 2009, “.. . because of one moment in middle school” Vue chose to go to college. In families where there is no tradition of this, where young women in particular are deemed to have other responsibilities, this can indeed be a fraught and momentous decision. Kao Choua Vue is Hmong. Her parents fled Laos in 1983. She is the sixth of eight children. When Vue was 5, she began cooking rice and washing dishes for the family. When she was 13, her parents tried to arrange a marriage for her with a Hmong boy. Vue’s report on how she chose that different path was produced as part of a Youth Radio project for Minnesota Public Radio.® Youth Radio helps young people—particularly low-income young people or young people of color— produce their own radio reports. Often they are, like Kao Choua Vue’ story, told in the first person. Vue had turned her experience at a crossroads into journalism herself—one way, hardly the only way, to capture such moments and decisions. “My parents were farmers in Laos,’ Vue reports in her radio piece. “They never spent a day in school in their lives.” We then hear her mother’s voice, and Vue translates: “My mom says, because I am a Hmong daughter, she teaches me to be a good housewife, so I won't bring shame on the family when I am married.” Here then, from her radio piece, is the moment when Vue decided that her parents’ plan for her was insufficient: “State Senator Mee Moua came to my school

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to speak about her life story. She is the first Hmong person elected to legislative office in the United States ... Mee Moua was the first Hmong woman I knew who was educated, successful and not married—yet. She showed me that as a HmongAmerican woman, I could get a college education and be more than a housewife.” Vue interviewed Mee Moua for her story and told the state senator that her talk many years ago and her accomplishments had inspired her to go to college. “Well,” Moua responds, “ . . youre making me very emotional.” But perhaps the most emotional moment in Vue’s piece is the end, where she reports on her parents’ reaction to her education, at the University of Minnesota, and to her aspirations—Vue wants to be a filmmaker and report on Hmong culture: “They say I have made them proud to have such a daughter.” Reporters need to spend more time with life-changing moments. To find them they might follow around more children of Hmong immigrants, more Bean Blossom seniors, more 16-year-olds in the South Bronx or, for that matter, more great-grandmothers in Mississippi. Laura Lee Walker, known as LaLee, lives in a poor, cotton-growing area in the Mississippi Delta. She was not a migrant farmworker, but she was a farmworker.

LaLee was pulled out of school to pick cotton before she could learn to read. Now she heads a struggling and dispersed family that includes 38 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Many of this 62-year-old woman's offspring have had a tough time of it. Some of those grandchildren and great-grandchildren are living with her. The filmmakers Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson and Albert Maysles tell her story in the 2001 documentary, LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton. In it they capture a subtle but moving moment: the arrival of the trailer, provided by a government program, in which LaLee and her charges will live now that their house has been condemned. In a style that seems the cinematic equivalent of Lillian Ross’ writing—patient, mostly devoid of judgment—we see LaLee’s excitement and that of the children as the trailer is delivered. Then we watch as she and the children begin to inspect their new home, which is clearly not so new and not in such good shape. Dirt, disrepair, evidence of bugs and rodents—we watch excitement turn to disappointment. It is a lot to watch. “Could have been worse,’ the film catches LaLee saying, almost to herself. In the days when newspapers either still were journalism or still thought they were, such stories about people's lives—not about traditional news events—were called “features” or “soft” news. The implication was that they were somehow less serious or consequential than “hard news stories,’ which were mostly about politics, crime or war. But is there really anything “soft” or unserious about that scene of LaLee and the children watching their new home arrive? And surely the journalist covering a legislative maneuver or a shooting is demonstrating no more skill. “It is easy to write about action,” Gay Talese has asserted. “That is why writers of war novels do not have my highest regard. What is difficult is to write about ordinary life as ordinary life is lived.” When Edward R. Murrow was building a team of journalists to cover Europe in the late 1930s for CBS Radio, he tried to impress upon them a nontraditional style of reporting.

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Europe, at the time; was filled with the “hardest” of hard news stories: Germany was in the process of leading the world into its bloodiest war and in the process of organizing genocide on an unimaginable scale. Murrow and his team would certainly report on the buildup to war and Germany’s slide into Fascism and antiSemitism. But he wanted it to be covered in different way—in what Talese would call a more “difficult” way. “I think we should try and develop a style of reporting that will go beyond anything that has ever been done before; Murrow informed his bosses in New York. “Don't you think that by focusing in on people, narrowing down on how they live, we could then be saying a lot more about events than by merely reporting politics and economic news? I am interested in people—how they get by, the way they talk’ This chapter is suggesting that journalists be more interested in people: “how they get by, the way they talk,” and also what they think, care and grow emotional about, as they struggle with how to live their lives. Crimes and accidents are recorded on police blotters or mentioned on police radios. Politicians and those hired to talk for them announce their positions and initiatives. Other politicians or those who hang around them—“sources’—might whisper about strategies behind those positions or conflicts of interest behind those initiatives. But how do you find stories about ordinary individuals dealing with extraordinary moments? Where do you find life? For some of the more intense adjustment struggles and cultural conundrums journalists, particularly journalists not themselves in a position to travel, might, obviously, seek out immigrants—from another part of the world or just another part of the country. With what have they been most surprised? To what has it been most difficult to adjust? For tales of overcoming, or not always overcoming, they might seek out—at social service centers or in various neighborhoods—those who, like LaLee, shoulder particularly large burdens or who live with physical disabilities. All parents and children face moments of great emotion. It might be particularly interesting, given lingering prejudices, to seek out single parents or gay and lesbian parents, and their children—in search of such moments. Journalists interested in our working lives might interview a night watchman or -woman, an emergency room nurse or someone else with a particularly quiet or hectic occupation. They might ask them about job satisfactions and dissatisfactions. Or they might interview those same people about how they respond to what they see or—on long, quiet evenings—do not see. Journalists might talk to police or firefighters—not about the latest crime or fire, but about how people respond to their arrival and what it feels like to witness so much trouble. Journalists looking to capture the times at which life seems to turn might track down individuals recently diagnosed with a serious illness or recently cured. They might find new parents or the newly bereaved. They might search for the newly employed, the newly retired or the recently laid off. They might even interview—on the eve of graduation and, therefore, the need to move on to a new kind of life—some high school or college seniors.

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THOUGHTS People have things going on in their heads. That’s pretty well established. And our inner thoughts—that which we think or feel but don’t normally say—often provide better clues to whom we are than that which we do express. Journalism has traditionally been about what we accomplish or, more commonly, what we say. However, some of the most sensitive journalists, trying to understand whom people are, find ways to take us inside heads: Bill Bonanno felt feverish and dizzy. He sank into a chair, his mind racing with confusion and disbelief. The headlines, large letters spreading across the entire page... seemed to be screaming at him and demanding a reply, and he wanted to react quickly, to run somewhere to do something violent, hating the feeling of being helpless and trapped.’

As reported and paraphrased by the distinguished journalist Gay Talese, this was what went through Bonanno’s mind after he was shown the front pages of newspapers trumpeting the disappearance and possible death of his father, the boss of a Mafia family. “More important than what people say is what they think,’ Talese writes in an essay about his style of journalism.'® Talese captured Bill Bonanno’s thoughts at one of the most dramatic moments of his life. For another example, here’s a young man hanging out with a band of adventurous aficionados of psychedelic drugs: “... Sandy feels paranoid . . . what do they really think of him? What are they planning? What insidious prank? He can't get it out of his mind that they are building up to some prank of enormous proportions, at his expense. A Monstrous Pranks.

And here’ an astronaut, having been asked during an emergency to actually fly, not just sit in, his spacecraft: [Gordon] Cooper was having a good time. He knew everybody was in a sweat down below. But this was what he and the boys had wanted all along, wasn’t it? They had wanted to take over the whole re-entry process—become the true pilots in this damned thing, bring her in manually—and the engineers had always shuddered at the thought. Well, now they had no other choice, and he had the controls.”

Both these last two, very different heads were entered by the then-journalist Tom Wolfe, a contemporary of Talese’s. And here is Wolfe penetrating a particularly tumultuous head: reporting on the manic, out-of-control frights experienced by music producer Phil Spector (the same Phil Spector who would, many decades later, be convicted of murder). In this incursion Wolfe catches his subject, notoriously terrified of flying, as he sits on an airplane: The plane breaks in two on takeoff and everybody in the front half comes rushing toward Phil Spector in a gush of bodies in a thick orange—napalm! No, it happens aloft; there is a long rip in the side of the plane, it just rips, he can see the top ripping, folding back in sick curds, like a sick Dali egg, and Phil Spector goes sailing through the rip, dark, freezing."*

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The late novelist and part-time journalist David Foster Wallace calls this terrain—the terrain Talese and Wolfe are surveying—“intracranial.”"* It is not easy to reach, let alone explore. Inner thoughts, as Wallace explains in one of his short stories, are difficult even to try to share: You already know the difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all you can ever let anyone know. As though inside you is this enormous room full of what seems like everything in the whole universe at one time or another and yet the only parts that get out have to somehow squeeze out through one of those tiny keyholes you see under the knob in older doors. As if we are all trying to see each other through these tiny keyholes.’°

Novelists, particularly in the 20th century, have spent quite a bit of time peeking through our keyholes, trying to offer a glimpse of the “stream” of thoughts that flows through someone's “consciousness.” Here are the lustrous last lines of the most monumental of such efforts, James Joyce’s novel Ulysses: ... and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes

The woman doing the punctuation-less thinking here is Joyce’s character, Molly Bloom. Invent a character and, if you are sufficiently attuned to and insightful about human consciousness, you can invent her thoughts. But journalists can't invent. In this way, at least, the “intracranial” is even more challenging terrain for them. For reporters—now that our Stanleys appear to have run out of “dark continents’—it may be among the last, great, underexplored territories. There is, however, a shortcut into it. Journalists writing about themselves—in a memoir or a first-person essay—have relatively easy access to inner thoughts. While David Foster Wallace is reviewing a memoir by a great tennis player, Tracy Austin, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, he decides to explain one reason why he, although a very good tennis player, wasn't better. This provides Wallace with the opportunity to demonstrate his talent for honesty, discontent, theorizing and recreating thoughts: I would drive myself crazy: “but what if I double-fault here and go down a break with all these folks watching? . . . don't think about it . .. yeah but except if ’'m consciously not thinking about it then doesn't part of me have to think about it in order for me to remember what I’m not supposed to think about? . .. shut up, quit thinking about it and serve the goddamn ball . . except how can I even be talking to myself about not thinking about it unless I’m still aware of what it is I'm talking about not thinking about?” And so on. I'd get divided, paralyzed. As most ungreat athletes do.’°

Yet, it is difficult indeed for journalists to capture some of what flashes through someone elses head—someone who is not you, someone you did not

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make up. You cant, after all, walk in to observe what Wallace calls the “enormous room” of another person’s mind. Talking to those who have long dealt with the mind in question will help, but, in the end, there is only one reliable source on whatever thoughts are racing around in there: that young Mafia prince himself, or that paranoid fellow hanging with the hippies himself, or the astronaut Gordon Cooper himself, or Phil Spector, with his panic about flying, himself. And most of us aren't anxious to spill innermost thoughts to some fellow or gal with a notepad; were hesitant to let someone even get near the keyhole. That is one reason why traditional journalists haven't done a lot of intracranial reporting. (Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe may have begun as traditional journalists, but they soon set out on more adventurous paths.) That is one reason why some traditional journalists questioned whether Wolfe was to be believed in his recreations of his subject's thoughts. Indeed, one journalist celebrated in this book, John Hersey, questioned why the thoughts going through the heads of Tom Wolfe’s characters sound so much like Tom Wolfe. “What we hear throughout, ringing in every mind,” Hersey writes, “is the excited shout of

Tom Wolfe?!” Others have questioned whether Wolfe might not just have added his own rhythms to the thoughts he is paraphrasing but might be making up some of those thoughts. According to Wolfe, one of his critics even queried Phil Spector about the authenticity of Wolfe's version of his airplane nightmare. Spector's response: Wolfe got it right.'* Indeed, Wolfe's reporting, like Talese’s, has received regular endorsements from the most important of judges: the subjects whose heads he has presumed to enter. The trick to getting the thoughts of people other than yourself right is to gain their confidence through diligence, courtesy, respect, honesty and attentiveness. Talese, who devotes a notoriously long time to his reporting, always tries to follow his subjects around, to: personally accompany them whenever possible, be it on their errands, their appointments, their aimless peregrinations ... Wherever it is, I try to physically be there in my role as a curious confidant, a trustworthy fellow traveler searching into their interior, seeking to discover, to clarify and finally to describe in words (my words) what they personify and how they think.!

Physically being there with Bill Bonanno during a Mafia war, it should be noted, entailed some risks. And Talese’s commitment to spending extended periods of time with those about whom he is writing caused some controversy while he was working on a book, published in 1980, about the sexual revolution in America, Thy Neighbor's Wife. Talese spent some of that time with his clothes off. It helps, when trying to figure out how someone’s mind works, to study how that person’s body moves—how he or she travels through the world, how he or she interacts with others. Having done your homework also, as usual, helps—reading up, interviewing friends and enemies—usually before interviewing the person in question. Asking and, gently, asking again, of course, helps the most: “Tell me one more time what was going through your head as you sat on that plane”

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One large problem reporters face in reporting on other people’s thoughts is that, as Talese explains, people often cannot “articulate” what they are thinking without “much pondering and reworking.” So Talese makes sure to give those he is interviewing time for that “pondering and reworking.” He keeps returning to a subject in order to allow them multiple attempts at that articulating. You have to be an extraordinary reporter to uncover things people don't ordinarily discuss. Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, as this book will note, are remarkably inventive and stylish writers. They are also extraordinary reporters. The reward for efforts such as theirs is journalism that places our eyes a little closer to the keyholes through which we try to glimpse those mysterious presences: others.

LOVE A lot of what is going through a lot of heads has to do with love. And those are often among the most compelling of our thoughts. When touched by love, as Plato puts it, “everyone becomes a poet.” Ah, love .. . Professional poets, novelists, filmmakers and songwriters, as well as psychotherapists, earn their livings off the subject. Love, its pleasures and its torments is often what we talk about when we talk with intimate friends. ’m not saying reporters should forsake other emotions: anger, loneliness, liking, hatred, etc. But there is something special about love. Yet—except when it involves celebrities, murderers or adulterous politicians—this emotion tends to be ignored by traditional journalists. The other main character in Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family is Coco, the sometime girlfriend of Jessica’s half-brother, Cesar, by whom she had two daughters. Both the men in Coco's life—Cesar and Frankie, with whom she sometimes lives—were involved with selling drugs. It would be easy to look away from these people and their romantic triangle. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, characteristically, looks closer: Frankie said quietly, “You don't love me.”

“But there's so many different kinds of love” Coco replied. “You show me how you feel, we go playing, you treat my kids okay. I guess that’s why I love you.’

“Do you love me like the girls’ father?” he asked. “T can't. Like—I don't,” she said. She later wondered if she should have lied. She hugged him. Her love for Cesar was something altogether different; for Frankie she felt something more akin to gratitude. “That's why I love you, Coco, you so open,’ Frankie said. Coco said soberly, “That’s cuz I been through fucking hell for twenty-one years old”?

LeBlanc, deeply immersed in the lives of her characters, actually overheard this conversation—and later asked the two participants for permission to use it. You can see why. This intimate discussion takes us so close to Coco and to

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Frankie—to the center of their emotional lives—that something larger begins to come into focus behind them: human love, human love in its two most basic varieties—warm and friendly, and achingly romantic. In listening to Coco and Frankie we also can hear the strains of a very old, very sad refrain: on the reluctance of these two varieties of love to choose the same object. That is a lot to accomplish in a little more than 100 words. You would think, therefore, that journalists might take a clue from all those poets, novelists, filmmakers and songwriters and find more ways to work matters of the heart into journalism. Carl Sessions Stepp of the University of Maryland and the American Journalism Review included their failure to do so in his diagnosis of journalism’s problems—among the most interesting I’ve heard. Stepp suggested that American news organizations do not cover the two subjects in which young people have most interest. Romance was one of those two subjects. Its place in traditional journalism was generally restricted to women’s magazines—with their “ten-bestways-to-get-him-to . . ” pieces; to advice columns like “Dear Abby” and “Ann Landers”; to wedding announcements; and to the occasional psychology story. Since I first heard Professor Stepp on the subject, the New York Times has developed its excellent “Modern Love” feature—sharp little first-person essays on the varieties of emotional attachment. It is the first place to which a quite a few people I know turn in the Sunday paper. Love for parents, children, friends and pets all make appearances. But many of these essays are about the highs and lows of romantic love—gay, lesbian or straight: My boyfriend collected all sorts of beautiful things: Aalto glass, Eames chairs, exotic plants that he stole from botanical gardens. But he did not wish to add me to his permanent collection, so on the eve of my 34th birthday, he glanced around his tastefully appointed home and decided he had one clock—and one pregnant girlfriend—too many.”

Margaret Gunther, a freelance writer, is offering here a pointed new take ona very old occurrence: getting dumped, getting dumped with a goodbye gift (that clock), getting dumped, in this case, during and probably because of a pregnancy. It is the sort of occurrence, I believe, that journalists might investigate more—even at the risk of missing the occasional burglary or committee hearing. Aristotle asserts that tragedy should focus upon “an action” that is “serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude.” I suspect that anyone who has undergone something like what Gunther underwent would agree that this occurrence qualifies. The payoff in such investigations does not just come from the force and universality of the passions and hurts they reveal; the payoff can also come from what they reveal about the endless variety of ways in which two humans can stir each other. Here is Gunther's insight into the fellow whom, 2 years after her breakup, she ended up marrying and into the woman that fellow married: Leo and I had first met years earlier, when we were both working in a foreign city. He'd become acquainted with a version of me that wasn’t so desperate and vulnerable, and it was his intention to marry that person. It would take getting me out of Los Angeles to recover her, but I was ready to leave anyway.

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A psychologist looking at the world might see love tearing down and building up (or vice versa) our sense of self. A sociologist looking at the world might see love transgressing (or failing to transgress) ethnic and class boundaries. All those poets, novelists, filmmakers and songwriters might see in love human beings at their most intense, their most dramatic, most ecstatic and most out of sorts. Journalists don’t often enough learn from the perspectives of others who try to understand human life. Here’s a way they might start. Proms and singles bars, from this perspective, are probably not covered enough. Failed relationships, including divorces, are probably not covered enough. And there isn't enough analysis of basic strategies in the dating world. Here is the blogger Ezra Klein, who will have a starring role in the next chapter, introducing a selection from an academic paper: I'm not single anymore, but back when I was, I found the idea of “playing hard to get” fairly confusing. The people I knew who had the most success in the dating world seemed to be the best at conveying interest, which in turn appeared to make potential partners more willing to show interest back. And that made sense: If you assume that one of the major preferences people have is not to be rejected, then making it clear that they won't be rejected should smooth the path forward. But that was just my theory. This, however, is a peer-reviewed paper testing it. And it turns out I was semi-wrong...”

The question of what makes relationships work over the long term might also be explored more, too—through studies or by more reporting on people who have managed that. Gay marriages have been a political story, but they can also be, of course, moving romantic stories. Outbreaks of passion among the very young or the very old might want to be investigated more. We might want to learn more about developing patterns and mores in online dating and, given its potential for altering romantic patterns, about the explosion of free online pornography. Indeed, sex, too, deserves more attention from journalists—who still seem, for the most part, more prudish than our novelists; who still seem to believe they need an excuse (abuse, rape, an out-of-control celebrity) to mention the subject. Dont we have things to learn about the rituals, practices and language of lovemaking? Have these behaviors and these words been changing recently? Obviously, there are significant considerations of taste and audience here. Journalistic investigations of sexuality, no matter how tactfully the subject is approached, wont be right for every venue. But somewhere in the vast and expanding universe of journalism there ought to be room for intelligent, tasteful reports on what happens when we make love. Here’s LeBlanc, again, from Random Family, writing about Coco and Cesar—tastefully, I think: They talked and talked and then they began to kiss and kiss. They kissed in Dorcas’ mother’s lobby, in stairwells, on sidewalks, against graffitied walls and ravaged trees. They kissed with Cesar sitting on the hood of a car, bent over Cocos uplifted chin. They began to make love and Coco stayed silly and happy, not scared and sad like other girls hed been with. She was spontaneous, which was like being with a new girl every day. “It was never the same-old with Coco,” Cesar said.”

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Gay Talese is another journalist who has tackled this subject. His book, Thy Neighbor's Wife, is devoted to the subject—or at least the 1970s version. Talese even takes us inside the head of a 17-year-old who regularly masturbates to photos of one particular model: “It was not only her beauty that had attracted him,” Talese explains, “the classic lines of her body or the wholesome features of her face, but the entire aura that accompanied each picture, a feeling of her being completely free with nature and herself? And Talese, in a tour de force of reporting, also manages to track down and interview that particular—and not inordinately “free with nature’—pinup.”° Will people talk about their romantic lives to a journalist? Many wont. A few, as Talese has demonstrated, will. Ask. It helps that society has been becoming somewhat more open, individuals somewhat more willing to discuss such onceprivate matters. Talese insists on using the real name of anyone he writes about. He did not have to violate that rule when discussing that pinup or that young man enamored with her photos.

ATTITUDES Tom Wolfe has been a great investigator and ways we look at the world, ways we are in the helped us notice and understand the origins *bout-here” attitude we have come to expect

elucidator of a basic set of attitudes— world. It was Wolfe, for example, who of the “aw-shucks, nothin’-to-worryfrom those who fly our airplanes:

Anyone who travels very much on airlines in the United States soon gets to know the voice of the airline pilot . . coming over the intercom . . . with a particular drawl, a particular folksiness, a particular down-home calmness that is so exaggerated it begins to parody itself (nevertheless!—it’s reassuring) . . . the voice that tells you, as the airliner is caught in thunderheads and goes bolting up and down a thousand feet in a single gulp, to check your seat belts because “it might get a »26 little choppy:

In his book on the astronauts, The Right Stuff, Wolfe traces this confidentcountry-boy posture, which he also locates in the early astronauts, to one U.S. military test pilot from West Virginia: Chuck Yeager. Yeager had an attitude of great distinctiveness and charm. When he became in 1947 the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, here's how (with Wolfe’s interpretation of his manner in italics)

Yeager informed the flight engineer on the ground that he had broken Mach 1: “Say, Ridley ... make another note, will ya?” (ifyou ain't too bored yet) “.. . there’s somethin wrong with this ol’ machometer . . ? (faint chuckle) “ . . it’s gone kinda

screwy on me..

2”

Some people, like Yeager, have strong and easy to capture attitudes. Drunks, in particular, shine in this area. This news vignette was authored by no less a writer than Mark Twain—in his days working as a journalist: As a general thing, when we visit the City Prison late at night, we find one or two drunken vagabonds raving and cursing in the cells, and sending out a pestilent

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odor of bad whiskey with every execration. Last night the case was different. Mrs. Ann Holland was there, very drunk, and very musical; her gin was passing off in steaming gas, to the tune of “I’ll hang my harp on a willow tree? and she appeared to be enjoying it considerably. The effect was very cheerful in a place so accustomed to powerful swearing and mute wretchedness. Mrs. Holland’s music was touchingly plaintive and beautiful, too; but then it smelled bad.”8

Twain, though generally sober, had, of course, a pretty powerful attitude of his own: light-hearted, sardonic, cynical. It’s what we call style in writing. (See Chapter 6.) Jessica, in LeBlanc’s Random Family, who “sashayed” onto the sidewalk as if “stepping into a party,’ is also well endowed with attitude. But attitude can be more subtle, more nuanced. That’s tougher to report on. Journalists, after all, have a reputation for, as the novelist and nontraditional journalist Norman Mailer once put it, “munching nuances like peanuts.” We ought to do better—on nuances in generally and on attitudes in particular. For a big chunk of our personalities and of our philosophies manifest themselves in our attitudes—powerful or subtle. “It is part of the business of the writer—as I see it—to examine attitudes,” James Baldwin writes, “to go beneath the surface, to tap the source.” Here is Baldwin—on his visit to the American South early in the Civil Rights movement— picking up, wordlessly, subtly, a particularly profound and particularly poignant attitude: It was an old black man in Atlanta who looked into my eyes and directed me into my first segregated bus. I have spent a long time thinking about that man. I never saw him again. I cannot describe the look which passed between us, as I asked

him for directions, but it made me think, at once, of Shakespeare's “the oldest have borne most.” It made me think of the blues: Now, when a woman gets the blues, Lord, she hangs her head and cries. But when a man gets the blues, Lord, he grabs a train and rides. It was borne in on me, suddenly, just why these men had so often been grabbing freight trains as the evening sun went down. And it was, perhaps, because I was getting on a segregated bus, and wondering how Negroes had borne this and other indignities for so long, that this man so struck me. He seemed to know what I was feeling. His eyes seemed to say that what I was feeling he had been feeling, at much higher pressure, all his life.*°

These days we have a science of attitudes—or, more precisely, moods. We have, consequently, clinical terms for them: depression, mania. But that does not lessen the journalist’s responsibility for communicating them—preferably without too much psychological jargon. In his 1965 book, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote— a novelist taking a very successful turn as a journalist—is describing a woman who would become the victim of a murder: Following the birth of her son, the mood of misery that descended never altogether lifted; it lingered like a cloud that might rain or might not. She knew “good days,” and occasionally they accumulated into weeks, months, but even on the best of the good days, those days when she was otherwise her “old self,” the affectionate and charming Bonnie her friends cherished, she could not summon the social vitality her husband’s pyramiding activities required.”

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And here, on the same subject, is David Foster Wallace—wearing his journalist's hat but with the advantage of the first person again, honest and unhappy again: The word's overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and ’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture—a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death.”

Moods can indeed be serious—deadly serious: Wallace killed himself in 2008, after a long wrestling match with depression. Such deep and often dark attitudes remain an underexplored but terribly important subject for journalists. Perhaps the most elusive of attitudes—to switch to a subject of less seriousness— is the attitude of not having an attitude. In a piece of reportage on tennis, with which he is much taken and at which he was once quite skilled, David Foster Wallace has a go at it. His subject here is a mediocre player on the tennis tour—a player of whom Wallace is fond: It turns out that what Michael Joyce says rarely has any kind of spin or slant on it; he mostly just reports what he sees, rather like a camera. You couldn't even call him sincere, because it’s not like it seems ever to occur to him to try to be sincere

or nonsincere.*»

That is quite subtle, quite nuanced. Journalists looking to experiment with reporting on attitude might start with some of the more basic varieties—exuberance, for example, cool, timidity—and try to describe their manifestation in one person or another. Here’s an example of such a description. It is from an account of a bullfight written for the Toronto Star

David Foster Wallace.

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in 1923 by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway has the advantage here of reporting on an attitude of his own—the excitement of anticipation. Once again he is writing mostly in the second person: It was very exciting, sitting out in front of a café your first day in Spain with a ticket in your pocket that meant that rain or shine you were going to see a bullfight in an hour and half. In fact, it was so exciting that we started out for the bullring on the outskirts of the city in about half an hour.*4

MEANING According to my guru on these matters, Carl Sessions Stepp, the second subject important to young people but slighted by American news organizations is “the spiritual.” When queried on the word “spiritual,” Stepp explained that he defined it broadly to cover discussions of the purpose of life. Let’s define it so broadly that it might best be replaced by another word—one that encompasses all our various attempts to divine what's important in life: meaning. The case can be made that we all are trying to cobble together enough of a philosophy to help us make our way through our careers, relationships, responsibilities as citizens and the various moral conundrums that gather around them. We may not be aware of it, but we are looking for meaning. Some meanings are large, all encompassing. And sometimes the conflict between possible meanings is particularly stark. The American journalist Dorothy Thompson visited Germany for what was then called Harper’s Monthly Magazine in 1934—after the Nazi takeover. She drove past a camp for thousands of “Hitler youth” in a town called Murnau: An enormous banner[,] stretched across the hillside[,] dominated the camp...

. It

was white, and there was a swastika painted on it, and beside that only seven words, seven immense black words: WE WERE BORN TO DIE FOR GERMANY!

There's lots of time to think when one drives a car. From Murnau to Munich thoughts kept racing through my head. “Little child, why were you born?” My father who was a minister would have said, “To serve God and your fellow men”

My teachers would have said, “To become the most you can. To develop the best that is in you.” Times change.”

The meanings we find in life, whether or not they presume to say for what we were born, can be of significant use with more earthly considerations. Here's one example of a question that hinges on meaning: What should take priority: romance, work or family? That young Hmong woman, Kao Choua Vue, has decided, as she explains in her radio piece, that a meaningful life for herself would include more than mothering a family: it would include a career. Her piece is essentially about the difference between her view of what is important and that of her parents. It is about meaning. Another example of a question about meaning is What provides job satisfaction? Lillian Ross reports that the president of the Bean Blossom Township High

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School senior class, Jay Bowman, is planning on a civil service job “because a job with the government is a steady job.” That, too, does not seem to be enough— many decades later—for Kao Choua Vue: she wants a career that is more creative and allows her to honor her people's culture. Kao Choua Vue was writing about herself. Getting answers to such questions out of others, as has been noted elsewhere in this chapter, can be more difficult.

Many of us keep our philosophies as private as our romantic lives. But it is not always necessary to ask questions about philosophies to get at philosophies. Lillian Ross understands that. How important is making money? That Indiana senior-class president, Jay Bowman, was born in a house without indoor plumbing and worked throughout high school: “I scrubbed floors, put up hay, carried groceries,’ Ross quotes him as explaining, “and this last winter I worked Saturdays and Sundays in a country store on the state highway.’ Through those jobs Bowman saved up enough money so that he—unlike almost all the rest of his classmates—could go to college. “The thing of it is I feel proud of myself? Bowman admits. “Not to be braggin’ or anything.” He might be uncomfortable saying it. It might sound even more like “braggin” or like a kind of selfishness, but this young man finds meaning—as most of us do—in accomplishment, in overcoming odds and, yes, in having earned money. Ross doesn't tell us that, but she makes it possible for us to see that.

What challenges should we accept? Bowman's sense of what is important also reveals itself, as it does with most of us, in smaller decisions. When the Bean Blossom students arrive at the Statue of Liberty, Bowman makes sure he is among those who climb the steps up to the top of the torch. “It took me twenty minutes, and it was worthwhile,” he concludes, according to Ross’ account. “The thing of it was I had to do it.’ Ross is helping us see that what is “worthwhile’—what has meaning—for this small-town class president is doing that which is difficult: that which he believes he has to do. When might we allow ourselves pleasure? Ross also acquaints us with a different, though related, view of meaning. It surfaces when the Bean Blossom senior class votes to go to Coney Island on the first night of their trip to New York, not the last as originally planned. It surfaces among the three students who choose to stay behind. “They explained,’ Ross tells us, “that they firmly believed the class should ‘have fun’ on its last night in the city and not before” The culturally alert might fit the meanings subscribed to by these rural high school seniors in America in 1960 into some classic categories. The young women

who insist on postponing the pleasure of a trip to an amusement park retain some Puritanism—perhaps more than that retained by many of their counterparts in New York then or in Indiana today. Certainly Jay Bowman has imbibed a healthy dose of the Protestant work ethic. Ross, however, uses neither of these terms. She forces no conclusions upon us.

Thats not her and vignettes, ings that wash to do and not

style. Nonetheless, through her reporting and her choice of quotes Ross does enable us to sense some of the philosophical understandthrough these young people and help determine what they choose do, think and not think. The argument here is that if journalism is

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to help us understand people, it has to help us understand what means something or, upon occasion, everything to people. This can be done through explicit cultural analyses or, as Ross does, more subtly. It can even be done nastily. Few have dissected people's attempts to figure out their lives with as little sympathy, with as little empathy—in a way as counter to what is otherwise the spirit of this book—as the novelist, memoirist and journalist Joan Didion. Few, also, have discussed people's attempts to find meaning with as much insight. How should we live our lives? In a report on a murder trial, Didion included this analysis of why people moved to the San Bernardino Valley in Southern California in the 1960s: The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past. Here is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant, where the divorce rate is double the national average and where one person in every thirty-eight lives in a trailer. Here is the last stop for all those who come from somewhere else, for all those who drifted away from the cold and the past and the old ways. Here is where they are trying to find a new life style, trying to find it in the only places they know to look: the movies and the newspapers.*°

Didion, like many of us, can be cynical. Given such cynicism and given the nature of our time (and some other times), many discussions of meaning are

negative: they acknowledge an absence of meaning, a rejection of most answers to the question why we were born, a growing “spiritual” void. That, too, is news in the 21st century (as it was in the 20th). That, too, is an important and neglected subject for journalism. Do our lives have significance? The accomplished early-20th-century Chicago journalist (and playwright and screenwriter) Ben Hecht took on the question of our significance—or lack of same—when speculating about the thoughts, on a rainy day, of an unnamed Chicago financier he is interviewing: The great financier is aware of something. Of what? He shakes his head, as if to question himself. Of nothing he can tell. Of the fact that a great financier is an atom like other atoms dancing in a chaos of atoms. Of the fact that each of the umbrellas crawling past under his window is as important as himself.

How do we live without a higher purpose? Is this not a subject upon which an ambitious journalist might add, to borrow the wording David Bornstein employed in a different context, “a fresh, needed perspective to the world”?

MORALITY Few, however, are so cynical or so comfortable with meaninglessness—with lack of significance, with lack of purpose, with nihilism—that they can ignore this question: What are our responsibilities toward others? Many, like Dorothy Thompson's minister father, locate answers to this question in religion. Some—nihilists and non-nihilists—do not. But surely any meanings that guide us here qualify as moral. Whatever their beliefs, or lack of beliefs, most would not consider journalism the place for stern, harsh thou shall nots. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc doesn't pause her intimate and engaging narrative for lectures on the immorality of selling heroin.

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Like Lillian Ross, she leaves the conclusions and the moral judgments to her read-

ers. Even Joan Didion forgoes explicit moral instruction, although her distaste for the people whose choices she is describing is often obvious. But moral issues are certainly raised in such work. Morality is still a proper, maybe a crucial subject for journalism. Most of us, after all, make moral judgments, small and large, all the time. And most of us would admit that it is, alas, sometimes difficult to maintain and follow a consistent morality. LeBlanc comes up with a particularly interesting example of both the itch to judge and the failure to connect. It involves Jessica’s boyfriend, Boy George, who, LeBlanc reports, expresses scorn—yes, moral scorn—for Jessica's mother because she accepted a little of his money in return for letting her daughter go out with him. His failure to connect? Boy George earned that money and oodles more by supplying people with heroin. Morality is a crucial topic but it also can be a complex topic. Many of the best journalists, LeBlanc certainly among them, find occasion to make that clear. Of all the works of journalism cited here, the moral considerations seem the most wrenching in Jonathan Torgovnik’s photos of and interviews with those women who had been raped and impregnated during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. How do we balance compassion with a desire for revenge? How is a mother to feel toward a child fathered, against her will, by someone she despises—a rapist and a murderer? The most disturbing of the responses Torgovnik collected was quoted in the discussion of honesty in Chapter 1: “T must be honest with you; I never loved this child. Whenever I remember what his father did to me, I used to feel the only revenge would be to kill his son. But I never did that.”

Here are some of the other answers those women gave Torgovnik: ¢ “T love my first daughter more because I gave birth to her as a result of love. Her father was my husband. The second girl is a result of unwanted circumstance... My love is divided, but slowly, I am beginning to appreciate that the younger daughter is innocent. Before, when she was a baby, I left her crying. When it came to feeding, I fed the older one more than the younger one, until people in the neighborhood reminded me that was not the proper thing to do. I love her only now that I am beginning to appreciate that she is my daughter too.” ¢ “I was still a virgin at the time of the genocide. I didn’t know what it felt like to be pregnant, but when I realized I was, I became depressed. I had suffered enough. But when I saw my son for the first time, I felt Ihad been given another brother. Through all that I went through, he is a gift; he’s my consolation.”*” In revealing some of the terrible moral crises that can result from genocide and rape, Torgovnik’s photos and interviews also implicitly remind his audiences of the necessity of their doing their best to prevent genocide and rape. The West was notoriously slow to act in Rwanda. Torgovnik is, in other words, not just reporting

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on morality but making, implicitly, a moral statement: that we ought to be less oblivious, less lackadaisical toward the world’s outrages. In her reporting on Darfur, Samantha Power is making a similar statement. This is a common moral theme in journalism. Indeed, it comes close to being the morality of journalism.

PAYING ATTENTION In emphasizing the importance of caring and empathy, this book has already begun a critique of the traditional journalist's professions of “objectivity.” Here I want to note that journalism has something of a morality—a system of meaning—of its own. I’m not talking about a conviction that one position or another on certain policy issues is correct, although I will be talking about that in the next chapter (where I will discuss problems with “objectivity” more fully). Instead, I’m talking here about a morality so pervasive in journalism that it is almost invisible—to journalists and their critics. It is the conviction that we might overcome our sluggishness, even overcome our cynicism, and better consider the consequences of our actions—or lack of actions. Certainly, this is a morality shared by a large number of the journalists who appear in this book, Jonathan Torgovnik and Samantha Power among them. How much thought or energy should we expend on civic life, on politics? When covering a presidential campaign for Rolling Stone, David Foster Wallace, for example, is certainly understanding of our cynicism about politics. He admits that we are usually wise to suspect that even a “candidate’s rejection of shrewd, clever marketing” might itself be a form of “shrewd, clever marketing.” And Wallace is so aware that the words we use to ascribe meaning to politics have been depleted of their meaning that before he uses one of them he feels compelled to alert us that he is using it not ironically but in “a serious and noncliché way.’ That word is “inspire.” For Wallace does want us to at least consider the possibility that that we might come upon a leader who might “inspire” us “to do certain things that deep down we think are good and want to be able to do but usually can’t get ourselves to do on our own.” He, and this is typical of journalists, doesn't want us to lose all hope of political change. Wallace also suggests, not quite so gently, that his presumably young readers, whether inspired or not, consider the possibility of voting: By all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.

Yes, journalists themselves can be hard-bitten, world-weary, deeply cynical, but they still tend to exhibit a soft spot for civic engagement of the sort Wallace is espousing. Journalists themselves often want to think they may be making the world a tiny bit better by shedding light on goings-on—often unjust goings-on. They tend to celebrate people who, as they often do, continue in the face of the inevitable frustrations to try to improve things.

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Journalists, particularly those celebrated in this book, also insist that as citizens and as human beings we pay attention; that we not, as Charles Dickens put it, “pooh, pooh,” that we not remain oblivious. Even Samuel Clemens, beneath all the humor, is calling our attention to what happens in the City Prison and what that says about the drinking and carousing that goes on outside of it. Sallie Tisdale is a particularly distinguished combatant in the struggle against obliviousness; for she is brave enough to write about something that would seem to challenge her own beliefs as a feminist. Tisdale wants to call our attention—our moral attention—to the reality of a relatively late abortion. This is from Harpers Magazine in 1987: The doctor seats himself between the woman's thighs and reaches into the dilated opening of a five-month pregnant uterus. Quickly he grabs and crushes the fetus in several places, and the room is filled with the low clatter and snap of forceps, the click of the tenaculum, and a pulling, sucking sound.

Liberal journalists, alas, are not often known for aiming their spotlights on scenes that challenge liberal orthodoxies; conservative journalists, as a rule, handle their orthodoxies no better. This is unfortunate. But journalists of all stripes do at least demand that we look: look what happens when you don't vote; look at that mother in Darfur, at migrant workers; look at life; look at love; look at depression; look at what happens during a late abortion. Indeed, if there is an overriding meaning, even a morality, in and behind journalism, it is this: an insistence that, in the playwright Arthur Miller’s wellknown phrase, “attention must be paid.” Tisdale wants, as do many others of our best journalists, to help us see more clearly the consequences of our behavior. In more traditional forms of journalism that which we are being instructed not to ignore is often wrongdoing of some sort. This chapter and this book emphasize the value of insisting that we acknowledge the struggles not only of the less fortunate and the victims of injustice but the struggles at profound moments of all sorts of people—such as the protagonist of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, such as the characters in Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family, such as us.

CHAPTER 5 pe

Pondering: Wiser Understandings

This chapter argues that interpretation—even opinion—has an important place in 21st-century journalism. This requires criticism of a reflexive balance—“he said, she said”—as an easy way out for journalists unprepared to attempt to determine whether “he” or “she” is right. It also requires. encouraging journalists to develop deeper understanding of the subjects upon which they write. Examples include Ezra Klein and Walter Lippmann, Nate Silver and Benjamin Franklin, Jane Mayer and Lincoln Steffens, Paul Berman, Rachel Carson and Thomas Paine.

e had never worked for a daily newspaper, but by the age of 25 he was regularly publishing his interpretations of national and international events— and attracting an increasingly large audience for those interpretations. This may read like the description of a precocious blogger, but the precocious young man in question, Walter Lippmann, accomplished this more than eight decades before the word blog—a contraction of Web-log—would first be used. He was writing instead for an opinion magazine—one then just getting started: the New Republic. And the international event of most concern to Lippmann and that magazine at the time, in the fall of 1914, was the outbreak of the First World War. This is Lippmann—calm, contained, forceful—from the first issue of the New Republic: Every sane person knows that it is a greater thing to build a city than to bombard it, to plough a field than to trample it, to serve mankind than to conquer it. And yet once the armies get loose, the terrific noise and shock of war make all that was valuable seem pale and dull and sentimental.

Large accomplishments in journalism at a young age, in other words, may be uncommon, but they are not new. Large accomplishments without having worked your way up through the more prosaic forms of journalism are nothing new. And of most importance for this chapter, while the Web has encouraged interpretation, journalism that incorporates interpretation, even opinionated interpretation, is in 83

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Ezra Klein.

no way an invention of the Web. Here's another way of saying all this: What Ezra Klein has accomplished, while impressive, is not new. By the age of 25, Klein was writing a column for the Washington Post and—of most interest to his many regular readers—blogging at his usual brisk pace for the Post's Web site. Here he is—not quite as poetic or profound as the young Lippmann but still calm, contained, forceful: What's remarkable about the financial crisis isn’t just how many people got it wrong, but how many people who got it wrong had an incentive to get it right.

At that young age, Klein's blog posts were helping to influence the debate on the Obama administration’s effort to provide health insurance to most uninsured Americans—probably the major political issue in the United States at the time: The basic question here is whether covering 34 million Americans is worth adding a percentage point or two more to our health-care spending for a couple of years, at which point total spending should actually fall below what it would’ve

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been if this bill had never passed. There’s a different question of whether we can stick to the cost controls in the bill. I think we can, and that if we can’t, were doomed one way or the other. But... we're getting a much more decent society for a very low price.’

Whether Klein’ s take on this subject, or others to which he has turned his attention, was persuasive is another question. We are now in the realm of interpretation and opinion—where one person's insight may be another’s blunder. Here is a different take on the financials on health-care reform as calculated at the time by Megan McArdle, blogging for the Atlantic: This gargantuan new entitlement is going to end up costing us about $200 billion a year next decade, which even in government terms is an awful lot of money. There are offsetting taxes, but they’re either trivial or likely to be unpopular?

However, even Klein’s critics, most of them, would admit to his influence. And even Klein's critics, a few of them, while unimpressed by his conclusions, might admit that he has some facility with policy analysis. His fans are less restrained: “Ezra is very, very good, and very, very young,’ writes one of those fans, Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner in Economics.4 The young Walter Lippmann did have one brush with less interpretive journalism after graduating from Harvard in 1910: a very brief stint with an amateurish Boston weekly. He was not enthused or impressed: Any attempt to find the meaning, or the tragedy, or the humor of the story is rigorously edited out as an expression of opinion which belongs only in the editorial columns. The result is that I sit all day in the office, reading newspaper clippings, and trying to restate the facts as colorlessly as possible... . The work is so mechanical that I am learning nothing.

After a few months, Lippmann escaped the drudgery of the colorless restatement of facts for a job as the assistant to Lincoln Steffens, the great muckraking journalist. Steffens, according to Lippmann biographer Ronald Steel, was trying “to prove one of his pet theories: that a bright young man could learn to be a good journalist, even if he never covered night court or wrote obituaries.” Ezra Klein, too, had something of an apprenticeship: an internship with the Washington Monthly. But Klein had been a blogger before that—covering politics out of California while still in college. And Klein was still blogging after his internship—eventually parking his blog at the American Prospect and then the Washington Post. Walter Lippmann learned from Lincoln Steffens, who did have plenty of experience in newspaper reporting. And part of what he learned, or had emphasized, was “that whatever he said had to be,’ in Ronald Steel’s paraphrase, “solidly based in facts.’ Ezra Klein learned, too, from the more “formalized way of journalism” he was introduced to at the Washington Monthly: “You made calls,’ Klein explained in the New York Times. “People answered calls. You took down what was said in a respectable account, and that began to influence my blogging. It became a lot less of an ‘Ezra affair’”®

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There is no arguing, of course, with the need for journalism of all sorts to be “solidly based in facts.” There is no arguing with the importance of making phone calls or sending out emails: to broaden understandings, gain other perspectives, improve the solidity of an account or just liven up a story with quotes. But the young Lippmann was not and the young Klein is not practicing just-the-facts journalism. Lippmann lived at a time when the colorless, mechanical transcription of facts had not quite secured its dominance of journalism. And Klein lives at a time when its dominance of journalism is easing significantly. “It’s trite to say it? Klein has written, “but the news business is biased toward, well, news.” Klein and others today—following in a distinguished and even older tradition—are demonstrating that the journalism business can be about something more than just reporting more or less the same news everybody else is reporting.

There is an economic reason why that is happening: news now regularly pours out of laptops, tablets and phones. There is, consequently, less of a business in trying to sell transcriptions of news or reports on intensively covered news."°

Yes, there’s still plenty of room for reporting—particularly investigative reporting, exclusives and the sort of off-the-beaten-path reporting this book has been encouraging. Yes, we still rely on professional journalists for accurate and thorough reports. But the argument of this book has been that journalism needs— for this economic reason and for reasons of quality—to occupy itself with more than just the last hour’s news. It needs to wonder more, to learn more, to wander more, to recognize deeper truths. And it needs—the point of this chapter—to spend more time pondering news and less merely transcribing it.

EXPLANATION Journalists, to begin with, ought to explain more. The Obama health-care bill was probably the most sweeping piece of social legislation passed in the first decade or so of the 21st century. And perhaps its most controversial element—the part of the bill that would lead to the most serious legal challenges—was something called the “individual mandate.’ And, as is often the case with things in the news, a lot of people, even a lot of people who were interested enough in the health-care debate to be following Ezra Klein’s blog, were not really sure what an individual mandate meant. One of the great advantages of publishing journalism in digital bits rather than on printed pages is that there really is very little limit to how much of that journalism you can publish. Klein usually writes a few blog posts each day. It was no big deal, therefore, to devote one of them one day to explaining what the individual mandate was. What is a big deal is to have the ability to make the complex clear: The individual mandate is a requirement that all individuals who can afford health-care insurance purchase some minimally comprehensive policy. For the purposes of the law, “individuals who can afford health-care insurance” is defined as people for whom the minimum policy will not cost more than 8 percent of

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their monthly income, and who make more than the poverty line. So if coverage would cost more than 8 percent of your monthly income, or you're making very little, you're not on the hook to buy insurance (and, because of other provisions in the law, you're getting subsidies that make insurance virtually costless anyway). Most people will never notice the mandate, as they get insurance through their employer and that’s good enough for the government. But of those who arent exempt and aren't insured, the choice will be this: purchase insurance or pay a small fine. In 2016, the first year the fine is fully in place, it will be $695 a year or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher.!!

Klein’s explanation here is a little, to use a variation on one of his favorite words, “wonky”: he doesn't spare us the numbers or amuse us with anecdotes. In fact, this may be the least entertaining piece of writing cited in this book. And this is clearly a partisan explanation: an opponent of the health-care bill might have put the emphasis on what it does, rather than what it does not, require. Nonetheless, Klein is demonstrating a lot of skill in these two paragraphs— journalistic skill. He doesn’t talk down to his readers. Bloggers and their readers, who can always weigh in with a comment or an email, have something close to the relationship printers and their readers, who could always stop by the print shop, had in Benjamin Franklin’s day. Klein is pretty alert to what his readers do and do not know. To follow his explanation here, they are required to have some understanding of what a “minimally comprehensive” health-insurance policy would be. They have to have some idea, too, of what “the poverty line” means. This explanation is meant for people who read a public-policy blog, not for everyone. Still Klein manages to leaven his outline with some folksy second-person phrasings: “youre not on the hook.” He is wise enough to focus on the two major issues: who would get hit by the “individual mandate” and how much it would cost them. His outline is patient yet concise. And, of most importance, it is clear: “Most people will never notice the mandate...” Paragraphs like these are crucial if the quality of public discourse on policy issues is to be raised. Matthew Yglesias is another successful, young (although a few years older than Klein), liberal blogger with a talent for making things clear. “T always think of myself as an explainer,’ he has said.'” That is not a bad self-image for a journalist. One of the most praised and beloved pieces of journalism in recent years concerned what may have been the second-largest news story in the United States in the first decade of the 21st century: the subprime mortgage crisis, which led to a global financial crisis. It was that one-hour radio documentary, mentioned briefly in Chapter 1, called “The Giant Pool of Money.’ Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson produced it for This American Life and National Public Radio in May 2008. It is a tour de force of explanation. Most people don't think about it, but there’s this huge pool of money out there, which is basically all the money the world is saving now. Insurance companies saving for a catastrophe, pension funds saving money for retirement, the central bank of England saving for whatever central banks save for. All the world’s savings.’

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This “pool” totals, a woman at the International Monetary Fund notes in this audio documentary, “about 70 trillion” dollars—about twice what it was in the year 2000. And Blumberg and Davidson's point is that, with global interest rates low, the “army of very nervous men and women watching over the pool of money”— “investment managers”—decided mortgages, which pay higher rates, would be a good place in which to place that money. They wanted piles of mortgages in which to invest; they wanted them so badly that, to satisfy the demand, people started giving mortgages to folks who couldn't really afford to make the payments. I'm skipping many important aspects of the story Blumberg and Davidson tell. 'm leaving out most of their engaging wordings and the voices of the collection of people—from bankers to homeowners—they interview. But the upshot, as they explain, is that when housing prices began to fall and payments came due, the whole thing collapsed: homeowners couldn't make their payments, mortgage companies went bust and the “giant pool of money’—a lot of which had been invested in those bad mortgages—got significantly less giant. A global recession started and a lot of people who weren't mortgage brokers or investment managers lost their jobs. Is there an audience for such efforts to explain a complex economic story? Apparently. “The Giant Pool of Money” was the most downloaded episode in the history of This American Life—a program whose episodes are already downloaded with unusual frequency. And “The Giant Pool of Money” was ranked number four on the list of the “Top Ten Works of Journalism in the United States in the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century.’ Explanation becomes important when the news becomes complex—and the news often becomes complex. New journalists experimenting with this view of what a journalist might be should accept the challenge of explaining some of what is currently passing through the news in their area—from local or state laws or proposed laws, to the local tax system, to welfare rules. Explanation, basic as it sounds, remains an underexplored area of journalism.

INTERPRETATION In 1869 the American essayist Richard Grant White insisted that a journalist, who “has any other purpose in life than to make money,’ should aspire to the role of “teacher and guide.” It is in this role, White states, that the journalist “deserves respect.’'* Walter Lippmann would have understood this comment. Indeed, most journalists before Lippmann’s time, before Richard Grant White’s time, would have understood this comment. Benjamin Franklin began making a name—or pseudonym—for himself in journalism at a much younger age than either Lippmann or Ezra Klein. Franklin wouldn't have confused what newspapers did with the colorless, mechanical transcription of facts because in his day there were few individuals writing for newspapers who made much of fact transcription. In fact, in Franklin’s day there were no individuals writing for newspapers who specialized in reporting—the word was not then in use.

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To write for a newspaper in the 18th century was in large part to try to teach and guide. And in Franklin’s case that not only involved, to use Lippmann’s words, an “attempt to find . . . humor”; it included the “attempt to find .. . meaning.” In 1751, writing as “Americanus,’ for example, Franklin responds to Britain’s penchant for shipping its convicts across the Atlantic, for “the IMPROVEMENT and WELL PEOPLING of the Colonies,” with some Swiftian satire: the suggestion that rattlesnakes be shipped in the opposite direction and turned loose in various parks and the “Gardens of the Prime Ministers” Franklin dismisses the potential objection that “the Rattle-Snake is a mischievous Creature” by noting that “no human Scheme” is “so perfect, but some Inconveniencies may be objected to it”: Thus Inconveniencies have been objected to that good and wise Act of Parliament, by virtue of which all the Newgates and Dungeons in Britain are emptied into the Colonies. It has been said, that these Thieves and Villains introducd among us, spoil the Morals of Youth in the Neighbourhoods that entertain them, and perpetrate many horrid Crimes: but let not private Interests obstruct publick Utility. Our Mother knows what is best for us. What is a little Housebreaking, Shoplifting, or Highway Robbing; what is a Son now and then corrupted and hangd, a Daugher debauchd and poxd, a Wife stabb'd, a Husband’s Throat cut, or a Child's Brains beat out with an Axe, compard with this “Improvement and well peopling of the Colonies!”

Teachers and guides explain, of course, but they also help their think about colonial exploitation, health-care reform or the insanity of ing cities. In 1914, for example, with a huge war breaking out in Europe, Walter Lippmann is there, again in the first issue of the New Republic, ponder all that killing:

audiences bombardthe young to help us

It is not strange that in war we spend life so easily, or that our anxiety to lower the death-rate of babies, to keep the sick alive, to help the criminal and save the feebleminded, seems to many a trifling humanitarianism. The notion that every person is sacred, that no one is a means to someone else’s end, this sentiment which is the

heart of democracy, has taken only slight hold upon the modern world.

Up to now this book has emphasized journalism that is more adventurous, more caring, more open, more penetrating than most traditional journalism. This chapter is about journalism that is more astute, journalism that offers insights. Here's Ezra Klein using an unnamed source to provide a behind-the-scenes view of important negotiations between Republicans in Congress and the Obama administration in 2011: The best advice I’ve gotten for assessing the debt-ceiling negotiations was to “watch for the day when the White House goes public.” As long as the Obama administration was refusing to attack Republicans publicly, my source said, they believed they could cut a deal. And that held true. They were quiet when the negotiations were going on. They were restrained after Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl walked out last week. Press Secretary Jay Carney simply said, “We are confident that we can continue to seek common ground and that we will achieve a balanced approach to deficit reduction.” But today they went public. The negotiations have failed.'°

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Here, however, is another accomplished blogger, Mickey Kaus of the conservative Daily Caller, on Twitter chiding Klein as gullible for his pessimism on those negotiations: “A little kabuki and young Ezra panics.’ (Yes, you have to know that kabuki is stylized theater to understand Kaus’ point in this tweet. But no, readers who don't already know that shouldn't have much difficulty, in the age of Google, finding out.) Both Klein and Kaus are attempting to let us know what is happening behind the scenes, though they spot very different things back there. That's a form of insight (at least for whoever is right). But interpretation does not, of course, always require a peek backstage. Sometimes it is just an effort to make sense of something in the news or related to the news. One day in his blog Ezra Klein, our example of choice in this section, was trying to put his finger on what economists have difficulty understanding about politics. Number four on his list of ten points of confusion, for instance, was the belief among economists that “lots of policy problems can be solved with clever policy solutions.’ Klein then points out that “Washington isn't very good at passing or implementing clever. Simple programs and rules are often better in practice, even if they’re worse in theory.” Does that offer a little insight into the conversation between economists and politicians about public policy—an important conversation? I think it does. And it is not only public policy—Klein’s main interest—that journalists might help us ponder. Food is another of Klein's obsessions. Here he is trying to help us understand why his meal in Spain at what was then “ranked as the greatest restaurant in the world” lived up to expectations: Eating at El Bulli is like eating in the year 2300. Nothing looks like it should, and very little tastes like it should. The meal’s dominant flavors—namely, the mineral tang of shellfish and abalone and the gamey flavors of wild rabbit and turtledove—are not flavors that most people particularly like. ... But it is simply the most remarkable, fun and inventive meal I’ve ever had. Across 30-some courses, I never knew what would come next, and even when it was set in front of me, often was wrong about what I was biting into. Most of the really good meals I’ve had lead to satiety, and of course, pleasure. This was among the first that paused on wonder.'® Some of the best and most ambitious interpretation, whatever the subject, is

devoted to the search for wisdom—for deeper understandings or larger, even year2300 perspectives. Of this the young Walter Lippmann—with his sinuous prose and incisive mind—was a master. This is again from his contribution to the first issue of the New Republic and again about the First World War: Men organized this superb destruction; they created this force, thought it, dreamed it, planned it. It has got beyond their control. It has got into the service of hidden forces they do not understand. Men can master it only by clarifying their own will to end it, and making a civilization so thoroughly under their control that no machine can turn traitor to it. For while it takes as much skill to make a sword as a ploughshare, it takes a critical understanding of human values to prefer the ploughshare.

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“When I first came to Washington,” Ezra Klein has said, “what I admired most was that people were just really, really smart with a tremendous amount of intellectual horsepower and the ability to look at an issue and say something fresh. Now I admire those who are wise as opposed to just smart”! The goal of interpretation in journalism—the best journalism—is to supply wisdom: to provide insight, to make sense, to look deeper or step back in order to make facts more intelligible. Which is another way of saying that interpretation is one of the ways journalists accomplish what should be OES their most sacred duties: teaching and guiding. Indeed, I will suggest here, very tentatively, a new set of standards for evaluating works of journalism, nontraditional works of journalism: the “five I’s.” Increasingly we are looking for journalism that is informed, intelligent, interesting, insightful and interpretive.

ARGUMENT Thinking about interpretation often gets traditional journalists worrying: Won't that allow political bias to sneak into stories? That would be apostasy for many of them. For they have genuflected, for the past century or so, before that Olympian standard: “objectivity.” It would be hard to accuse Ezra Klein of “objectivity.” He is a liberal, who, for example, thought that the Democrats did a pretty good job when they controlled the presidency and Congress in the first years of the Obama administration. He has an argument to make on the subject: That this has been the most “do-something” Congress we've seen in 40 years hasn't made much of an impression on the public. Multiple polls have found that only a minority of voters knows that the 111th Congress got more done than most congresses. That's true even among Democrats. Nor has their productivity made the 111th Congress popular. But if they failed as politicians, they succeeded as legislators. And legislating is, at least in theory, what they came to Washington to do.”

Now this is hardly an example of screaming partisanship. Conservatives might agree that the Democrats did get a lot done in these years; they just think most of what was done was terrible. But Klein’s leanings do come through when he says the Democrats in Congress “succeeded as legislators”: Republicans would say that passing all those bills was a disaster, not a success. Like most bloggers Klein does not hide his leanings in his writings. Is that bad? One problem with the effort traditional journalism has made in the United States to root out all leanings is that it isn’t possible. As the scholarly world has spent the last century or so demonstrating, true “objectivity’—a word so problematic that it probably should never be allowed out of quotation marks—is impossible for us mortals. Most of us, if we are politically aware, lean toward one party or another, toward one side of the political spectrum or another. We can try to hide those leanings, to compensate, even overcompensate for them. Indeed,

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most mainstream journalists have made a pretty decent effort at hiding their leanings, despite what critics on the left and right say, for the past century or so. But now some have begun to ask whether it is worth the effort. Might it be better to be upfront about those leanings, as bloggers like Ezra Klein are, than to twist ourselves into pretzels trying to disguise them? And we also lean, most of us, toward a variety of positions and conclusions that might be so widely held—at this moment, in this part of the world—that we don't even realize they are leanings: the position, for example, that violence is not the way to solve problems, except when undertaken by the government; the conclusion that democracy is the best form of government and capitalism the best economic system, and so on. Journalists, in particular, as noted in the previous chapter, lean toward the notion—the moral notion—that we must pay attention to the world’s injustices. What, we also need to ask, would our journalism be like if we really could eradicate all leanings? What might be an “objective” measure of legislative success— number of bills passed, number of bills prevented from passing or the quality of those bills, however that might be “objectively” determined? Could we even use words like “success”? What could we say about politics beside who won what vote? Is there an “objective” standard for judging the relative merit of swords and ploughshares? (One can think, after all, of circumstances in which the former would be by far the more valuable.) And would journalists really be better off if they were somehow so “objective” that they didn't care about or empathize with, as discussed in Chapter 2, the individuals about whom they write? One strategy journalists in the United States have employed over the decades is approximating “objectivity” by subscribing to a kind of balance: Democrats say their legislative session was a success, but Republicans call it a miserable failure. Period. End of story. This is now being called by my colleague press critic Jay Rosen, among others, “he said, she said” journalism.*! It has a number of limitations. Since when, to begin with, do stories have only two sides—his and hers, so to speak? How about those who believe the Democrats were successful in some areas, failures in others? How about those further to the left or further to the right

who believe both parties are useless? Where do they fit on this seesaw? Probably the most serious failing of this faux leaning-less style of journalism, however, is the excuse—even the obligation—it gives journalists to avoid having to figure out which of the two sides they do acknowledge might be correct. Often enough there is an answer to that question, but journalists—required to be “balanced,” content to be “balanced” —feel relieved of responsibility for seeking it. In a critique specifically aimed at CNN, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show presented one of most devastating (and funniest) attacks on this smug, lazy but presumably even-handed approach to journalism. He noted specifically the tendency to air often wild claims by politicians, usually politicians from opposing parties, and instead of checking and even correcting these claims, merely letting them stand. The standard line by CNN anchors as they move on to a commercial or the next story—leaving confusion reigning or distortions standing: “We're going to have to leave it there?”

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Consider an example, not from CNN, analyzed by Rosen: a New York Times article from April 2, 2009, about the House testimony of Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of AIG, an insurance company that had to be rescued by a huge government bailout. “Refusing to accept any personal blame for his former company’s collapse,” the Times writes, “Mr. Greenberg insisted that A.I.G’s problems stemmed from mismanagement after he left.” Then the newspaper gives the company’s current managers a chance to answer back with detailed charges against Greenberg: “We don't understand,” the company then concludes, “how he can be viewed as having any credibility on any A.I.G. issue.” He said. They said. So who is right? The Times, hiding behind its reluctance to give even the appearance of a leaning, doesn't trouble itself to answer this question. It chose to “leave it there.” But the Times could have and should have gone further, says Rosen, who cites evidence that the current managers were correct in their charge that Greenberg made many serious errors.” Instead of automatically assuming that the truth lay in balance, the point is, the Times—even at the risk of not seeming even-handed—should have tried harder to locate the truth. Now “truth” itself is a slippery concept. We've seen “truths” come, go and supersede each other over the centuries in philosophy, even in science. Weve learned how important perspective is. But the effort at truth certainly retains its importance in journalism. That is an effort CNN, the New York Times and other traditional news organizations sometimes fail to make. And an increasing number of journalists and journalism critics are becoming convinced that such an effort is hindered, not helped, by fealty to “objectivity” and, in particular, balance. Indeed, some have come to believe that the effort at truth can be furthered not only by an exhaustive investigation of competing claims but by a carefully constructed argument based on a thorough understanding of the facts behind those claims. This was another of blogger Nate Silver’s pieces of advice to graduates of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism: Learn to make an argument. . . . One of the things that distinguishes . . . “new journalism” from some of its more traditional forms is that the reader is really going to be looking for analysis, meaning, context, argument. Unless you come across some really fresh and proprietary information—it’s great to get a scoop, but it won't happen very often—it’s not enough just to present the information verbatim. .. . The reader is going to be asking you to develop a hypothesis, weigh the evidence, and come to some conclusion about it.”*

Arguments further interpretation. They can help us move beyond mere balance toward wisdom. An argument can be as short as a tweet. Here is New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on Twitter retweeting and responding to a supporter of the monarchy in Bahrain, a country then experiencing anti-government protests. Kristof

is using the standard Twitter format of responding to someone else's tweet before that “re-tweet”: That’s where freedom of speech begins RT @mohammed_riffa: @NickKristof freedom of speech ends when they insult our leaders

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An argument also can be as long as a book: Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side—an attack on the Bush Administration’s antiterror policies—is an example. How do you make an argument? A whole academic discipline has been devoted to that topic: the study of rhetoric. But since this is journalism and an understanding of the world is at stake, it seems fair to say that “a hypothesis,” to stick with Silver’s terms, and “some conclusion” must always be subservient to “evidence’—collected and weighed (though it is hard to get much evidence in a 140-character tweet).

In one post on his FiveThirtyEight.com blog Silver, for instance, asserts that a Brookings Institution study of mass transit in different cities “asked the wrong question.” That, in essence, is his argument. The question that study did ask is “What percentage of commutes to work can be made within ninety minutes using public transit?” The evidence Silver provides that this question was wrongheaded is the fact that the Brookings list of metropolitan areas in terms of “access to transit and employment’—based on data gathered in response to that question— ranked Modesto, California, ahead of New York City. Further evidence: in Modesto less than 1 percent of the population takes mass transit to work; in New York City more than 30 percent do. Silver's reasoning is that, yes, Modesto can get a higher percentage of mass transit riders to work in fewer than 90 minutes than New York City does, but that has little to do with the relative quality of its mass transit system; it’s because all commutes, obviously, are going to be shorter in relatively small and quiet Modesto than in huge, congested New York. Silver’s argument is further supported by the blatant reasonableness of the question he says the study should have asked instead: How competitive with driving is mass transit in each city?” Sometimes the evidence itself makes the argument. This is from Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, which was ranked sixth on that list of the top journalism in the United States in the first decade of this century. The evidence Mayer is marshaling in these sentences, against the Bush administration’s treatment of suspected terrorists, is historical: In fighting to liberate the world from Communism,

Fascism and Nazism, and

working to ameliorate global ignorance and poverty, America had done more than any nation on earth to abolish torture and other violations of human rights. Yet, almost precisely on the sixtieth anniversary of the famous war crimes tribunal’s judgment in Nuremberg, which established what seemed like an immutable principle, that legalisms and technicalities could not substitute for individual moral choice and conscience, America became the first nation ever to authorize violations of the Geneva Convention.”®

Of course, how this evidence is selected and arranged is crucial for Mayer's argument. In another historical context—one that emphasized the September 11th terrorist attacks, for example—Bush administration decisions might not look quite so un-American. The point here is just that arguments—particularly arguments of the sort this chapter is championing—depend on evidence. The fact that America was the first country “to authorize violations of the Geneva Convention” has power. Of course, Mayer has to be right in this assertion.

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The new, digital technologies have brought us new ways of deploying evidence and, thus, making arguments. Let's stretch the definition of journalism sufficiently to allow in a professor of global health in Sweden, Hans Rosling. He gave a TED talk on international economic and health statistics in 2006 that argues against received ideas about development—that has, in fact, some surprisingly optimistic points to make about development in many parts of the world in the past half-century. These points are made not just through Rosling’s words but through wonderfully animated statistics—a particularly inventive use of evidence. We can see the fertility rate decline and life expectancy improve for most of the world since the 1960s by watching bubbles representing each of the world’s countries, color-coded by continent, actually move over time on Rosling’s graph.”” Surely Rosling is introducing techniques here that will change the way some kinds of arguments are made in future years—in journalism as elsewhere. Because it

weighs in on important public issues with such clarity, force and appeal, this video has now been viewed by more than 2 million people. An argument implies, of course, an opinion: sometimes, as in Silver's critique of that Brookings study and, perhaps, Rosling on global development, a not particularly ideological opinion; sometimes, as with Klein on the Democrats or Mayer on the Bush administration, perhaps ideologically driven. But, although you wouldnt know it from the anxieties of recent generations of opinion-phobic traditional journalists, America has a grand history of often ideological opinion journalism. In Franklin’s day “opinion” wasn't “edited out” or relegated to “the editorial columns.” There were no “editorial” or “news” columns—just newspaper columns, in which opinion was as at home, even more at home than facts. It was opinionated journalism that helped convince the residents of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia and ten other of Britain's North American colonies that they deserved their rights as “Englishmen.” It was opinionated journalism that helped convince them that they were all “Americans.” It was opinionated journalism that brought them around to the idea of “independence” and helped them imagine that they might live without a king. The First Amendment, of course, protects press freedom in the United States. A couple of years after it was written, its primary author, James Madison, spoke of the importance “a circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people” has “to liberty” Why? Because it “facilitates,” Madison says, “a general intercourse of sentiments”—in other words, opinions.’ The journalism that helped create the United States was, in large part, opinion journalism. And much of the journalism that, in more recent centuries, helped improve the United States has had an argument to make—a strong argument. Lincoln Steffen’s 1904 collection of muckraking articles exposing corruption in city governments, The Shame of the Cities, was ranked number six on that list of the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century.” His argument is against the American people: Oh, we are good—on Sunday, and we are “fearfully patriotic” on the Fourth of July. But the bribe we pay to the janitor to prefer our interests to the landlord’, is the little brother of the bribe passed to the alderman to sell a city street, and the

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father of the air-brake stock assigned to the president of a railroad to have this life-saving invention adopted on his road. And as for graft, railroad passes, saloon and bawdy-house blackmail, and watered stock, all these belong to the same family. We are pathetically proud of our democratic institutions and our republican form of government, of our grand Constitution and our just laws. We are a free and sovereign people, we govern ourselves and the government is ours. But that is the point. We are responsible, not our leaders, since we follow them. We let them divert our loyalty from the United States to some “party”; we let them boss the party and turn our municipal democracies into autocracies and our republican nation into a plutocracy. We cheat our government and we let our leaders loot it, and we let them wheedle and bribe our sovereignty from us... . And what can we say? We break our own laws and rob our own government, the lady at the customhouse, the lyncher with his rope, and the captain of industry with his bribe and his rebate. . . . The people are not innocent. That is the only “news” in all the journalism of these articles, and no doubt that was not new to many observers. It was to me.

Steffens leaves no doubt about his lack of objectivity in this exposé of municipal corruption: I did not gather with indifference all the facts and arrange them patiently for permanent preservation and laboratory analysis. I did not want to preserve, I wanted to destroy the facts.

This argument for argument should not be taken as leave for journalists to simply spout whatever opinions come to mind—as seems to happen on much cable television, on much talk radio or in many blogs. That contributes little besides entertainment. Prejudices are solidified. Understandings rarely advance. Lincoln Steffens’ lesson applies to this, as to all journalism: a good argument must “be solidly based in facts.” Steffens supports his own argument that the American people were condoning and participating in corruption with detailed investigative reporting on the workings of such corruption in a series of American cities. And such arguments must be honest: honest first about the view of the world behind them. If youre a liberal, do your audience the courtesy of letting them know that. Lincoln Steffens was a reformer, a progressive: he made no bones about that. An argument must also be honest even about its own weak points. This is, alas, a challenge to which many cable television anchors, talk radio hosts and bloggers often fail to rise. But after trumpeting the accomplishments of the Democrats in the 111th Congress in passing those bills, Ezra Klein is careful to add this caveat: “The bills themselves suffer from the normal flaws and shortcomings and crass political deal-making endemic to everything Washington does.” One more important point: the license to make an argument—to write a story

that does not honor some artificial notion of journalists of the responsibility to be fair. Here is an example of Ezra Klein being Lieberman, who was elected as an independent nomination to a liberal. Klein’s complaint is

balance—does not relieve good unfair. It concerns Senator Joe after he had lost the Democratic with Lieberman’s opposition to

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some health-care reform proposals. “At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals,’ Klein charged on his blog in late 2009. “That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.’ Yikes! Lieberman as mass murderer? However, a few weeks later and after considerable criticism, Klein, in a post on the danger of overheated rhetoric, used himself “as an example” of the problem, acknowledging that “saying someone is willing to let people die—or, worse, cause their deaths—is very different than saying the bill will save many lives.” Klein shouldn't have leveled that original charge against Lieberman, but it was good that he apologized. And a couple of years later Klein dutifully—honestly—reported a study that threw into doubt the claim he used against Lieberman: that the healthcare bill would save hundreds of thousands of lives. Klein acknowledged that “health care doesn't work nearly as well as wed like to believe.” In many ways wielding arguments, wielding opinions, should require of journalists more, not less fairness, accuracy and willingness to admit errors. For practical reasons: if your arguments are being heard, those with conflicting opinions will undoubtedly be examining them for flaws. And for ethical reasons: because you are making charges, daring to come to conclusions and perhaps threatening reputations. Balance is easier: one side refutes the other and you leave it at that. The style of journalism being promoted here takes more work and more knowledge. But this

style of journalism often proves more enlightening. Here is a glorious example: Thomas Paine’s argument for why American troops should keep fighting—written and read to those troops in the winter of 1776, when the revolution in which they were engaged was not going well: These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

EXPERTISE “We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics,’ quips the humor writer Dave Barry; “this is how we stay objective.”*® Let’s take Barry’s point a bit more seriously than he may have intended and note that journalists who are not beholden to “objectivity’—who want to interpret, to make an argument—ought to know a lot about something. Here’s some 19th-century counsel on the subject, which is looking pretty good in the 21st century: “When my young friends consult me as to the conditions of successful journalism, the British essayist Leslie Stephen writes in 1881, “my first bit of advice comes to this: know something really.’*!

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Nate Silver’s 21st-century career is instructive. Like Klein, like Lippmann, he didn't work his way up through journalism. Instead Silver made a big splash in journalism by having and intelligently deploying a particular expertise: in

math. Silver “really” knows numbers. First he used mathematical methods to analyze baseball online and then he used them to analyze electoral politics online. Silver did the latter so well that on Election Day 2008 the blog he had started—fivethirtyeight.com (named after the number of electors in the U.S.

Electoral College)—had about 3 million visitors. Two years later, Silver licensed his blog and his services to the New York Times. On Election Day 2012 his blog had 10 million page views.** And Silver continues to write mostly about numbers—most having to do with politics, some having to do with such diverse subjects as which cities have the best mass transit. Ezra Klein also has an expertise that has taken him far: public policy in the United States. He rarely writes about foreign policy; he has little or nothing to add on the latest crime or celebrity scandal. Klein specializes in analyzing, with enthusiastic use of graphs and charts, the economy, health care, the federal budget and other major domestic issues . . . along with, oh yes, food. Traditional journalists often used to resist such specializations. It was a point of pride with them that they could cover with equal facility a fire in Los Angeles or a government change in London. Maybe the news has grown more complicated. Maybe—and isn’t this a happy theory!—people now expect more of journalists. But the great generalists—able to parachute in anywhere in the world and report on anything—now inspire considerably less awe. They find it harder to convince that they know enough to offer real insight. Many journalism programs, particularly on the master’s level, now offer specialized programs: in science journalism, in business journalism, in cultural reporting.» And, as noted in the Introduction, many beginning journalists are trying to give themselves a leg up by gaining an expertise in something: biomedical research, finance, women’s sports, Africa, human rights. They may gain their expertise in the classroom, even through a graduate degree, or they may gain it through their own reading, research and travel. They may display their expertise through their own blog, their own Web site or through a Twitter feed, as well as at existing news organizations.

In this age of entrepreneurial journalism it sometimes seems that journalists must be journalistic entities rather than just work for one. So journalists’ areas of expertise and their ways of approaching them are now often referred to by a somewhat crass-sounding marketing term: “It’s important to develop a sense of yourself as a brand,” is how Nate Silver put it, speaking to those Columbia graduates. Silver tries not to limit his own “brand” too much: making sure he has plenty of numbers to write about even in those rare months when no one is running for anything. “Don't let yourself become defined too narrowly.’ he also told those journalism students, “because that will limit your opportunities as your career evolves.’ But the lesson here is to consider defining yourself somewhat “narrowly”: as an expert on something. That way, should a job or at least a niche open up, you

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may be the most qualified person to fill it. Some “brands,” of course, are more marketable than others. There's some competition nowadays in, say, the China expert niche. You may have to consider the Chinese automobile industry or Chinese art niche. The 19th-century Chinese scrimshaw niche, on the other hand, may

indeed be a little narrow for journalism. Knowing how to speak and read Mandarin, however, is helpful for journalists in quite a few attractive niches. An expertise can have significant advantages for journalism, not just for a career in journalism. Knowing more than him or her helps journalists move away from “he said, she said”—from a dependence on, a vulnerabilityto and an inability to weigh the merits of their sources. Knowing what is and what is not widely understood about a subject also helps journalists formulate more interesting interpretations. And, to say the obvious, really knowing something helps journalists craft more knowledgeable, better-reasoned arguments. Here's a 20th-century example, an important one: Rachel Carson’s expertise— her “brand,” as she would not have called it—was a science, the study of living things. This was at a time when there were few science journalists. Carson had an M.A. in zoology and worked as editor-in-chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She began, independent of her job, publishing lyrical examinations and appreciations of the natural world, with titles like The Sea Around Us. She knew what she was talking about. She was alert to what was fascinating, moving and important in natural science. She could write. Carson’s work began to reach a large audience. She quit her day job and then produced one of the most important works in the history of American journalism.

Rachel Carson.

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IDEAS In 1962 Rachel Carson published a book, Silent Spring, that also has its lyrical passages and that still honored nature, but in this book she uses her expertise to help introduce humankind to an important idea—a disturbing idea: The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth's vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species—man— acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

Here journalism melds into science, history and maybe even philosophy. From the perspective of the book you are currently reading, which has the highest of aspirations for journalism, there’s nothing wrong with imbuing works of journalism with ideas that have some intellectual heft—as long as those works are still accessible to the public. Silent Spring is eminently readable. Indeed, it shapes its scientific, historical and maybe philosophical idea about the “interaction between living things and their surroundings” into an argument—an argument with unavoidable political consequences. This was the idea, the argument and the book that helped begin the environmental movement: The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible.

Many journalists dream of changing the world. In spreading this idea and making this argument, Rachel Carson may have. Ideas sometimes—to use another term Carson would not have used—“go viral.” This one did. Thanks in part to her work, the long, slow, erratic cleanup of the world’s air and waters began. Silent Spring, like John Hersey’s Hiroshima, had first appeared in the New Yorker. It ranked number two, after only Hiroshima, on that list of the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century” Ideas are a subject for journalism—an underreported one, I believe. They are a subject that demands certain kinds of expertise and tests two basic journalistic skills: making the complex intelligible and making the abstract interesting. But I am prejudiced, having myself spent some time on the idea beat. Indeed, I am going to be so bold as to use one of my own writings as an example here. First, though, an acknowledgement: this article about an influential French philosopher, which appeared in the New York Times Magazine in 1994, was not nominated for any “top works of journalism” lists: Jacques Derrida has death on his mind. He often does. But the death in question at this moment is one that holds little terror for him: the reported death of deconstruction—the “theory” or “method” (he prefers “experience”) to which Derrida gave birth.

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“The structure of the statement ‘It is dead’ is an interesting one, mused the French philosopher and writer during an extended visit to New York this fall. “Tt claims to describe a fact, but in a number of cases it is a form of wishful thinking. You say something is dead in order for it to die.” Many otherwise unmalicious people have in fact been guilty of wishing for deconstruction’s demise—if only to relieve themselves of the burden of trying to understand it. This is, after all, a subject that has a reputation for being rather difficult.

And then I do my best to make Derrida’s “rather difficult” brainchild intelligible and interesting: Derrida has tried to explain—many times, in many ways, not always with success. He hazarded a characteristically hesitant definition in a paper he presented recently at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, in New York: “Needless to say, one more time, deconstruction, if there is such a thing, takes place as the experience of the impossible.”

This may provide a start. To deconstruct a “text” (a term defined broadly enough to include the Declaration of Independence and a Van Gogh painting) means to pick it apart, in search of ways in which it fails to make the points it seems to be trying to make. Why would someone want to “read” (defined equally broadly) like that? In order to experience the impossibility of anyone writing or saying (or painting) something that is perfectly clear, the impossibility of constructing a theory or method of inquiry that will answer all questions or the impossibility of fully comprehending weighty matters, like death. Deconstruction, in other words, guards against the belief—a belief that has led to much violence—that the world is simple and can be known with certainty. It confronts us with the limits of what it is possible for human thought to accomplish.

If you find yourself at a university, reporting on an idea should not be a difficult skill to practice. The trick is leaving out the jargon while getting in the nuance. And every idea, of course, does not have to be as earth-changing as Rachel Carson's or as abstract as some of Derridas. Fascinating and original, if not world-historical, takes on current events enter the journalism stream each week—through the opinion journals, the opinion pages, within quotation marks, in podcasts or on the radio, in video or on the more serious television programs. And the Internet has certainly facilitated if not the germination of such ideas, then certainly their dissemination—via TED talks, in the better, more expert blogs. “I just try and put sophisticated ideas into the news cycle and connect people with smart ideas that are relevant,” says the writer of one such blog, Matthew Yglesias.” Since we are being ambitious for journalism, let’s not forget that such ideas can be hatched not just by those upon whom journalists report but by journalists themselves—working in a variety of media, though books do retain certain advantages in this endeavor. Paul Berman, in his book Terror and Liberalism, does report on some ideas: those held by Sayyid Qurb, a tremendously influential Islamist thinker and writer who was eventually hanged in Egypt in 1966. But through his

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reading of Qurb, Berman is building an idea of his own: that the sort of antiWestern Islamist thinking introduced by Qurb and picked up by one of his students, Osama bin Laden, while “wonderfully original and deeply Muslim, looked at from one angle” actually owes a lot to Western thought. Indeed, Berman makes a convincing case—and this is the heart of his idea— that the Islamist notions promulgated by Qurb and his best-known student are “from another angle, merely one more version of the European totalitarian idea.” Berman sees, in other words, Stalin in Osama bin Laden; he sees Hitler. He sees, the point is, the worst of the West in this revolt against the values of the West. This makes bin Laden (still alive when Berman wrote) less surprising for him: “Totalitarian movements always but always, rise up in rebellion against the liberal values of the West,” Berman writes. “That is their purpose.” But this also makes Al Qaeda more dangerous for him. For such totalitarian movements have an additional purpose, Berman maintains: death—death for their enemies, for their scapegoats and, inevitably, for plenty of their own true believers. Only in death, Berman argues, can the contradictions inherent in such Western-inspired antiWestern movements be reconciled. “The totalitarian cult of death,’ he calls it.*° In writing an “idea” book like this does Paul Berman even qualify as a journalist, rather than a historian or a political theorist? Well, Berman's background is in journalism. He currently writes for publications—the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate—that are safely within the boundaries of journalism. Berman weighs in on matters—Islamic terrorism for instance—that are in the news. He influences public debates. But there is a better argument for claiming Berman for journalism—one I've been leaning on a lot: the ambition argument. Paul Berman produces substantial insights, substantial ideas—on contemporary politics, on current events. He gets people thinking—as Rachel Carson and Walter Lippmann certainly did, as Ezra Klein at his best does. That is not the only possible goal of ambitious journalism. This book is equally impressed with the reporting of a John Hersey or Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. But is that not a goal to which we want some journalists to aspire?

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Enlivening: More Engaging Styles

The focus now turns to writing—and to producing video. The traditional journalistic just-the-facts, “voice-of-God” style is given its due, but this chapter is mostly devoted to a crusade against what Tom Wolfe calls “pale beige” journalism. It introduces a variety of more vibrant styles: from the Day-Glo prose of Wolfe himself to the severe black and whites of a Frederick Wiseman documentary; from the sarcasm of Mark Twain to the intricate images of Freya Stark. Among the other first-rate stylists to appear here are Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Nora Ephron, Suketu Mehta and Madeleine Blais.

H= are excerpts from two reports on the same kind of event. The first, written by Louis Stark, was published in the New York Times in 1927 and is a classic example of the opening of an “inverted pyramid” story. It presumes to present just the facts—with the most important of those facts in the first paragraph, the lead:' Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti died in the electric chair early this morning, carrying out the sentence imposed on them for the South Braintree murders of April 15, 1920. Sacco marched to the death chair at 12:11 and was pronounced lifeless at 12:19. Vanzetti entered the execution room at 12:20 and was declared dead at 12:26.

To the last they protested their innocence, and the efforts of many who believed them guiltless proved futile, although they fought a legal and extra legal battle unprecedented in the history of American jurisprudence.’

Compare that with these sentences about an execution—one that lacked such political significance—taken from Truman Capote’s 1965 nonfiction book, In Cold Blood. You need to know that Alvin Dewey was a detective with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who led the investigation of the murders of a family, and Perry Smith was one of two men hanged for those murders: 103

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And so it happened that in the daylight hours of that Wednesday morning, Alvin Dewey, breakfasting in the coffee shop of a Topeka hotel, read, on the first page of the Kansas City Star, a headline he had long awaited: “DIE ON ROPE FOR BLOODY CRIME”...

Dewey had watched them die, for he had been among the twenty-odd witnesses invited to the ceremony... Steps, noose, mask; but before the mask was adjusted, the prisoner spat his chewing gum into the chaplain’s outstretched palm. Dewey shut his eyes; he kept them shut until he heard the thud-snap that announces a rope-broken neck... He remembered his first meeting with Perry in the interrogation room at Police Headquarters in Las Vegas—the dwarfish boy-man seated in the metal chair, his small booted feet not quite brushing the floor. And when Dewey now opened his eyes, that is what he saw: the same childish feet, tilted, dangling.’

These two accounts represent, obviously, different approaches to reporting a story: Stark, a fine practitioner of what this book has been calling traditional journalism and writing under deadline pressure, sticks to independently verifiable, if sometimes dry, facts. Capote has collected small, sometimes moving details and has managed to get that detective’s thoughts. However, the final three chapters of this book will be about writing, not reporting. What I want to focus on here is the difference in style between Stark’s writing and Capote’. Louis Stark is spare, precise, to the point. His wordings are designed primarily to transmit and stay out of the way of facts. Indeed he manages, as is expected in the genre, to squeeze four of what journalists call the “five W’s” into his first paragraph, his lead: who: “Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti”; what: “died in the electric chair”; when: “early this morning”; and why: “carrying out the sentence imposed on them for the South Braintree murders.’ The where is left to the dateline placed in front of the story: “CHARLESTON STATE PRISON, Mass., Tuesday, Aug. 23—” To present and support his facts, Stark relies mostly on basic, straightforward sentences—subjects followed dutifully by verbs: “Sacco marched to the death chair at 12:11...” And he sticks to basic, straightforward language. Actually, “marched” is one of the more surprising word choices here—presumably conveying something about Sacco’ gait and sense of self, probably implying something about his dedication to a political cause: anarchism. Otherwise, the words Stark uses are the words we would expect to find in a piece of journalism about an execution: “died” “death,” “dead,” “pronounced lifeless,’ “declared,” “protested their innocence” This writing style and this language dominated the New York Times and most other newspapers in Stark’s day. The formula for leads has loosened a bit. Still, this just-the-facts style continues to dominate on many of their pages today. Most broadcast journalists and many Web journalists use versions of it, too. A CNN Web site in 2011, for example, featured this inventory of the “five W’s” in the first paragraph of its account of a controversial execution: Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., a Mexican national convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in 1994, was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening in Texas.‘

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Indeed, journalism has spoken so long in this fact-dense, uninflected, get-tothe-point voice that it is easy for those who have grown used to it to imagine that this is the voice in which journalism must speak. Truman Capote offers the first of this chapter's many demonstrations that there are livelier possibilities. In more than three-and-a-half pages on these two hangings, Capote uses the word “death” or its plural only twice; “dead” appears only in a quote from the prison doctor; “died” never. Capote does use the blunter “die.” but mostly he finds less familiar wordings. Consider, for instance, the phrase he employs to inform us that Perry Smith has been hanged: “the thud-snap that announces a rope-broken neck.” What explicit, even ghoulish pairs of words that phrase contains: “thud-snap,’ “rope-broken”! How odd to be told not what such a scene looks like but what it sounds like, and to leave the climactic moment to a noise! Capote labeled In Cold Blood a nonfiction novel. He was already a successful novelist when he wrote it. The plan was to unleash, as he did not tire of explaining, the techniques and skills of the fiction writer upon nonfiction.® We can see that in Capote’s effort to view the execution from Detective Dewey’s point of view—a term widely used by novelists but not much considered by traditional news writers. This not only explains the author’s recourse to sound—Detective Dewey has closed his eyes—but provides readers with access to_the perspective of a man who well understands the horror of the crime but still has trouble watching someone he has gotten to know die. Those fiction techniques also include the use of physical description to carry meaning—a more difficult trick in nonfiction, where details cannot be invented or even adjusted. Capote builds in these sentences toward a haunting image: the hanged man’s “childish feet . .. dangling.” In that image is much of the brutality of the death penalty—wielded, in this case, against the perpetrator of a particularly brutal crime. And Capote is letting us see this, feel this, through the just-opened eyes of that detective—a man who actually supports the death penalty but who had developed some sympathy for the “boy-man” to whom it is being applied. Capote, who had developed a lot of sympathy for that “boy-man” himself, reports that he “had great difficulty writing the last six or seven pages” of this book.® He says nothing overtly sympathetic in his own voice in them. But— through his images, through his use of Dewey’s point of view—his sadness comes through. Tom Wolfe, whose work will be much discussed in this chapter, has been an aggressive critic of the lifelessness of most traditional journalistic writing. “Readers were bored to tears without understanding why,’ Wolfe writes—exaggerating a bit to make his point. “When they came upon that pale beige tone, it began to signal to them, unconsciously, that a well-known bore was here again, ‘the journalist-” What do those journalists lack? “It was a matter of personality, energy, drive, bravura ... style, in a word,” Wolfe explains.’ “Pale beige” does not seem a particularly apt characterization of Louis Stark’s prose in the excerpt above—the event is too momentous, the shadows too deep. And surely his account of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti is not a bore. But it is, if you will, stark, and Stark’s prose does not, to be sure, exhibit much “energy,”

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Tom Wolfe.

“drive” or “bravura.” Most traditional journalistic writing doesn’t. And some of it shouldn't: few would want to see a display of reportorial “personality” and “bravura” obscuring a major, breaking news event. But, when the subject matter is less charged or pressing, much traditional, simple, direct, dry, voiceless journalistic writing—with its tame vocabulary, with its lack of a discernable point of view— might indeed be accused of having a “pale beige” feel. It is the purpose of this chapter to demonstrate some of the alternatives—to explore more colorful styles of journalism.

HYPERKINETIC “Hai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-aial-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-aireeeeeeeeceeeeeece!”

Tom Wolfe is writing in the mid-1960s about New York City’s Women’s House of Detention, when it was located in Greenwich Village and the inmates could yell

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mocking, even obscene things out the windows at passersby. Those women had determined, after experimenting with various possibilities, that one of those passersby was named Harry. In an effort to contrast Harry’s cultural situation with that of his interlocutors, Wolfe decides, as he later explains, to yell something at this Harry himself: O, dear Sweet Harry, with your French gangster-movie bangs, your Ski Shop turtleneck sweater and your Army-Navy Store blue denim shirt... *

This would be too exuberant, too hyperactive, too jazzy for Truman Capote (and inappropriate for a story with the gravity of the one Capote is telling). It is classic Tom Wolfe. Wolfe—who favors custom-tailored, all-white suits—is not short on bravura. This section will include some of the most energetic, personal and experimental examples of journalism in a book that is encouraging energetic, personal and experimental journalism. Not every magazine or Web site would be prepared to accommodate writing this loud, but it surely can be entertaining. Among Wolfe’s attributes is a highly developed sense of fun: his assault upon some Harry—last name not given—is a lot more entertaining to read than would be a bunch of sentences that simply begin “The Women’s House of Detention was built . . ” or “The inmates are...” Another advantage of such hyperkinetic styles is that they are surprising: they flout expectations. When a musical composition, a painting, a work of architecture does something out of the ordinary, it grabs our attention. Same with a piece of writing that stretches the name “Harry” out over a couple of lines. But since our expectations for journalistic writing come from having read lots of reasonably successful journalistic writing, flouting them puts considerable pressure on the writer: the pressure to make sure the new style is a step forward,

not a step back. Wolfe has the advantage, as he sets out for styles unknown, of an ear for language: his takedown of “dear Sweet Harry” reads: it has, like a line from an Allen Ginsberg poem, a rhythm (“your Ski Shop tur-tle-neck sweat-er”), even a bit of alliteration; it has a pleasing sound. And Wolfe also benefits from his sharp, Ph.D.-trained eye for “status details”: he catches Harry in the act of being a 1960s, middle-class, Francophile, risk-averse, almost-hipster. In other words, Wolfe is a good enough journalist so that his experiment with unexpected approaches to journalism succeeds. Three of his books were ranked, along with Capote's In Cold Blood, among the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century”—the collection that included all that yelling at Harry among them. There’s an additional danger in using such boisterous styles. As we know from experience with kids convinced they are cute and adults convinced they are entertaining, mere attention-grabbing can quickly become obnoxious; there has to be something of substance behind it. Here, too, I believe Wolfe succeeds. The contrast between cautious, predictable Harry and the coarse, obscenity-shouting, what-dowe-have-to-lose women in that jail, captured in this high-volume exchange, proves instructive—even anthropologically instructive. A more restrained journalist

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might be able to explain this clash of cultures, but a more restrained journalist would have difficulty illustrating it as vividly. In a 1996 article for Harper’s magazine about a Caribbean cruise, David Foster Wallace flouts a rather basic expectation: that writers will work the events they are writing about into some sort of coherent, chronological or like-subject-withlike structure. Instead Wallace holds off his attempts at imposing a traditional framework and begins the piece by ticking off—in what he calls a “hypnotic sensuous collage’—about two-and-a-half pages worth of “stuff I've seen and heard and done as a result of the journalistic assignment just ended.” Sounds dull. It isn't. Here’s a selection: I have learned that there are actually intensities of blue beyond very, very bright blue. I have eaten more and classier food than I’ve ever eaten, and eaten this food during a week when I’ve also learned the difference between “rolling” in heavy seas and “pitching” in heavy seas. I have heard a professional comedian tell folks, without irony, “But seriously.” ... 1 have heard upscale adult U.S. citizens ask the Guest Relations Desk whether snorkeling necessitates getting wet, whether the skeet shooting will be held outside, whether the crew sleeps on board, and what time the Midnight Buffet is. Inow know the precise mixological difference between a Slippery Nipple and a Fuzzy Navel... I have dickered over trinkets with malnourished children. I now know every conceivable rationale and excuse for somebody spending over $3000 to go on a Caribbean cruise. I have bitten my lip and declined Jamaican pot from an actual Jamaican...

I have seen nearly naked a lot of people I would prefer not to have seen nearly naked. I have felt as bleak as I’ve felt since puberty, and have filled almost three Mead notebooks trying to figure out whether it was Them or Just Me.°

If journalists decide, even for a couple of pages, to forgo something as basic as grouping sentences by topic or temporal order and jump from seasickness to a comedian, theyd better be able to offer readers a compelling reason to keep reading those sentences. The “stuff” Wallace has “seen and heard and done” must, in other words, be particularly engaging or illuminating to work without a structure to lead us through it. David Foster Wallace has irony, sensitivity, self-revelation and a great ear for language on his side. I believe he meets that standard. Just to make sure no one is misled into thinking that writing at this energy level first arrived in the 1990s or the 1960s, here’s a two-fisted, bitten-off, seen-itall, flagrantly nontraditional lead to a story about the murder trial of a woman and her lover from 1927 (the same year that Louis Stark bestowed upon Sacco and Vanzetti’s execution that classic traditional five-W’s lead):

A chilly-looking blonde with frosty eyes and one of those marble, you-bet-you-will chins, and an inert, scare-drunk fellow that you couldn't miss among any hundred men as a dead setup for a blonde, or the shell game, or maybe a gold brick.°

That's the whole first paragraph. That's just one of the “five W’s” That’s Damon Runyon. And, incidentally, among the expectations being flouted here is the assumption that a sentence might contain a verb.

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Part of what Damon Runyon was up to—with his “you-bet-you-will chin’s and “scare-drunk fellow”s—was writing as people (“guys” and “dolls” in his case) talked on a certain set of streets (around Times Square in his case). Journalism has

a grand tradition of such colloquial, streetwise writing—from longtime New York columnist Jimmy Breslin’s Queens locutions to Mike Royko’s “belly-to-belly, scowl-to-scowl, and may-the-toughest-or-loudest-man-win” Chicago vernacular.!! Much of this writing, because it ain't written in the King’s English, or at least in New York Times style, calls attention to itself—as Tom Wolfe's writing calls attention to itself. Even David Foster Wallace, though much honored by the avant-garde and the literati, indulges with some frequency in a version of street talk—in his case 1990s slacker lingo. So we get a lot of “way too’s and this title for Wallace’s essay on the cruise: “A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.” One more style-heavy journalist needs to be introduced here, because he upon occasion appears to flout that most basic of journalistic expectations: truthfulness. Allow me to present the gun-toting, drug-using model for the Duke character in “Doonesbury”: Hunter S. Thompson, here reporting on the Kentucky Derby: This was the first time Id been to a Derby in ten years, but before that, when I lived in Louisville, I used to go every year. Now, looking down from the press box, I pointed to the huge grassy meadow enclosed by the track. “That whole thing,” I said, “will be jammed with people; fifty thousand or so, and most of them staggering drunk. It’s a fantastic scene—thousands of people fainting, crying, copulating, trampling each other and fighting with broken whiskey bottles. We'll have to spend some time out there, but it’s hard to move around, too many bodies.”””

Fiction? Most Hunter Thompson fans, and they are numerous, prefer to characterize such reality-defying paragraphs instead as exaggeration or satire. To make sure the first law of journalism—that audiences not be deceived—is honored, Thompson's readers must, therefore, be clued in: they must know that an exaggeration or satire is being perpetrated. Thompson accomplishes that in part through the manifest impossibility of some of what he describes, in part through the manifest unreliability of his narrator—the “T” in the above selection. And Thompsons fans note that his satiric exaggerations pay off: that his feral, paranoid fantasies are particularly effective in getting at a set of elusive truths. They bring us glimpses of the underbelly of certain “atavistic,” to use his word, events (that horserace), places (Las Vegas), groups (the Hell's Angels), times (the 1960s and 1970s) and processes (a presidential election)—all of which have

anthropological interest. The existence—the continued existence—of such wild events, places, groups, times and processes is another argument for wilder styles of journalism. Novice journalists might experiment with applying them to some other subjects of anthropological significance: a high school hangout, commuters during rush hour, the crowd at a college sporting event, the scene, come exam week, in a college library. This book is very much on the side of originality. But one way to prepare to be original is to pick up a trick or two by copying others who have been original.

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The young Benjamin Franklin used to disassemble sentences in the great early18th-century English periodical the Spectator, wait long enough so that he had forgotten those sentences and then try to reassemble them: By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language.”

This book is not much on the side of doing exercises—much preferring the doing of journalism. But exercises like Franklin’s can improve writing—try to disassemble and reassemble some of Tom Wolfe's sentences or Truman Capote’s. And exercises in imitating some of the styles outlined in this chapter can be useful in broadening the range of styles available to beginning journalists. Find a scene, preferably involving young people, and try to write it up Tom Wolfe-like. Find a scene, preferably involving alcohol, and see if you can write it up Hunter Thompsonlike. Frequent a courthouse and see if you can produce some paragraphs based on anything you saw that might qualify as Runyonesque. See, too, if you can imitate the lingo. Such exercises might be attempted using images and sound as well as words. After all, this is a style of journalism that has been influenced by film and television: with their sharp cuts and vibrant colors. In some ways Wolfe's more cartoonish work and Thompson's more film-noir work seem almost to want to be video. Certainly, these are experiments that want to be pursued in video. We have seen fascinating explorations of the potential of fast-cut, jumpy, off-kilter moving images in the films of a Jeff Scher (available at the New York Times Web site)'* or the short, early videos of a Mark Pellington (produced for MTV and PBS)."° But it is difficult, as this book is written, to find great, best-

of-the-decade-level journalistic work—Scher and Pellington are not really journalists—in hyperkinetic video. When that work does arrive—perhaps produced by readers of this book—it will probably not entirely abandon words for images. For, as noted in Chapter 2, viewers—few of whom will be as attentive to status details as a Tom Wolfe—need words to help them see that Harry’s haircut features “French gangster-movie bangs.’ The solution, instead, will probably involve combining words, perhaps flashed on screen, with fast-cut images, as Pellington and others have tried. (I have expounded upon the potential of video in my book the rise of the image the fall of the word.)

And let me suggest one more element that might be part of those experiments: with video and now with newer digital media and software, those who write now have access—for the first time in human history—to moving words.'® Written language can now not only scroll but jump, fly and rearrange itself. Words and sentences can now not only appear and disappear but grow, shrink and, perhaps of most significance, morph. The words “French gangster-movie bangs” can form themselves into a haircut. David Foster Wallace’s “Them” or “Just Me”—the

two possible sources of his despair—can circle each other, blend in and out of each

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other. Can words that move say things more precisely, more clearly than static words? Might we be able, therefore, to attempt to say more complex, more difficult things? Journalists looking to attempt something new—as Tom Wolfe did, as Hunter Thompson did—take note! There is unexplored potential in these devices.!’

VERITE There are, however, plenty of other alternatives to the “pale beige” style of much traditional journalism besides Wolfe's Day-Glo wordings or Thompson's mad ravings. Some of these alternatives are as taut as the best just-the-facts journalism—but less predictable and more penetrating: A policeman covers the top of the trunk, from which the head is missing; they send for someone to repair the gas main and you go in to breakfast. A charwoman, her eyes red, is scrubbing the blood off the marble floor of the corridor. The dead man wasn't you nor anyone you know and everyone is very hungry in the morning after a cold night and a long day the day before up at the Guadalajara front.'*

That's another excerpt from one 1937 Ernest Hemingway's report on the Spanish Civil War; it was first quoted in Chapter 1. Hemingway here is using, as he usually does, simple words and relatively simple sentences to talk about feelings that are not simple. Take this style a step further—forget Hemingway's “you,” swear off any explicit psychological insight—and you have what may be the most influential approach to documentary filmmaking: cinéma vérité—French for “truthful cinema.” The goal of this kind of filmmaking is, in the words of the influential French film theorist André Bazin, the “complete imitation of nature” Bazin’s advice to filmmakers: “Take a close look at the world, keep on doing so.’!” Let life, in other words, reveal itself. Journalists devoted to this style—and most of them are documentary filmmakers—don't describe; they show. They don't announce their insights; they present scenes from which their audiences might draw insights. Only through the steadfastness and intensity of their gaze do they penetrate—or enable those audiences to penetrate. This is journalism that substitutes for a “pale beige” voice the attempt to speak with no voice or, rather, to speak in the voice of its subjects or, to put a color on it, in the yellowish white of incandescent light. Frederick Wiseman has been one of the outstanding practitioners of this genre, aiming his camera at a succession of institutions, from a welfare office, to a high school, to a public housing project, to a ballet company. In Wiseman’ first such film, Titicut Follies, the institution under observation is the State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. We spend the whole film inside it. It is not a pleasant place to be. Wiseman’s films—and this may be the restriction that most characterizes the vérité style—do not include narrations. There is no “voice of God,’ telling audiences what they are seeing and hearing. In Titicut Follies, first that audience sees

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and hears the inmates and a guard performing in a stiff and awkward theatrical revue organized by the staff. (The film takes its title from that review; “Titicut” is the Native American name for a local river.) Then scenes of brusque and undoubtedly humiliating strip searches are intercut with a therapy session. Here is some of the dialogue from that session: DR. ROSS (WITH A HEAVY ACCENT). “Was any actual sexual relation between you and the... this female child?” INMATE (PLAIN FACED, NOTHING REMARKABLE ABOUT HIS APPEARANCE): © Yes.”

DR. ROSS. “How old, how old was the child?” INMATE. Only eleven.” DR. ROSS. “Eleven? Eleven year old ... And how did you feel about that you commit such crime?” INMATE. ‘I didn't feel good about it...” DR. ROSS. “You have been in practice in this way that you abused a young girl, child?” INMATE. “Even my own daughter . . ” DR. ROSS. “You are with your own daughter, with other young, immature children, female children, and then you have been trying to hang yourself, you've been assaulting other people, and you've been setting fire. And youve been . . . quite intolerant and, and apprehensive and—” INMATE. “Restless.” DR. ROSS. “—depressed and—do you think you are a normal man? What you think? And do you still believe that you don't need help? At some time ago, you told that you need the help.’ INMATE. “Well, I need help but I don't know where I can get it.” DR. ROSS. “Well, you get it here, I guess.””? Having observed the strip searches, having observed the technique of this therapist, it doesn’t require any words from the filmmaker, any narrative guidance, for the viewer to conclude that this hospital is more likely to make someone's state of mind worse than to help.* Wiseman’ Titicut Follies was also on that list of the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century.’ And numerous other honors have been won by cinéma vérité documentaries—among them LaLee’ Kin, discussed in Chapter 4. In that film, Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson and Albert Maysles, like Wiseman, allow scenes time to develop: LaLee and her kids waiting for their new trailer home, for example. These filmmakers, like Wiseman, keep individuals on camera long enough to reveal something of their character. The great power of this genre comes from its patience, its naturalness, its intimacy—from the feeling that you are there, silently observing those individuals as they live their lives.

* A legal effort to prevent Frederick Wiseman from showing Titicut Follies was successful for many years. The argument was that the film violated the right to privacy of some of the inmates; however, the effort was probably motivated more by the film’s threat to the reputation of the institution and its staff,

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Frederick Wiseman.

There's an extraordinary scene in Wiseman’s 1975 film Welfare, in which a young man and woman, probably with drug problems, are trying to convince a caseworker to give them assistance. As the conversation proceeds we become alert to the young man’s impatience with his companion for not sticking to their story. Becoming alert—feeling as if you are figuring something out—is satisfying for an audience. Watching a character develop before your alert eyes—an experience more commonly available to audiences for fiction—is satisfying. These are additional pluses for this style. Pure vérité—an unvarnished, undistorted reflection of what goes on in the world—is, of course, impossible. Cameras are hard (and usually unethical) to hide: the behavior of subjects likely will be affected by the knowledge that one is aimed at them. Cameras can’t show everything: filmmakers also impose a point of view through their decisions on where to place their cameras. And documentaries can't include everything: filmmakers impose a point of view through their editing. In Titicut Follies, Wiseman made a decision to intercut scenes of strip searches with that dialogue between the therapist and that child molester. That made the claim that this prison mental hospital might provide “help” look even more questionable.

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In fact, because they look so real these films, ironically, may be more persuasive than more traditional, voice-of-God, were-going-to-tell-you-what-to-think documentaries—better able to communicate the filmmaker’s point of view. Vérité is an effective style. Whether it is a more honest one is another question. Cinéma vérité probably works best in, surprise, cinema—in film or video. For, when attempting to recreate scenes with words, it is more difficult to forgo commenting upon those scenes. That deadpan, detached attitude—or lack of attitude—is easier to maintain while holding a camera than while composing a sentence. But vérité can be done with words. And it has been effective. Lillian Ross’ New Yorker article on the visit of those Bean Blossom high school seniors to New York City, discussed in Chapter 4, is an example of the vérité style in print—filled with the quotes and opinions of its subjects and not, overtly at least, with the views of its author. Here's another example: in 1992, Madeleine Blais produced a straightforward, unembellished account of how a woman supported herself and her 5-year-old daughter in Washington, D.C., on a weekly salary of $319. The woman, a very practical and savvy woman, had—or had to have—an

obsession with every penny she spent. Blais honors that obsession by recounting, mostly in vérité style, how this woman disburses those pennies: Once a month she buys five dozen eggs at 50 cents a dozen wholesale from a farm. Scrambled eggs are frequent dinner fare, sprinkled with nutritional yeast. She waits to buy chicken leg quarters until they go on sale for less than 50 cents a pound; she boils the meat, saving the broth, and sometimes curries it but more often uses

it for enchiladas, adding her homemade hot sauce concocted from tomato sauce, chili powder, onions, garlic and jalapenos. She buys fresh vegetables and fruit according to season, and she usually has a bag of frozen peas in the freezer and some canned corn on the shelf. When turkey dogs are priced below a dollar a pound, she buys a package for her daughter. About once a month she will buy a pound or so of porterhouse steak on sale at $2.99 a pound for a special dinner.”!

The vérité style allows—or appears to allow—stories to speak for themselves. That's a virtue. It prevents—or appears to prevent—journalists from dominating their material: another virtue. It is certainly worth experimenting with. Go down to an unemployment office, a traffic court or the waiting room of a hospital’s emergency room and try to capture, without comment, what is happening. Getting permission to use a camera or audio recorder in these places may be difficult, but a pen and a notepad will do. (Don’t record anyone without asking permission.) Or take that camera or audio recorder to a gym or a playground and ask for permission. Look for extended scenes. Try to let them play out. Encourage yourself to edit little and write, or hold a shot, long. As with all the styles presented in these chapters, vérité is well suited to some kinds of journalism. It’s good at scenes. It’s good at interactions. It’s good at letting us get to know interesting people. It is good, in other words, at all the things audiences can learn from just watching and listening. But vérité deprives journalists of many of their normal methods of contributing to a story. They can’t introduce.

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They can’t summarize. They can’t overtly interpret. They can’t overtly explain. They can’t add background in their own voice. Stories, consequently, may take longer to say the same thing. And the journalist's ability to present not a person, not an institution, but a perspective, an interpretation or an idea may be reduced.

EVOCATIVE The intrepid and remarkably observant early-20th-century British travel writer Freya Stark shared an important goal with practitioners of that vérité style: providing her audiences with a long, slow look at places they had probably not previously seen. Stark's gaze was focused mainly upon the Arab world. This quick sketch of a fellow passenger on a boat—a boat having “a most unpleasant time with the Indian Ocean”—is from her 1936 book The Southern Gates of Arabia: The ambassador from next door came staggering along against the wind, his shawls and turban billowing in circles round an equally circular face, cheerful and placid and decorated with a gold tooth.”

However—as is already clear from this description—Freya Stark’s writing is not sufficiently stark to pass as vérité. She isn’t good at just letting life reveal itself. She sees too much. She has too much to say about what she sees. And there are great rewards in what Stark is able to see and say. This, as are all the examples here, is from that same book: The upper cliff is sheer and undercut, swept by the wind into striated hollows, like theater boxes from which one can fancy pre-human presences watching the elemental drama, the action of daylight, wind water, sun and frost, on the imprisoned powers that heave beneath the crust of earth.’

Could a journalist dedicated only to the “complete imitation of nature” discover in some Arabian cliff “theater boxes from which one can fancy pre-human presences watching the elemental drama’? Could a mere photograph or video, unassisted by words, remind us of “the imprisoned powers that heave beneath the crust of earth’? Stark's work is vivid, lush, suggestive, personal, and—with its long sentences and vigorous descriptions—perhaps a touch old-fashioned. (Reading Freya Stark has made quite a few contemporary journalists aspire to be more old-fashioned.) I'm using the word evocative to title this section. Stark does not simply show; through the magic of language, she evokes. Truman Capote’s writing in In Cold Blood also fits under this heading. His storytelling responsibilities in that book are larger than those Stark usually shoulders, but his sentences still sometimes manage to be stunningly evocative: It was ideal sky, and an the Chinese ing seasons

apple-eating weather; the whitest sunlight descended from the purest easterly wind rustled, without ripping loose, the last of the leaves on elms. Autumns reward western Kansas for the evils that the remainimpose.

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Both Stark and Capote work hard to help their readers see all that they see. They put to use most of the techniques of fiction writers, making liberal use, in Stark’s case, of similes; in Capote’s, of analogy; and in both their cases, of personification. Here, from In Cold Blood, is a description of the tiny town in which the murders took place: Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans—in fact, few Kansans—had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.”

Stark and Capote are also free with their explanations and interpretations. They dont see their role as getting out of the way of what is going on; they see it as presenting, in language that is not afraid to call attention to itself, their best insights into what is going on. This is Stark’s take on riding a donkey and, also, living a life: And it is pleasant too, to sit on a donkey pack, when you know how to do it, without rigidity, meeting the jolts and caprices of your companion with an elastic temper and capacity for balance, riding, in fact, as one rides through life, with a calm eye for accidents and a taste for enjoyment in the meantime.”

This is not an easy style with which to experiment. It requires more than modesty but also more than flash. It requires creativity, which can be furthered by a willingness to take chances (school should be good for that). And it requires a sense of language and its possibilities, which can be furthered by lots of reading (of good prose) and writing (of the best prose you can manage). Standards, in this more literary style of journalism, are high, but there is much to be gained in trying to reach them. Find a particularly impressive natural formation; see what you can see in it; humanize it. Have a go at finding similes or analogies for the weather— today, then tomorrow, then next week. Pick a town; try to describe something that might pass for the “essence” of that town. Perhaps attempt to find words for life’s jolts, caprices, accidents and enjoyments as you see them being experienced around you. Start with phrases, then sentences, before attempting paragraphs. With this style it is not sufficient merely to write what you see. You must try to see more, to see more clearly and to write very well.

HUMOROUS Tom Wolfe can be pretty funny, Hunter Thompson, too—if you laugh, as he wants you to, at his delusions. But some journalists specialize in humor. There is, of course, Mark Twain. Here he is again, now, in 1863, reporting for the Placer Weekly Courier. The subject—the Grand Bull Drivers’ Convention, in Washoe City, Nevada—is painfully dull and routine. That helps: Ijourneyed to the place yesterday to see that the ovation was properly conducted. I traveled per stage. The Unreliable of the Union went also—for the purpose of distorting the facts. The weather was delightful. It snowed the entire day.”

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And so on. One of the odd things about humor is that it is possible—almost unavoidable for some—to provoke a smile, even when they are also trying provoke another emotion. This is Nora Ephron—screenwriter, film director and journalistic essayist— being very honest in Esquire magazine in 1972 about her (perhaps outdated) attitude toward having small breasts: As for men.

There were men who minded and let me know they minded. There were men who did not mind. In any case, I always minded.*

Humor, as a style, has one great and obvious advantage: it’s entertaining. That may help explain its increasing popularity on the Web. Twitter posts are usually improved by a bit of wit. After an earthquake in the Washington, D.C., area mild enough to joke about, Slate political correspondent John Dickenson tweeted: Everyone calm down. If this is an earthquake, on the east coast we're supposed to react ironically.”

And many blog posts try to start with—instead of the who, what, when, where and why—something clever. To get the following example you have to be familiar with Marlon Brando’s performance in the film On the Waterfront—or at least with Brando imitators: I coulda been a credenza.

The estate of legendary actor Marlon Brando is suing Florida-based Rooms to Go over the home retailer’s line of “Brando” furniture.

That rhythmically perfect pun is credited to David Knowles in the Daily.*° But humor is not just entertaining. It can be a way of saying things that can't be said as effectively with a straight face. Indeed, few forms of political journalism have been as effective as satire. And few satires are as renowned as one Jonathan Swift published in 1729. Here’s Swift’s title, which, as titles did in those days, runs long and explains a lot: A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public. Swift’s “Modest Proposal”— presented as a solution to Ireland’s severe economic problems—is that these children be sold and eaten:

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.

Swift's serious points come through in quick jabs: I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have best title to the children.

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And at the end he manages to work in a long paragraph of serious solutions. “Let no man talk to me of other expedients,’ he writes—sarcasm intact. Then, while pretending to dismiss those solutions, Swift proceeds to list them—what he actually thinks ought to be done to improve the situation of Ireland’s poor, including: “teaching landlords to have at least a degree of mercy towards their tenants.” What makes something funny? Now, there is a question almost guaranteed to produce answers that are unsatisfying and, worse, not funny. But let's try, with the understanding that it is very difficult for someone who is not very funny to learn to be funny or for someone who is to stop. Exaggeration certainly can get laughs: “thousands of people fainting, crying, copulating, trampling each other and fighting with broken whiskey bottles.” The absurd can get laughs: proposing to eat one-year-old children, for example. Precise details often make the absurd even more absurd—“in a fricassee, or a ragout”— and therefore more funny. The variety of irony that involves saying the opposite of what you think, sarcasm is another name for it, can be humorous: “The weather was delightful. It snowed the entire day.’ Saying, bluntly, what is not normally said—an unexpected honesty—is often bracing and revealing and funny. Nora Ephron devotes a paragraph to all the complaints women “with nice big breasts” have. And then Ephron responds: I have thought about their remarks, tried to put myself in their place, considered their point of view. I think they are full of shit.

I warned you that this discussion was not going to be all that useful. For humor clearly is about timing, about feel, about a quirky—often misanthropic, often somewhat perverse—view of the world. If the world has failed to present itself to you with sufficient grimness and perversity; if your parents, rather than doing “the kiss-goodnight thing,” merely kissed you goodnight; if you just don't get Chris Rock; your options may be limited. Read or watch lots of people who are funny. Hope a little of it rubs off. Go cover something particularly banal and see what you can make out of the half-hearted ovations. Then hope you can find someone sufficiently honest to tell you whether you have succeeded in being amusing or not. (This is an area in which a professor may be of use.) If not, youd best stay far away from events such as a Grand Bull Drivers’ Convention.

IMPASSIONED Let's not forget—in this sampler of possible journalistic styles—passion. Forgive me for quoting another of my colleagues: Suketu Mehta, author of a book, Maximum City, on Mumbai, India. Mehta is writing in the New York Times after a terrorist attack on that city: My bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai?

Ardent displays of emotion are not unheard of in the history of American journalism. Indeed, they were relatively common in the second half of the

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18th century—in the decades surrounding the American Revolution. This is the lead of an eyewitness account of the first battle of that revolution. It was written by Isaiah Thomas and appeared in his newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, on May 3, 1775: Americans! Forever bear in mind the BATTLE OF LEXINGTON!—where British troops, unmolested and unprovoked, wantonly and in a most inhuman manner, fired upon and killed a number of our countrymen, then robbed, ransacked and burnt their houses! Nor could the tears of defenseless women, some of whom were in the pains of childbirth, the cries of helpless babes, nor the prayers of old age, confined to beds of sickness, appease their thirst for blood!—or divert them from their design of MURDER and ROBBERY!

American journalism, however, spent some of the 19th century and most of the 20th trying to rid itself of such displays—in part for good reason: the opening paragraph of Thomas article is so colored by propaganda that it is almost entirely unreliable as a guide to what actually happened in Lexington that day. (The rest of his article is more useful.) Thomas, in other words, was doing what cable news hosts, radio talk show hosts and Internet bloggers too often do today: allowing his passionately held opinions to color his vision. As noted in the previous chapter,

that won't do.

.

But—if I can be allowed one more assault upon the cult of the even-handed, the “objective”—this doesn’t mean all emotion has to be excised from journalism. We don't want, in other words, to throw out the passion with the propaganda. This is a passage from Edward R. Murrow’ narration for that CBS documentary on migrant farmworkers, “Harvest of Shame.” The sentences are still short and direct, but they are deeply felt. In fact, it is safe to say that the patron saint of CBS News is in high dudgeon: The vegetables the migrants picked yesterday, move north swiftly on rails. Produce en route to the tables of America is refrigerated and carefully packed to prevent bruising. Cattle carried to market by federal regulation must be watered, fed and rested for five hours every twenty-eight hours. People—men, women and children—are carried to the fields of the north in journeys as long as four days and three nights. They often ride ten hours without stop for food or facilities.

Murrow’s passion here may cause him to find the most dramatic possible arrangement of these facts. Perhaps there are other possible arrangements. His passion finds its expression in a revealing, shocking analogy. Sometimes shock and outrage are useful in focusing our thoughts; sometimes they interfere with level-headed thinking. But Murrow has not distorted the facts in this passage. He is not hiding information. A view of the situation—perhaps not the only possible view—is clarified here. With propaganda such views are often muddled. Suketu Mehta’s lament for his city, Mumbai, is certainly a cri de coeur. The New York Times, still uncomfortable with this sort of thing, placed it on an opinion page for a reason. But Mehta knows that like any other element of journalism— any other style of journalism—passion must be controlled. He is, to begin with, honest about the fact that he is emotionally attached to Mumbai: “my .. . city.”

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He wails a little. He analyzes a lot. His piece is not blind; it is not unthinking. To the contrary, Mehta immediately channels his passion into a question: “Why do they go after Mumbai?” And the answers he comes up with are hardly propagandistic; indeed they are, in part, disturbing. Mehta suggests that “religious extremists” may despise this city—the financial and filmmaking capital of India—because of its fondness for “lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.’ This is not propaganda. It is interpretation. Perhaps there are other interpretations, but his is enlightening. And even when—in a final flight of passion—Mehta weighs in on how the terrorists might be resisted, his advice is multifaceted and worded in a way that makes it easy to see other sides to his argument: The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God's name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance;

work hard and party harder.

Impassioned journalism, in other words, does not have to be bullheaded. It does not even have to be enraged. It does have to be engaged. And it can work when the subject—like a murderous bombing or the mistreatment of some farmworkers—calls for engagement. This is a forceful way to demand that attention be paid. The great mid-20th-century New Yorker press critic A. J. Liebling once wrote, in another context, “I do not squander my moral courage on minor crises.” Tabloid newspapers and gossipy television programs too often squander their moral outrage upon run-of-the-mill criminals or predictable governmental snafus. But if a beginning journalist can locate a tale of woe or injustice—say among the disadvantaged in a neighborhood or even in a school system; if that tale or injustice checks out, stands up to scrutiny; if it proves in fact representative and significant (and, yes, that’s a lot of “if”s); then by all means experiment with this style of

journalism: unleash some modulated, searching passion! Thomas Paine certainly did, in the piece of journalism that may have done more to encourage the founding of the United States than any other, Common Sense: O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. — Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

Along with passion, Paine is employing here an extraordinary extended image—but that is a discussion for the next chapter.

CHAPTER

7

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Elevating: Finer Wordings

Here the book zooms in for a more detailed look at what makes for fluid, original, engaging, even gripping writing. This chapter features close, occasionally literary analyses of the prose of a number of distinguished journalists—Joan Didion, Gay Talese, Ernest Hemingway, Ernie Pyle, Walter Lippmann, Samantha Power, Tom Wolfe and Thomas Paine—along with three who have not appeared in earlier chapters: Margaret Fuller, Norman Mailer and Kenneth Tynan. The chapter also looks—in its efforts to uncover the secrets of good writing—at the narration of a documentary by Charles H. Ferguson, a blog post by Andrew Sullivan and a couple of tweets by Matthew Yglesias. Emerson and Aristotle are quoted.

[ is certainly possible to use uninteresting, workmanlike prose in journalism. But it is also possible to write beautifully: The Mormons settled this ominous country, and then they abandoned it but by the time they left the first orange tree had been planted and for the next hundred years the San Bernardino Valley would draw a kind of people who imagined they might live among the talismanic fruit and prosper in the dry air, people who brought with them Midwestern ways of building and cooking and praying and who tried to graft those ways upon the land. The graft took in curious ways. This is the California where it is possible to live and die without ever eating an artichoke, without ever meeting a Catholic or a Jew. This is the California where it is

easy to Dial-A-Devotion, but hard to buy a book. This is the country in which a belief in the literal interpretation of Genesis has slipped imperceptibly into a belief in the literal interpretation of Double Indemnity, the country of the teased hair and the Capris and the girls for whom all life’s promise comes down to a waltz-length white wedding dress and the birth of a Kimberly or a Sherry or a Debbi and a Tijuana

divorce and return to hairdressers’ school. “We were just crazy kids,’ they say without regret, and look to the future. The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past.'

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I CE This is from the second paragraph of Joan Didion’s “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” a 1966 magazine article about a murder in the San Bernardino Valley. (I also quoted from this paragraph in Chapter 4.) There's nothing about that murder in these sentences; there’s lots about the humans who live in that California valley. Didion the anthropologist is cynical, condescending, intolerant and unfair here. Oh, how she turns up her nose! Oh, those sweeping generalizations! But she is also insightful and thought provoking. She has a point about the awkward mating of Midwestern values and California—at least in the mid-20th century. Maybe she has a point, too, about a certain American, or Californian, inability to learn from the past. And Didion the writer dazzles in these sentences. This chapter will be about writing that, if not always dazzling, is at least impressive—writing that not only produces insights and understandings but aesthetic pleasure. Now that food is in sufficient supply for most, certainly not all, of us, the aesthetic pleasure offered by a finely prepared meal becomes increasingly valuable. As this book has been arguing, now that news is cheap and competition to sell it intense, journalists have to look for ways to distinguish themselves. They can do that through the quality of their writing. Journalists would be wise, therefore, to try to elevate their prose—whether that prose will appear in audio, with video, on a Web site, in a tweet, through an app or in a newspaper, magazine or book. Most journalists will not succeed in reaching Didion’s level. But, as long as they don’t get too pretentious about it, they will benefit from the attempt. It is not easy to learn to write well, let alone beautifully. Being sufficiently comfortable with grammar certainly helps—particularly when you are so comfortable that you can, where appropriate, break your high school English teacher's rules and deploy, as Didion does, six “and”s in one sentence. Reading a lot helps. Examining closely what you read helps. Practice helps. Writing a lot helps. Being really tough on what you write helps. And, perhaps paradoxically, confidence helps: a writer trying to get better may have to lose confidence for a while before achieving a new, more realistic, self-confidence. Finally, taking your writing seriously helps—everything you write. Walter Lippmann learned this lesson from his apprenticeship with Lincoln Steffens: “If 1 wrote a paragraph about a fire down the street, Lippmann says Steffens taught him, “I must write it with as much care as if that paragraph were going down in one of the anthologies.” My contribution to the effort to learn to write well, maybe beautifully, will include lots of nontraditional models (many of which have been collected in anthologies) to examine and study, along with some suggestions on how to think about and analyze those models. The goal: to encourage ambitious journalists to become more alert to language—its pitfalls and its potential. What, for example, makes Didion’s writing in the above sentences so strong? It has to do with the metaphor she borrows from the groves—grafting—and how she not only uses it to characterize this attempt to append the Midwest onto California but uses it to show that the attempt was ill fated: “the graft took in curious ways.’ It has to do with the sound of Didion’s words: the alliterative “waltz-length

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white wedding dress,” for example. It has to do, as it always does in good writing, with the music made by those words: Didion inserts a subtle internal rhyme by following “eating” with “meeting.” She creates a simple folk rhythm with “building and cooking and praying.” She establishes a mood of dread and desperation with words like “curious,” “ominous” and “abandoned. She sustains, too, a religious tone with “talismanic,” “praying” and her invocation of Genesis. Didion also demonstrates her abilities as a writer in her repetition of the words “literal interpretation,” which forces an example of film noir, Double Indemnity (featuring a plot similar to that of the murder in question), to stand beside the Bible. She demonstrates her artistry, too, in the way the final sentence in this passage builds toward two short words that encapsulate much of what Didion finds missing in this “curious” culture: “the past.” Perhaps Didion was not aware of any of the above. Probably she had in mind other considerations, which I have missed. I hope you have uncovered riches in her prose that I have overlooked. Writing isn’t a science. Readers, listeners experience it differently. Good writing is often the product as much of feel as of forethought. Still, if we are to become better writers, we need to discuss what makes for good writing. We need to share tips, guidelines—with the knowledge that there are, of course, no formulas for creating compelling, non-formulaic prose. And we need to discuss possible standards for evaluating what we have created—even if those standards will upon occasion be honored in the breach. For, as many accomplished writers will acknowledge, figuring out whether what you've written is any good may be the real key to writing well. You need to get a sense of when to keep a wording and when to throw it out—with the latter by far the more frequent conclusion. You will try to find the right wording. You will determine that you have failed. You will try again and fail again and try again. (This paragraph of mine alone has required many dozens of tries, many dozens of edits and rewrites.) That’s how it goes. If it ain't hard, it ain't good writing. No models or analyses I can offer will protect you against trying and failing. I hope they will, however, help you gain a better feel for language. I hope they will help you determine what wordings to hold on to and what to toss. And I would be pleased if the discussions here help you try and fail and try again with a little more understanding and skill, and at a somewhat higher level.

WORDS Coverage in the New York Times of the September 11th terrorist attacks ranked first on that list of the “Top Ten Works of the Journalism in the United States in the First Decade of the Twentieth Century.’ It included plenty of journalism of the sort in which this book believes, including the paper’s “Profiles of Grief”—a series of thousands of “brief, informal and impressionistic” sketches of the victims. These short reports on ordinary individuals, murdered by terrorists that day, manage to cover some of the profound moments, attitudes and, of course, emotions Chapter 4 said should more often be covered. They are also often very well written. This is

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the beginning of one of the initial profiles; it is written by Janny Scott, the reporter who came up with the idea for this series: Robert J. Mayo used to leave notes on the breakfast table for his 11-year-old son, Corbin. He worked an early shift as a deputy fire safety director at the World Trade Center, so he got up about 4 a.m. He would drink coffee, check the sports scores and include them in his note to Corbin. “I love you,” he might add. “Good luck on your test.”

The profile ends with this quote from Mayo’s wife: “I would kill for a few of those notes now.” Coverage of September 11th in the New York Times also, however, featured prominently a word that this book believes not only to have been badly chosen but—and I am about to level what is for journalists a very serious charges—wrong. The journalists who grace these chapters not only take accuracy very seriously; they take words very seriously—each word. Here is the lead paragraph of the lead story in the New York Times on September 12, 2001: Hijackers rammed jetliners into each of New York’s World Trade Center towers yesterday, toppling both in a hellish storm of ash, glass, smoke and leaping victims, while a third jetliner crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia. There was no official count, but President Bush said thousands had perished, and in the im-

mediate aftermath the calamity was already being ranked the worst and most audacious terror attack in American history.

To topple is to make something fall over—like a domino. The World Trade Center towers collapsed down upon themselves. They did not topple. The Times was wrong. Journalism requires precision: precision in reporting but also precision in lan-

guage. That means words—all the words journalists use—must be well chosen. That means good journalists, like good poets or novelists, spend a great deal of time worrying about their words. On September 11th, the twin towers of the World Trade Center did not tumble. They were not smashed. They did not precisely fail, drop, cave in, vaporize or implode. And they did not topple; they were not toppled. There is no good writing that does not involve questioning the bona fides of words—lots of words. How do you figure out which to reject? To begin with, by thinking clearly about what happened and, to say the obvious, determining whether those words do or do not accurately express what happened. “What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word and not the other way around,’ states George Orwell in his important 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language.”* Thesauruses present lists of words from which a meaning might make its selection. Dictionaries help eliminate those that fail to do the meaning’s bidding. There is never any shame in consulting one of these sources. The World Trade Center towers, an hour or two after they were “rammed” by those “jetliners,” did in some sense fall down—‘“lose an upright position suddenly,’ as one Web dictionary puts it. They did, in a sense, disintegrate—“break

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into fragments, lose wholeness.” They did in some sense crumble—they were “reduced to tiny bits.” These words are not wrong. But being not wrong is not enough. Fall down sounds too much like a kids’ game: it doesn’t have sufficient weight for an event of this gravity. Disintegrate implies a more thorough process— not one that produces rubble as well as dust. Crumble brings to mind cookies. Collapse—to “fall suddenly”—is better but seems too ordinary a word for what happened: the tone is still not quite right. And all these terms seem too passive, as if the towers fell or fell apart on their own. Along with accuracy, weight, tone and connotation, the ‘best writers judge words by their sound: there is indeed, to return to Didion’s sentences, a Midwestern plainness in the way “building and cooking and praying” reads. The best writers judge words, too, by the mood they help create: “curious,” “talismanic.” And they judge words, too, by their originality. Originality has to be applied carefully in any form of writing. Employ too original a vocabulary and you deprive your audience of the touchstones needed to figure out what you're saying. When Didion calls California, with sarcasm dripping, “the golden land,’ she is playing off of a familiar designation for the state. That's fine. Touchstones—things to play off of—are necessary. But the term “golden state,” itself, had Didion used it in that spot, would have been overly familiar. The best writers avoid such clichés. They even try to avoid almost clichés: they resist writing, for example, “plain-spoken, God-fearing Midwesterners.” Cliché dodging is an important maneuver in good writing.

The main verb used in that Times lead—“rammed,” “to strike something with great force”-——is more original than “crashed,” which is then used for the plane that hit the Pentagon. Familiar words are easy to pass over. Unexpected words—if intelligible, if correct—intrigue us and make us think. They have more power. “Toppling” is, to be sure, an original word in this context, but it fails a word's first and most important test.

“No man can write well who thinks there is any choice of words for him,’ insists the 19th-century American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was remarkably adept at deploying words himself. “ . . In writing there is always a right word, and every other than that is wrong,” Emerson overstates the case a little. Sometimes more than one word will seem right. Sometimes no word will be perfect for the job. But the skilled writer, whose professional life necessarily is spent fending off swarms of not-quite-right words, likely understands what Emerson means. The word the Times should have used for what those large airplanes did to the towers of the World Trade Center is, in my opinion, destroying. “Hijackers rammed jetliners into each of New York’s World Trade Center towers yesterday, destroying both...” It is not perfect. It is a rather unoriginal, general word, which could also apply to destruction by explosion or fire. But its tone, connotations and weight are appropriate. It is not a cliché. It is accurate. And the alternatives are all flawed. 22* I propose destroying as the “right word. * Those who disagree with my suggestion that “toppling” should be replaced by “destroying” might post their arguments and alternatives on this book’s Web site: www.oup.com/us/stephens.

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SENTENCES And as the words are being chosen, it is also necessary to consider the sentences in which they reside—a consideration that may require (no one said this would be easy) rethinking some of those words. Does the sentence read smoothly? Is its meaning clear? Is it efficient, to the point, concise? This last standard, concision, has become deeply embedded in the journalist's ethos. Among director and co-producer Fred Friendly’s contributions to the CBS documentary “Harvest of Shame” was the repeated instruction to “tighten it up,” according to film editor John Schultz.° You could make a case that concision is somewhat less important in journalism now because of the endless supply of pages available on the Web. But you could also make a case that tightening writing up is more important as all those pages compete for our time. Here's a stronger argument for concision: most journalists initially cringe when someone tells them that their writing—or audio or video—would benefit from a little cutting. But, in my experience, many will in the end concede that their work has benefited from the elimination of weaker elements. Getting sentences concise, efficient, clear and smooth is a task, an endlessly difficult task, that fills quite a few of the hours of the ambitious journalist’s day. “MayI die like a dog rather than hurry by a single second a sentence that isn't ripe,” exclaimed the French novelist Gustave Flaubert.’ I concede that Flaubert, who spent five years in his mother’s house writing Madame Bovary, wasn't writing on deadline. And the penalty he is prepared to impose upon himself seems a bit stiff. But the sentiment here is something good journalists ought to be able to understand: sentences do have to be worked until they are right or “ripe This sentence, about one of President-elect Obama's decisions during the 2008 financial crisis, is not concise, efficient, clear or smooth: Timothy Geithner, president of and one of the key players in the on the dollar for its bets against Obama, whose mother had once

the New York Federal Reserve during the crisis decision to pay Goldman Sachs a hundred cents mortgages, was chosen as Treasury secretary by worked in a program run by Geithner’s father.

The long delay before the verb (“was chosen’) follows its subject (“Geithner”)

breaks the flow of this sentence and makes it harder to follow. The also hindered by the use of the passive voice. (Obama, who is doing ing, ought to be the subject.) And the aside about their parents, while is beside the point here, since no one is alleging that it influenced

sentence is the choosof interest, Geithner’s

nomination.

This is how that sentence—actually it was done as two sentences—appeared in the narration to Charles H. Ferguson’s angry documentary on the financial crisis, Inside Job: Obama chose Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. Geithner was the president of the New York Federal Reserve during the crisis, and one of the key players in the decision to pay Goldman Sachs a hundred cents on the dollar for its bets against mortgages.®

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Gay Talese.

Splitting one long sentence into two shorter sentences is often a step in the direction of right: shorter is often clearer. But is it always better? Gay Talese has been among the few renowned late-20th- and early-21st-century journalists who dares allow his sentences to linger. He does so proudly. Talese’s father was a tailor. The son wears fine, formal, three-piece suits and crafts fine, formal, multi-part sentences. Here are the three sentences that form the first paragraph of one Talese’s most respected magazine articles—respected in part because it is a profile, published in Esquire magazine in 1966, accomplished without speaking with the person being profiled: Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something. But he said nothing; he had been silent during much of the evening, except now in this private club in Beverly Hills he seemed even more distant, staring out through the smoke and semidarkness into a large room beyond the bar where dozens of young couples sat huddled around

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small tables or twisted in the center of the floor to the clamorous clang of folk-rock music blaring from the stereo. The two blondes knew, as did Sinatra's four male friends who stood nearby, that it was a bad idea to force conversation upon him when he was in this mood of sullen silence, a mood that had hardly been uncommon during this first week of November, a month before his fiftieth birthday. These three stately, long (37-, 70- and 52-word) sentences—with

clauses

modifying clauses, interjections interrupting interjections—do flow. They are not concise in the sense of avoiding digressions; they are concise in that they don't waste words. You could rearrange them: subtract some commas, add some periods. You cant easily edit out words without losing meanings. Talese’s sentences are to the point—if the point is understood to be describing a complex scene, not making a simple observation. His sentences are not lean, but they are ripe. What do sentences of this length have to offer journalism? Fullness, for one thing, also color and precision; for each of those clauses or interjections further expounds, further explicates, further clarifies: Sinatra has been silent; seems distant; stares through smoke, into semi-darkness; nearby are young couples; some dance; folk-rock blares. The space in front of and in back of all those commas can be filled, in other words, with additions, elucidations, qualifications. Long sentences, while they might take a bit more concentration to read, do, the point is, have their charms. When Talese paints a scene, his canvas is wide and rich in detail. And that’s something. Maybe it’s even enough to inspire new journalists to experiment with this old-fashioned style—to, if 1 can be permitted a long sentence of my own, have a go at describing, in abundant detail, say, a person embedded in a scene, maybe a policewoman or policeman in a crowd or an usher at a game, with that individual’s behavior and personality examined in clause upon clause, interjection upon interjection, none redundant, none wasted, each, rather, expanding our picture or expanding our understanding. On the other hand, there’s Ernest Hemingway. Let’s return to his simple, direct style for a moment to make a simple, direct point: his sentences are often very short. The subject of this passage, from a travel article written for the Toronto Star in 1923, is how to get the trout “you” have caught in Switzerland properly cooked: You come up from the stream to a chalet and ask them if they know how to cook blue trout. If they don't, you walk on a way. If they do, you sit down on the porch with the goats and the children and wait. Your nose will tell you when the trout are boiling. Then after a little while you will hear a pop. That is the Sion being uncorked. Then the woman

of the chalet will come to the door and say, “It is

prepared, Monsieur.”

Hemingway saw considerable value—and maybe even a way to burnish his no-nonsense, man’s-man reputation—in pruning or chopping the lush sentences that were still common in his day. He wasn’t alone and he wasn’t the first,!° but

Hemingway made a name for himself—quite a large name—by simplifying phrasings, weeding out adjectives and adverbs. He was among those who realized that it is possible, without losing a lot of detail, to give most of those clauses or interjections a sentence of their own—a strategy with which we all might want to

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experiment. The rule was basically one or, with the assistance of an “and? two thoughts per sentence. Very short is something sentences certainly might want to be. The truth is they're being that with great frequency nowadays. Hemingway’s style looks a lot like what is shaping up—minus the second person—as our style. His style looks a lot, to begin with, like the style—simple, concise, to the point—that tends to be used in audio or video journalism. Here, for a rather extreme example, is Edward R. Murrow, once again reporting from London for CBS Radio early in World War II: Suddenly all the lights crashed off and a blackness fell right to the ground. It grew cold. We covered ourselves with hay. The shrapnel clicked as it hit the concrete road nearby. And still the German bombers came.!!

And these short sentences are from the narration of that documentary on the financial crisis, Charles H. Ferguson's Inside Job. It won an Academy Award for 2010: This crisis was not an accident. It was caused by an out-of-control industry. Since the 1980s, the rise of the U.S. financial sector has led to a series of increasingly severe financial crises. Each crisis has caused more damage, while the industry has made more and more money.”

One argument for the use of short sentences on radio and television has been that their audiences can only hear sentences once, so those sentences have to be extra clear, extra easy to understand. There was no audio or visual version of rereading. Now, with digital technologies, there is: listeners and viewers can much more easily rewind and replay. But, based on our current understanding of these media, it still seems wise not to encourage audiences to stop the flow of a piece and push rewind. It still seems wise to keep sentences short and direct. That’s also a favor to the person who has to read those sentences out loud—if they are to be read out loud, not just flashed on screen: it is difficult to get catch a breath while enunciating sentences that go on and on. (Try it with Talese’s.) But these explanations for the triumph of morsel-length sentences are not sufficient. For sentences displayed on screen on the Web—not, in other words, read aloud—also tend to be compact, even forgetting Twitter. Here one of the more successful of our bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, deploys four quite compact sentences in support of the Bush administration's treatment of suspected terrorists. This was early in the Bush administration (Sullivan later withdrew his support) and early in the history of blogging—in 2002: These terrorists are not soldiers. They are beneath such an honorific. They are not even criminals. In that respect, Dick Cheney’s and Donald Rumsfeld’s contempt for the whines of those complaining about poor treatment is fully justified.’

The Web, like video, is full of distractions. Its audiences are skittish and impatient. That’s one reason it, like video, wants to keep words simple and direct. The influence of Twitter, texting and instant messaging is another reason. We've gotten

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adept at saying a lot with a few words, even a few characters. We've also gotten used to it. Simple and direct are also good for intelligibility as we surf about. ’'m not going to say that those three long sentences from Gay Talese are unclear, but certainly there are advantages for the harried reader in finding the verb near the subject and not having to deal with a lot of digressions. And theres one more reason why the Web seems to want to get to the point: taste. We live in a time when one standard for quality writing seems to predominate. And that standard, the prevailing aesthetic of our era, is: short and snappy. We've spent a lot of time on the merits of short; perhaps we should devote a few paragraphs to snappy. This pair of sentences from Samantha Power, quoted in Chapter 2, ends with some snap: Incongruously, female flight attendants were on board, as was a box of Thuraya satellite phones and a cooler filled with soft drinks. The flight attendants and the cooler made the return journey; the phones did not.

That’s not, as we say, laugh-out-loud funny. But it is clever—in the way it offhandedly but effectively points out that the people behind this military flight into Darfur were doing some sort of business involving satellite phones. And the little, almost Hemingwayesque, independent clause at the end of the second sentence is tightly written. Clever plus tight equals snappy (which, I realize, makes short and snappy a bit redundant). You could come up with a thousand other specimens of clever-plus-tight writing just by perusing a day’s worth of Web sites, videos, newspapers or magazines—not to mention tweets.

After an Arizona congresswoman was shot, some began questioning the occasionally violent tone of political rhetoric in the United States. Others bristled at the criticism. That's when, in January 2011, blogger Matthew Yglesias, @mattyglesias, posted the following on Twitter: Free speech guarantees the right to engage in irresponsible political rhetoric; doesn't guarantee freedom from being criticized for it."

What explains our affection for snappy? No doubt it plays to our cynical, ironic, Daily Show way of looking at the world. There’s some irony, if not cynicism, in Yglesias’ tweet. Snappy is also entertaining, in an era when we expect to be entertained. We often get a chuckle out of it. Here’s Yglesias, now writing and tweeting for the online magazine Slate, in January 2012: Quality of arguments about American decline are on the decline...

Yglesias includes, as posts on Twitter should, a link: in this case making that point, not demonstrating it. However, the almost universal inclination toward the concise and clever in journalism ought to start the adventurous journalist thinking. Might a reputation be burnished today by challenging that prevailing aesthetic—by allowing sentences a longer leash, by maintaining (difficult as this is to imagine nowadays) an audacious seriousness? Might not long, more serious sentences be, at least, another tool for which journalistic writers might reach upon occasion? The Web,

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after all, is still just a baby by historical standards. It is not yet clear that short and snappy will continue to dominate it. (It is certainly not clear that the upside-down, reverse-chronological order of the blog or the 140-character limit of the tweet will continue to dominate the digital world.) This is another reason to experiment with alternative approaches. Sentences, of course, are characterized by more than just their length, their cleverness, their clarity, smoothness, efficiency and conciseness. Many of the other important qualities they—and paragraphs, too—might want to possess can be placed under one heading. It is the title of the next section.

MUSIC World War II again. Ernie Pyle again. Those 110 words again: four very short paragraphs that together form my all-time favorite lead: Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges. And standing there, I want to tell somebody who had never seen it how London looked on a certain night in the holiday season of the year 1940. For on that night this old, old city—even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it—was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.’°

There are a few reasons why these four short paragraphs stand out for me among all the fine paragraphs the dozens of illustrious journalists mentioned in this book have written, among all the hundreds of thousands of impressive paragraphs journalists wrote about the Second World War, among all the thousands of paragraphs Pyle himself wrote on that war—paragraphs that would help earn him ninth place on that list of the “Top Hundred Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century.” I’ve discussed in Chapter 1 Pyle’s use of an unexpected perspective and his honesty. Those help make this groundbreaking journalism. Now I want to call attention to Pyle’s use of language. That helps

make this art. Aristotle insists, if Imay shift his ancient pronouncement into a radically different context, that tragedy should be written in “language embellished,” which he defines as “language into which rhythm, ‘harmony’ and song enter.”"° I believe Pyle here is employing a kind of “language embellished” Indeed, I hear these short paragraphs of his as I might hear a sonata or, better, since I dont know that much about sonatas, as I might hear a guitar solo. Pyle’s writing, like all great writing, sets a mood, has rhythm, even reveals hints of melody. I’m not great at expressing what I love about the playing of Jimi Hendrix, Mike Stern or Bill Frisell. Let's see if I can do better with Ernie Pyle’s music. But first a warning: in an effort to describe the ineffable I’m going to speculate a lot, read into things a lot. These next

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four paragraphs of what is in essence literary analysis will be the least concrete, potentially most pretentious paragraphs in this book. Let’s have a go, to begin with, at mood. Much of Pyle’s piece takes place in some imagined, almost fairytale-like “someday”’—perhaps his own version of “once upon a time.” The world is “odd; the vista “moonlit, the river “silver,” its bridges “dark”; fires burn. The mood is, as it often is in Pyle’s best work, dreamlike. It offers, as dreams often do, a glimpse of great loveliness but also shame. Pyle is telling us—slowly, softly—of a magical, topsy-turvy world in which bombs are beautiful. And his initial sentences, while not overlong, are unhurried and understated. That is an essential element of their music. Try to read them fast. He slows you. Try to read them loud. He hushes you. The first sentence flows, like the tame river it mentions, softly, on and on—through a comma-less “when” clause, through two “ands and a few prepositional phrases. The second sentence continues Pyle’s languid, dreamy drift through the Battle of Britain, the bombing of London: commencing with yet another “and,” ending with the gentle rise and fall of three more prepositional phrases. Pyle has written the city quiet. He has written a calm. This is normally, in such tales, when the wolf arrives. The first word of Pyle’s third sentence, although it is only three letters long, is a favorite of mine. With that “for” we shift from anticipation to revelation: we are ready to learn what Pyle will want to tell “someone.” A lesser musician would throw in some power chords at this moment, a drum roll. A lesser journalist would choose this occasion to reiterate what we already know: that the German planes are unrelenting, that the British civilians possess stiff upper lips. But Pyle’s unassuming “for” signals that we will be given something more subtle, more original, more complex. He is still speaking slowly, quietly, but we can begin to make out kinds of harmony: the bass notes of that “old, old? the higher register reached by that series of soft “s” sounds. Then into this musical fairytale steps: a princess in wolf’s clothing. Her theme: the melodic word “beautiful.” This is a tale about death, of course, but it is also, we are learning, about unearthly beauty—and about their offspring: mortification. The fourth sentence, the allegro movement (if Imay switch back to the sonata), is the shortest of them, composed of the sharpest words: “tinged, “stabbed” —you can read a little louder now—and then the cymbal crash that brings the passage to its end: “fire.” Pyle’s piper has led us to the beautiful flames. End of literary analysis. Must you engage in such potentially pretentious thinking before you write? No. There's a limit to how much you can plot out the sound

of a piece in advance,

anyway.

These considerations—mood,

rhythm,

tempo—are mostly a matter of feel, anyway. The purpose of the above discussion is, rather, to make you sensitive to such considerations—to open your ears to them. For it is necessary, if you want to write well, to learn to hear as you write: to hear mood, rhythm, tempo; to hear language—just as you have to learn to hear a foreign language if you want to speak it or to hear a tune if you want to sing it.

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Words, sentences, paragraphs should sound in your mind, at least, as you try them, as you evaluate them. Words, sentences, paragraphs might be read out loud, if you are writing someplace where that will not prove too embarrassing. Good writers are prone to moving their lips. And there are some tricks you can learn to improve the likelihood that what you hear of your own writing will be pleasing. One is balance. Let’s return to a sentence from Chapter 5, written by Walter Lippmann in 1914. It begins, “Every sane person knows that it is a greater thing . . ” Three pairs of greater and lesser things then follow: to build a city than to bombard it,

to plough a field than to trample it, to serve mankind than to conquer it.

Can you hear how balanced these phrases sound? There's a reason for that. Count the syllables on either side of the “than’s. “To build a city” has five syllables, all the others four. Did young Walter Lippmann actually do the arithmetic? Probably not, but he must have heard the rhythm. Perhaps, for example, he used the verb “bombard” rather than.“bomb” because it sounded more balanced. Should you count syllables? Why not? It may, if you listen, help you develop your ear. An additional lesson lurks in that precisely balanced sentence of Lippmann: the lesson that strong verbs—“bombard, “plough,” “trample,” “conquer” —give writing its propulsion, its backbeat. Note how much worse Lippmann’s sentence would sound with less dynamic and interesting verbs: “Every sane person has the knowledge that it is better for cities to be in the process of construction than it is for them to be experiencing bombardment.’ Okay, I exaggerate: that was really terrible. And this emphasis on verbs shouldn't make us forget that good writing should feature dynamic and interesting nouns, adverbs and adjectives, too. But it is true that good writers have a special fondness for muscular verbs. “The bicycle went down the street rapidly” is usually worse than “the bicycle raced down the street.” Suggestion: Try to keep the action in the verbs. Another trick is to end a sentence, paragraph or passage with a strong, consequential word: It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.

This would be a weaker sentence with a weaker, less significant word at the end: London was ringed and stabbed with fire that night.

Is it wise to think about the word with which your sentence or your paragraph ends? It may be—at least until your ear is tuned to the point where, without thinking about it, you hear it. The music of a paragraph also often improves if you mix sentences of different lengths. Gay Talese is not, of course, an aficionado of the short sentence. But it is

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too powerful a tool for him to forgo completely. Here is a fuller version of two sentences quoted in Chapter 4—a very long one (with 39 words between subject and verb!), then a very short one: Bill Bonanno, a tall, heavy, dark-haired man of thirty-one whose crew cut and

button-down shirt suggested the college student that he had been in the 1950s but whose moustache had been grown recently to help conceal his identity, sat in a sparsely furnished apartment in Queens listening intently as the telephone rang. But he did not answer it.!”

Talese plays the same music, with different words, in the lead quoted earlier in this chapter. This time, though, the role of a short sentence is played by a fourword independent clause: Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something. But he said nothing; . . .

In the excerpt that begins this chapter, Joan Didion starts with a 78-word sentence but then immediately begins picking up the pace, with a 6-word sentence. Again, there is no formula for this. But sentence length—particularly the rhythmic value of a short sentence—is something else writers might keep in mind as they struggle to get their music right.

IMAGERY Let’s return to Samantha Power's extraordinary simile from Chapter 2: Our journey across the inhospitable terrain of northern Sudan resembled a virtual tour of the solar system: we saw the soft yellow powder of Earth’s great deserts; the red-rock mounds of Mars; the volcanic gravel of Venus; the deep gray craters and gullies of Mercury.

We think through comparisons, so an image like this can help us think—help us understand both how varied the terrain in northern Sudan can be and how unearthly some of it can seem. But an image of this quality also accomplishes something else, something mentioned briefly in the above section, something journalists don't talk about much: it helps journalistic writing approach the level of art. A quick warning, however, before we explore those artistic possibilities: beware mixed metaphors or similes, where you combine two incompatible images and thus ask readers to envision something impossible, like the stock market rocketing to a new high-water mark. The possibilities of the use of (non-mixed) imagery are not exhausted by the example from Samantha Power. She has made an enlightening comparison. She has presented us with some remarkably well-thought-out and attractive language. But her image, once it has made its point, does not go anywhere. I have two examples of images that don't just sit there looking pretty and intelligent but that, once we accept them, can lift us to new understandings.

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Margaret Fuller.

The first is from an essay Margaret Fuller, a journalist and critic in the United States in the first half of the 19th century, wrote on how Americans react when they visit Europe. She distinguishes a few different categories of American. Here the least sophisticated: With his great clumsy hands, only fitted to work on a steam engine, he seizes the old Cremona violin, makes it shriek with anguish in his grasp...

A powerful, if condescending, image—European culture as a fine violin, of which this practical but uncultured traveler is not equipped to make use. But Fuller, a master of the metaphor, isn't finished with this image. She then has this American archetype declare: He thought it was all humbug before he came and now he knows it; that there is not really any music in these old things; that the frogs in one of our swamps make much finer, for they are young and alive."®

Her image does not just describe—colorfully, creatively—a situation; she does not just present her image to us and move on. Instead, she sticks with the image,

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explores its implication and provides us, thereby, with an additional lesson: that a traveler’s inability to understand can quickly lead to a readiness to condemn. My second example is even older. It ended the previous chapter, where it was used to demonstrate the capabilities of impassioned writing. It begins: O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!

Rousing! But there may be more glory in the image that follows in this passage from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense than in that passionate exhortation: Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. — Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart.

So we have “Freedom” personified as a refugee—“hunted;’ “expelled”; “Freedom” not as something Paine’s audience, just beginning to imagine themselves “Americans, might desire but as something his audience must rescue.

“O! receive the fugitive,” Thomas Paine writes—his rhetoric soaring! his music reaching a crescendo! his image going places! a new nation aborning! And Paine has not exhausted his conceit in beseeching America to welcome “Freedom”; he has another half sentence with which to astound us. O! what a melding of journalism, politics and art this will be! Paine has crafted an image sturdy enough to carry his readers into the future and, in so doing, lift them to one more understanding. For Tom Paine’s image insists—presciently— that “Freedom” will not be alone in journeying to this side of the Atlantic: it will be followed by the oppressed of the earth. Here is the final sentence of Paine’s passage in full: O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

VOICE Many, perhaps most of this book’s examples have been written in the third person: “But he said nothing . ..”; “We were just crazy kids; they say...” Joan Didion uses the word I 37 times in her story but always in quotes, never to refer to herself. Some of the authors whose work is cited here do, however, permit themselves to enter their stories using the first person—“I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony”—or the first-person plural—“Our journey across the inhospitable terrain of northern Sudan. . ” In his journalistic account of a protest march against the Vietnam War, Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer creates a hybrid: a third-person version of the first person. He refers to himself in the book as “Mailer” And, of course, one writer

cited here in particular has specialized in a second-person version of the first person: “You come up from the stream to a chalet and ask them if they know how to cook blue trout.” Journalism books have long had a preference among these various persons: they have favored the third—a story filled with he, she, they, him, her and them,

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but, except in quotations marks, no I, me, we, us or you. That is in large part because the third person lends itself to something else they have favored: detachment. This journalism book wont express such a preference. These chapters have included plenty of examples of great third-person reporting and writing with no references to the person who reported and wrote: beginning with John Hersey’s Hiroshima. But the third person, as the highly judgmental Didion certainly demonstrates, is not always so detached, anyway. And this book has not joined in the traditional adoration of detachment. Indeed, this book recognizes—okay, I recognize—an honesty in the person responsible for the language and direction of a story actually putting in an appearance in that story. For many journalists (myself included) that shortest, skinniest of words remains among the most difficult to type. It is not supposed to be about me, let alone I. Except it often, at least in part, is—journalists not being automatons. If I played a role or had an adventure, as Samantha Power certainly did; if I’s perspective is clearly unusual, clearly I’s own, as Ernie Pyle’s certainly was; and, of course, if I’s presence influenced events in any way (as Ted Conover explained back in Chapter 2); then by all means invite J into the story. With the J the story’s narrator reveals her- or himself. Narrator may seem an odd term to apply to journalism. Most stories-do not reference anyone who might qualify as a storyteller. But the word narrator does have the virtue of getting us thinking about the persona the author is adopting in writing the story. That's a little easier when this persona gets a name, I, and becomes a character in the story. Then the question becomes what sort of character this J is . Usually, the narrator is a calm, unassuming presence about whom not much is known—not, in other words, a particularly interesting or well-realized character. The J in Samantha Power's New Yorker article on Darfur is mostly posing questions, some of them tough, or embarking on trips, some of them brave. But we don’t get answers to such basic questions of our own as why she went to Darfur and whether—as she snuck across the border, say—she was afraid. Ernie Pyle, in that discussion of the beauty of fires around London, presents himself as romantic, somewhat abashed and not much else. Some writers do themselves more justice. The you in Hemingway’ articles is predictably competent, knowing and tough, but is also capable of making a mistake. Norman Mailer, though not known for self-doubt, is even more revealing about his main character: Mailer as an intellectual always had something of the usurper about him— something in his voice revealed that he likely knew less than he pretended.”

When the first person (or Mailer’s first-third hybrid) can lead to disclosures like that, it is indeed plumbing new levels of honesty. Hunter Thompson also includes some revelations at his persona’s expense. We learn a lot about him as a character and, therefore, as a narrator—some of it exaggerated. We learn enough not to trust him. Thompson’ is the classic unreliable narrator. “Voice” is the perspective from which a story speaks. Person plays a role in establishing voice. So does our sense of the narrator: Is the narrator to be omniscient

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(which is common)? Is the narrator to be unreliable (very rare and, to Thompson's

credit, very difficult)? Or, is he or she to learn along with the reader (not quite so rare)? In a piece on the Spanish Civil War that has been quoted in earlier chapters, Hemingway lets us watch as his skepticism about the story told by an unlikely looking American volunteer is proven wrong: What Jay Raven, the social worker from Pittsburgh with no military training, had told me was true. This is a strange new kind of war where you learn just as much as you are able to believe.

Hemingway's not, in the end, omniscient narrator takes a lesson, which is an effective way of helping us learn. Most traditional journalistic reports feature a narrator sufficiently omniscient to know all the independently verifiable facts but not to know what is going on in people's heads—the “intracranial” remains terra incognita. Such narrators speak, as you might expect someone so wise and impersonal to speak, in a temperate,

even-toned voice: “Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti died in the electric chair early this morning . . ” No overt emotion. No overt outrage or satisfaction. Few doubts about the limits of what it is possible to. know. Indeed, there are echoes in that “inverted pyramid” story of the widely disparaged but widely used “voice of God”—looking down on human machinations and tragedies from on high: To the last they protested their innocence, and the efforts of many who believed them guiltless proved futile, although they fought a legal and extra legal battle unprecedented in the history of American jurisprudence.

This “voice of God” has long been at home in television news, with its toofamiliar mix of “cover shots,’ sound-bites, stand-up and narration: “By the time firefighters arrived . . ” In a fact-based art form certainly there’s a place for narrators who know a lot of those facts. But there are also other, often more interesting ways to tell a story— other, stronger, more surprising voices a writer might adopt. These can work in the third person as well as the first. The secret is usually to have a lively and compelling point of view. Joan Didion doesn't mention herself in her account of that murder in the San

Bernardino Valley, but she surely is a presence in it. Her description of the street where, the jury decided, that murder took place says, perhaps, less about Banyan Street than about our unmentioned observer: Like so much of this country, Banyan suggests something curious and unnatural. The lemon groves are sunken, down a three- or four-foot retaining wall, so that one looks directly into their dense foliage, too lush, unsettlingly glossy, the greenery of nightmare.”

Not everyone, shall we say, would share Didion’s view that lemon trees are nightmarish. Not everyone would be so dismissive of Kimberlys, Sherrys and those who attend “hairdressers’ school?” Didion has one heck of a voice—knowing (not unusual), judgmental (not so unusual), irritable and dismissive (quite unusual) and very, very wise. Her story is

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animated by a potent point of view. And we're intrigued as we might be when someone with a strong mind, strong opinions and a strong personality enters the room. Joan Didion’s writing is not only lyrical, it is charismatic. Gay Talese’s language may be somewhat less likely to turn heads. It’s more understated than Didion’s. But his voice, too, is distinct and audible: formal, precise, measured— even when writing about a Mafioso or sex. Video, too, can have a voice—through lighting, editing, framing, as well as a narration or lack of narration. Edward R. Murrow’s documentaries end up sounding powerful, poetic, clipped—like Edward R. Murrow. But Frederick Wiseman’s cinéma vérité documentaries—although we never hear him speak or hear any words he has written—all have a distinctive voice, too: a flat, open, endlessly curious voice. And stories can have more than one voice. Tom Wolfe, in particular, is skilled at assuming the cadence, vocabulary and way of thinking of his characters for a paragraph or longer. Here, as excerpted in Chapter 4, is Wolfe doing the voice— the internal, terrified voice—of Phil Spector, as he sits on a plane. The plane breaks in two on takeoff and everybody in the front half comes rushing toward Phil Spector in a gush of bodies in a thick orange—napalm! No, it happens aloft; there is a long rip in the side of the plané, it just rips, he can see the top ripping, folding back in sick curds, like a sick Dali egg, and Phil Spector goes sailing through the rip, dark, freezing.”

This, you should note, is not a quotation. It is written in the third person. But Wolfe, using some of Spector’s words and some of his own, is trying to give us a sense of how the world looks from inside Spector's head. He is letting us see from Spector’s point of view. That’s a Rich Little-level use of voice. Should you try to recreate the voices of your characters? It might be interesting to try. But the more important question is probably whether your writing should aim to have a strong voice of its own—your voice, in the sense that Joan Didion has her voice. That might indeed be something to aspire to. Iwouldn't rush into it, however: it takes time to figure out how you want to write. It takes time, too, to figure out who you are—as a person and a journalist. And you have to have control not only of your wordings but of style and tone to make this sort of thing work. But I would experiment with voice. One possibility is to try on possible voices as the previous chapter suggested trying on possible styles. Go report on a labor dispute, an antiques auction or a Civil War re-enactors event, and attempt to write a paragraph in Didion’s voice and another in Hemingway’s or in the all-knowing “voice of God.” Or have a go at writing in your own voice. Are you cynical, ironic, emotional, self-effacing, aggressive? Pick a way of looking at the world—from this list or not—and maybe, for the sake of the experiment, pump it up a bit (the voice, not, of course, the facts). Didion’s San Bernardino Valley—filled with nightmarish lemon trees, where “no one remembers the past”—is hardly the only San Bernardino Valley. But it is a fascinating and revealing take on that part of the world—one of the many possible revealing takes. A voice emanating from a skilled journalist can help engage, can help illuminate. How something is said, in other words, can add to what is being said.

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CHALLENGING Clarity is an important goal in journalism: You're trying to recount; youre trying to explain; youre trying to make a point. Of course, you want to be clear. But it can be overdone. The case can be made that in some American journalism a hyper-clarity has become an obsession. You don't want to be so concerned with making yourself clear that you are afraid of saying anything difficult or complicated. Indeed, one of the arguments of this book is that journalists might challenge their audiences more. It is an argument well made in another context by the journalist, historian and technology maven Steven Johnson in his book, Everything Bad Is Good for You. Here’s some background. Education rates have skyrocketed in the past 70 years— in the United States and around the world. New forms of communications have brought new sophistication to once isolated areas. Johnson’s thesis is that, despite what most critics think, our media have actually risen to this challenge and gotten smarter. Even videogames: Johnson insists that they can provide an intense cognitive workout. Even television: Johnson notes that many TV shows—dramas, situation comedies—have grown more complex over the decades, with more intricate plots, which spill over from episode to episode, even from season to season. Johnson does not apply the lesson in all this to journalism. We might. Journalism, too, might want to grow with its audiences and offer them more stimulating, more difficult material. As I have maintained in the first four chapters of this book, journalism ought to report on more difficult subjects and report on them more deeply. It ought to present wiser analyses of those subjects, as Chapter 5 argues. And it is the purpose of these final three chapters, particularly this chapter and particularly this section, to suggest that journalism ought to raise the level of its writing. Journalists long lived in fear of using words some members of their audience might not immediately understand. That significantly diminished the vocabulary available to them—and to what end? Although she is writing about a murder for a popular magazine, in “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream’ Joan Didion uses a number of words that are not generally part of most of our everyday conversation: “talismanic,’ “flotsam, “accouterments,’ “tortuous” (not the same as torturous). She

doesn't dumb down. Is that bad? Is it so horrible to confront a word you may have to ask someone about, look up (increasingly easy in the digital world) or even puzzle out? Samantha Power includes in her New Yorker article a reference that may require some looking up or puzzling out: she labels a government effort in a village in Darfur a “Potemkin” program. Potemkin was the name of an 18th-century army officer who constructed some fake villages along the route of a Russian empress’ tour. The term is not as obscure as it sounds, and you can probably determine that “Potemkin” means phony and just for show from the context. But that reference is going to stop even a few New Yorker readers. It may drive some to Google. It may annoy others. Is that terrible? Is it a justification for leaving out any references that any readers may find difficult? David Foster Wallace has footnotes in his articles. (So does the sports Web site Grantland.) Ezra Klein constantly has recourse to graphs and charts. Are these devices too academic for journalism? Will they scare away audiences?

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I think not. I think journalism’s audiences are more ready to be stretched, to be educated than traditional journalists realize. Yes, they want to be entertained. But it often is engrossing to learn something new: the meaning of “talismanic,” about that fellow Potemkin. And it often is fun to puzzle things out. Indeed, one of the reasons why journalism on the Web has been in ascendency is that it allows audiences to enjoy the elemental pleasure of tracking down—across various tweets and Web sites—the latest on some subject. It offers them the elemental pleasure of figuring something out on their own. Newspapers, magazines and broadcast newscasts, on the other hand, are’ still mostly selfcontained: you get what they give you. And they can be haughty: in the habit of spoon-feeding. Clear is fine; simplistic isn’t. Explaining is fine; condescension isn't. No more spoon-feeding. This does not mean writers have leave to show off their erudition or, worse, to pretend to erudition. The five-dollar words, as Aristotle notes in very different terms, can certainly be overdone: “In any mode of poetic diction there must be moderation.” The Greek philosopher concludes that, in S. H. Butcher’s translation, “the perfection of style is to be clear without being mean?” “Mean” here—if I might supply a definition—means ungenerous, not unkind. By all means make sure your writing is sufficiently clear to communicate. But do not deny your audience teaching and guiding. Do not deny them challenge. Don't be that “mean, Here, as an example of authorial generosity, is the opening paragraph of a 1978 New Yorker article. It challenges not only through the breadth of its vocabulary but by the level of its wit. Reading even a celebrity profile by Kenneth Tynan— this will eventually get around to being about then-Tonight Show host Johnny Carson—requires thought:

There is a dinner party tonight at the Beverly Hills home of Irving Lazar, doyen of agents and agent of doyens. The host is a diminutive potentate, as bald as a doorknob, who was likened by the late screenwriter Harry Kurnitz to “a very expensive rubber beach toy.’ He has represented many of the top-grossing movie directors and best-selling novelists of the past four decades, not always with their prior knowledge, since speed is of the essence in such transactions; and Lazar's flair for fleet-footed deal-clinching—sometimes on behalf of people who had never met him—has earned him the nickname of Swifty. On this occasion, at his

behest and that of his wife, Mary (a sleek and catlike sorceress, deceptively demure, who could pass for her husband’s ward), some fifty friends have gathered to mourn the departure of Fred de Cordova, who has been the producer of NBC’s “Tonight Show” since 1970; he is about to leave for Europe on two weeks’ vacation. A flimsy pretext, you may think, for a wingding; but, according to Beverly Hills protocol, anyone who quits the state of California for more than a long weekend qualifies for a farewell party, unless he is going to Las Vegas or New York, each of which counts as a colonial suburb of Los Angeles.”

This section, this chapter and this book are pleas for journalism to raise its game. Yes, that will require more of its audiences. | think they are up to it. I think they will enjoy it.

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This chapter considers how stories—audio and video as well as text-based—might best start, flow, end and be organized. It includes a complete story by Ernie Pyle. Among the strategies the chapter presents are the use of leads and summary paragraphs by Joan Didion, Anne Hull, Dana Priest and Nora Ephron; the use of repetition by Pyle; the development of a scene by Stephen Crane, an example of masterful movement among scenes by Gay Talese, the forgoing of a scene by Kenneth Tynan, a strict chronological telling by David Grann, the employment of an Aristotelian story structure by Didion, a deft conclusion by Judy Pasternak and an effort to avoid an emotional conclusion by Edward R. Murrow. Don Hewitt, of 60 Minutes, suggests that alljournalism comes down to telling stories. But this chapter also considers non-narrative, even non-linear digital organizational strategies.

“fees final chapter’s subject is organizing stories. So here to demonstrate one way that might be done is a short but complete story. It is once again about World War II and once again by Ernie Pyle. It is written with great loveliness and power. It is deeply sad. Probably it is also, as is too common in war reporting, jingoistic. It is Pyle’s most famous piece of writing: In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas. Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him. “After my own father, he came next; a sergeant told me.

“He always looked after us,’ a soldier said. “Hed go to bat for us every time” 142

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Ernie Pyle writing a story in Italy in 1944.

“Tve never knowed him to do anything unfair,’ another one said.

I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow’s body down. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley below. Soldiers made shadows in the moonlight as they walked. Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked. The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans

had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and

ask others to help.

The first one came early in the morning. They slid him down from the mule and stood him on his feet for a moment, while they got a new grip. In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there, leaning on the others. Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the low stone wall alongside the road. I don't know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of dead men,

and ashamed at being alive, and you don't ask silly questions.

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cowshed and sat on water cans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules. Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about it. We talked soldier talk for an hour or more. The dead man lay all alone outside in the shadow of the low stone wall. Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there, in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting. “This one is Captain Waskow,’ one of them said quietly. Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the low stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally there were five lying end to end in a long row, alongside the road. You don’t cover up dead men in the combat zone. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them. The unburdened mules moved off to their olive orchard. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually one by one I could sense them moving close to Capt. Waskow’s body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him, and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear. One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, “God damn it.” That’s all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said, “God damn it to hell anyway.’ He looked down for a few last moments, and then he turned and left. Another man came; I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain's face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: “T’m sorry, old man” Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said: «

I sure am sorry, sir.

Dette)

Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.

And finally he put the hand down, and then reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain's shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone.

After that the rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the five dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.’

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A literary analysis of this story might note the eerie way Pyle obscures distinctions here in the “half light”: between officers and soldiers (but not Italian muleskinners), between the living and the dead, between, as in his sentences on the

bombing of London, reality and dream. It would be possible, too, to analyze mood, sound and tempo: this is another extraordinary example of the music that can grace a piece. Pyle’s writing in “The Death of Captain Waskow” is simple, direct and probably as poetic as journalism can get. Poetry, music and the ability to sustain such egalitarian, ghostly, dreamlike themes are not the subject of this chapter. But they can't be ignored because Pyle uses some of these literary techniques to help organize his story—and that is this chapter’s subject. . The chapter has some ideas on how stories—made up of images and sounds, or, as in Pyle’s case, words—might begin, cohere, proceed, proceed most dramatically and end.

BEGINNING Ernie Pyle’s opening paragraph on Captain Waskow’s death is nothing special. It introduces the story’s protagonist and argues, based on the author’s own experience, for that character’s importance: “.. . never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow . . ” What this paragraph is not, however, is a standard impersonal, omniscient, squeeze-in-all-the-big-facts journalism lead: The word I appears twice. We are not given a when, a where, a what or a why. Joan Didion’s account of that murder in southern California, discussed in the

previous chapter, has a more substantial lead than Pyle’s, but it is still notably deficient in “W’s’—in the most newsworthy facts: This is a story about love and death in the golden land, and begins with the country. The San Bernardino Valley lies only an hour east of Los Angeles by way of the San Bernardino Freeway but is in certain ways an alien place: not the coastal California of subtropical twilights and the soft westerlies off the Pacific but a harsher California, haunted by the Mohave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves. October is the bad month for the wind, the month when breathing is difficult and the hills blaze up spontaneously. There has been no rain since April. Every voice seems a scream. It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.”

Unless you count that quick allusion to “love and death,” this paragraph contains only two of the “five W’s”: where and when. The who—a woman named Lucille Miller—wont arrive for another 320 words; and the all-important what— the death of Miller's husband, blame for which a jury will pin on her—is almost 500 words further off. All initial paragraphs, whether fact dense or not, have two connected purposes: first, establishing what journalism traditionally has labeled the story's angle—its subject and approach. “Five W’s” leads spell it all out. Most of the leads honored here are less heavy handed. Pyle’ first paragraph lets us know that the

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story is going to be about a really good guy and intimates, this being war, that things did not go well for him. Didion’s first paragraph lets us know that she finds the San Bernardino Valley a spooky, unpleasant place and promises a tale of love and death in it. A lead’s second purpose is grabbing our attention. It wants to engage us sufficiently so that we will read the paragraphs that follow. Pyle’ first paragraph, despite the absence of so many “W’s,” leaves us curious about what has happened to this “beloved” captain. Didion’s lead grabs our attention in large part through her dramatic, eerie wordings and observations: “Every voice seems a scream”! “It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows”! Most forms of journalism, of course, are similarly eager to interest—quickly. Video journalists try to make sure their first shot or their first scene will catch a viewer's eye: Barbara Koppel’s Academy Award-winning 1976 documentary, Harlan County USA, about a mineworkers’ strike, for example, opens with mesmerizing footage of the miners entering and then doing their jobs in the deep, dark, cramped caves of a mine. In their radio documentary “The Giant Pool of Money,’ discussed earlier in this book, Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson quickly play the tearful comments of an Iraq War veteran who had fallen behind on his mortgage payments—because that may be their most dramatic piece of evidence of the damage caused by the mortgage crisis: “At one point, my son had $7,000 in a CD and [had to break it. That really hurt’? The home pages of Web sites and the first sentences of blog posts are designed, too, to get us to cease our madcap surfing and stay a while. Sometimes those two purposes—cluing in and piquing interest—can be accomplished with what the previous chapter called some snap. The Wall Street Journal was once, under different management, known for such leads—zingers, they are sometimes called. This is from a decades-old profile of a barrel maker, named in the second paragraph. It was written for the Journal by William E. Burrows: Drinking wine that has been stored in a metal drum or concrete tank is like spending a warm Sunday afternoon picnicking on plastic grass and sniffing paper flowers. That, at least, is the opinion of Vincent Nemeth.’

And here’s Lincoln Steffens, rarely short of zing, beginning his 1902 exposé on municipal corruption in (a then larger and more corrupt) St. Louis: St. Louis, the fourth city in size in the United States, is making two announcements to the world: one that it is the worst-governed city in the land; the other

that it wishes all men to come there (for the World’s Fair) and see it.5

Steffens’ investigation of St. Louis appeared in McClure’ Magazine, which specialized in muckraking. Didion’s “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” appeared in what was, in 1966, a resolutely mainstream magazine, the Saturday Evening Post. Magazines have always been in less of a rush to supply the basic facts than newspapers: Their stories are longer. They are presumably read with more patience. They often wait to tell us what the story is about. This New Yorker story

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from 2009, for example, certainly has a dramatic two-paragraph beginning (and remember, sometimes a lead has to be seen as more than one paragraph long): The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky. Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

But it is not until the 25th paragraph of the story that we learn that Willingham was the main suspect in setting the fire that killed his children. He is charged with murder 18 paragraphs later, convicted 15 paragraphs later. The point the author, David Grann, wants to make is then revealed bit by bit as this long article proceeds: it is that the testimony given in court that this fire was arson was entirely wrong, that, as a later fire expert hired by a state commission concluded, that testimony seemed not to be based on “rational reasoning” and was more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.” In the story’s fifth-to-last paragraph, we read of Willingham’s execution—even though that testimony, so crucial to convicting him, had been thoroughly refuted. News stories in newspapers or on their Web sites have been moving away from the “five-W’s” formula for leads, too. They often start, as newspaper features long have, not with the basic facts but with an anecdote—a little incident. That's how Judy Pasternak’s 2006 series on the Navajo and uranium, which opens Chapter 1, starts: Mary and Billy Boy Holiday bought their one-room house from a medicine man in 1967. They gave him $50, a sheep and a canvas tent.

Or they commence with a “scene-setter,’ as does this 2007 story by Anne Hull and Dana Priest—part of the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of abuses at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where many returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were treated: Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world

wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, beily-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

To produce a “zinger” lead with just video or audio—without the benefit of narration—would require some sort of sight joke or cleverness in editing. But

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coming up with video or audio equivalents for anecdotal or scene-setter leads is not difficult: “Harvest of Shame” begins with images and sound of a sad, crowded “shape-up” for migrant workers in Florida—with hawkers yelling out what they will be paid for what they pick. This qualifies as both an incident and a scene. These are often called delayed leads, because the point doesn't arrive for a while. It takes Edward R. Murrow a minute—a long stretch in broadcast journalism— to get to his point in “Harvest of Shame”: “This is the way the humans who harvest the food for the best-fed people in the world get hired.” Steffens, in his lead, has not told us how St. Louis is badly governed. He will: it’s his major task, but it will take some time to spell out. Pasternak does not mention uranium, the key to her story, until paragraph four. The point, however, must eventually arrive. Traditionally, after these delayed leads, the basic facts are presented in a “nut graf”—say, two to six paragraphs further down in the story. This is where the reader, perhaps a bit perplexed by that creative lead, gets briefed on what this piece of writing is about. For example, Nora Ephron begins a 1973 Esquire magazine column on a less-charged subject than the others mentioned in this chapter with these four sentences: Roxanne Frisbie brought her own pan to the twenty-fourth annual Pillsbury BakeOff. “I feel like a nut,” she said. “It’s just a plain old dumb pan, but everything I do is in that crazy pan.’ As it happens, Mrs. Frisbie had no cause whatsoever to feel like a nut: it seemed that at least half the 100 finalists in the Bake-It-Easy Bake-Off had brought something with them—their own sausages, their own pie pans, their own apples.

Six sentences filled with similarly quirky details later, we get the “nut graf?” It begins: The Pillsbury Company has been holding Bake-Offs since 1948, when Eleanor Roosevelt, for reasons that are not clear, came to give the first one her blessing.

This year’s took place from Saturday, February 24, through Tuesday, February 27, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. One hundred contestants—97 of them women, 2 twelve-year-old boys, and 1 male graduate student—were winnowed down from a field of almost 100,000 entrants to compete for prizes in five categories: flour, frosting mix, crescent main dish, crescent dessert and hot-roll mix. They were all brought, or flown, to Los Angeles for the Bake-Off itself, which took place on Monday... . °

“Nut grafs” get to the point. They dutifully announce the major facts, usually displaying the expected omniscience. Another name for them is “cosmic grafs.” When the profile by Kenneth Tynan introduced at the end of the previous chapter finally does get around to its subject—television talk show host Johnny Carson—it, too, has a major point that needs making. It is a point most profiles want to make: that their subject is one important fellow or gal. That was certainly true of Johnny Carson in 1978. Tynan makes the point, with his usual style and wit, in this, his not-dutiful, not-omniscient take on the “nut graf”:

Apart from two months in the late nineteen-fifties (when he replaced Tom Ewell in a Broadway comedy called “The Tunnel of Love”), Johnny Carson has never

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been seen on the degitimate stage; and, despite a multitude of offers, he has yet to appear in his first film. He does not, in fact, much like appearing anywhere except (a) in the audience at the Wimbledon tennis championships, which he and his wife recently attended, (b) at his home in Bel Air, and (c) before the NBC cameras

in Burbank, which act on him like an addictive and galvanic drug. Just how the drug works is not known to science, but its effect is witnessed—ninety minutes per night, four nights per week, thirty-seven weeks per year—by upward of fourteen million viewers; and it provoked the actor Robert Blake, while he was being interviewed by Carson on the “Tonight Show” in 1976, to describe him with honest adulation as “the ace comedian top-dog talk artist of the universe” I once asked a bright young Manhattan journalist whether he could define in a single word what made television different from theatre or cinema. “For good or ill” he said, “Carson.”

However, Ernie Pyle’s report on Captain Waskow includes nothing remotely resembling a “nut graf” Pasternak’s story on the Navajo, Hull and Priest’s story on Walter Reed and Grann’s account of that man wrongly executed for killing his children in a fire all disperse those basic facts among a number of paragraphs. Such compressed, here’s-what-I’m-talking-about paragraphs might be another convention that journalism is in the process of outgrowing. This doesn’t mean that journalists are excused from eventually getting to the point. The basic point of Granns story is that the itch to apply the death penalty led to a man who was probably innocent being killed, but Grann makes that point not in one formulaic paragraph but through his whole slow, tension-building story. Indeed, it may be time to stop applying the word delayed to leads, opening shots or sound bites that try to grab interest with something quirky or dramatic or intriguing or mesmerizing. Maybe it’s time instead to think of “five W’s” leads or “nut grafs” less elegant than Tynan’s—paragraphs stuffed with facts—as artificial and hurried. It would probably be useful to try your hand at each of the three kinds of leads mentioned here: anecdotal, scene-setter and zinger—with or without a “nut graf.” It would probably be useful even to experiment with all three on the same story. Which works best? Why? It would have to be a colorful and dynamic story to support these different kinds of leads. Here’s hoping that war, wrongful execution and murder become increasingly less available as opportunities to practice such skills. But there is sometimes conflict to be found, too, where lines are long and tempers strained: outside a stadium, a concert hall or a technology store selling some hot new gizmo, for example, or, when the economy is bad, where some jobs have suddenly become available. Fiddling with some “nut grafs” might also be of value, even if you're also ready to experiment with some more ambitious story organizations.

WEAVING Now a more technical matter: As paragraphs, after the lead, begin to accumulate, it is usually expected that a journalist, like all gracious writers, will ease a reader's passage from one to the other. Transition words, of course, help. Ernie Pyle does

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not rely on a particularly exotic set of them in “The Death of Captain Waskow”— just a bunch of “then’s and “and”s, along with an “after” and a “finally.” But don't underestimate the power of such words to ease the jump between thoughts. Don't underestimate the usefulness and felicity of a meanwhile, a nonetheless, a moreover, a therefore—words that all have different meanings. Or—when the thoughts in question, as often happens, contradict—be grateful for those old standbys: but, yet, still and however. Pyle employs other strategies, too, for making sure his readers can move comfortably from paragraph to paragraph. He reduces the jump between them by doing the obvious: putting paragraphs on the same subject—soldiers saying goodbye to Captain Waskow, for instance—next to each other. In this piece Pyle, for another example, also makes sure to repeat the designation “the first one” three times in three successive paragraph to make sure readers know that he is still referring to the same thing—in this case, sadly, a soldier’s body. Pyle’s most interesting device for weaving this story together, however, is his repeated use of words and of the phrase “in the shadow of the low stone wall.” It is a more literary approach to this technical problem and an atypical one. For writers usually struggle to avoid using the same word too often: Pyle’s is a story about a beloved, respected officer, but the words “beloved,” “loved” and “respected” only appear once each. Pyle, rightly, is more interested in demonstrating that love and respect than naming them. But he also must realize that repeated appearances by one word usually make a piece of writing seem stiff and clumsy—usually. The word “dead” appears in this short article 13 times. Maybe that is because death is hard to see and thus hard to demonstrate, though Pyle certainly tries. Maybe that’s because there are no simple, unpretentious synonyms for “dead”: deceased? departed? lifeless? But two other, more artistically significant possible explanations present themselves: The first is that Pyle reuses “dead” so often because he is trying weave through his piece, as a kind of unifying mood, a feeling for the mystery of death. The second is that he does it because what he is writing is organized not just as a piece of prose but as a song, and in music repetition—of riffs, of refrains—not only helps produce a familiar, welcoming sound but helps a song cohere. Pyle’s article employs, in part, the organizational strategies of a piece of music. Two more noticeable atmospheric and mysterious terms also recur in this piece: “moonlight” three times, and “half light” twice. And the phrase “in the shadow of the low stone wall,” which Pyle uses four times, seems to function almost as this song’s chorus. It carries meaning: this is a story about ghostly shadows and about the low wall between us and dreams, between us and death. But, as a musical device, through its recurrence this phrase also helps give the story unity, coherence. Make use of transition words, certainly. But experiment with repetition cautiously—as you develop your ear for the music of journalistic prose and as you come upon stories that lend themselves to a more literary, poetic telling—stories about love, probably; stories about death, definitely. In inexpert hands, repetition is more likely to hurt than to help.

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Could such techniques be employed in video? Actually, they are probably more at home in video—which has much in common with music, including a tendency toward recurring themes and choruses. Watch, for example, the way the scenes of travel—in trucks and buses—recur at regular intervals in “Harvest of Shame” or shots of Manhattan from overhead recur in the more recent Inside Job. And, of course, music can actually be played—in the foreground or in the background, as a “bed,” in video or audio. But let’s not underestimate the task of translating Pyle’s magic to a different medium. In video it would require a skill with composition, lighting and editing commensurate with Pyle’s skill with language to sustain a unifying mood such as that he sustains. In video or audio it would require a similar level of skill with rhythm, pace and editing to sustain music on the level of that Pyle’s prose achieves.

SCENES Life—not just theater, film or television—often seems to take place in scenes: a café, a living room (a locale much exploited by situation comedy writers), an office (my scene at the moment), East Tremont Avenue in the South Bronx, the foot of a mule trail in Italy during World War II. After they take care of the business of engaging us, quite a few of the stories cited in this chapter and in this book devote themselves to painting scenes. Indeed, one scene—at the foot of that mule trail— is the main organizing device in Ernie Pyle’s “The Death of Captain Waskow:” Everything that happens happens there. Pyle, consequently, devotes his considerable literary skills to setting this scene: He impresses upon us the layout: “the cowshed,” “the low stone wall.” He supplies atmospherics: the “half light” and the “moonlight” He describes the behaviors of the characters who populate the scene: “gently straightened the points of the captains shirt collar.” He transcribes their comments: “I sure am sorry, sir.” Pyle, like most good writers, does what he can to take us there. His story—a short one—is unusual in only employing one scene. Often writers hop from scene to scene. Gay Talese’s remarkable profile, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” includes no fewer than eight substantial scenes: two in a bar; two in a television studio; one on a film set; one in a recording studio; one in Las Vegas, where Sinatra and his buddies go to “let off some steam”; and one, in which the man himself does not even appear, in the office of his press agent. Nowadays, many well-written articles are—like plays, movies or television dramas or situation comedies—collections of scenes, which we move in and out of, as well as among. Few have handled the scenes or those motions as skillfully as Talese does in that profile of Frank Sinatra. To get a better understanding of Talese’s technique, it is worth examining more closely how he works with a couple of those scenes. The piece begins, as noted in the previous chapter, with Sinatra standing “in a dark corner” of a bar, “holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other.” Talese—using his trademark long, formal sentences—gives us the “blondes” (a sexist designation; it is 1966), the smoke in the air (also dated), the folk music,

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plus Sinatra’s own sullenness. This scene, in other words, is well realized. Talese quickly leaves it, however, to explain the sullenness: Frank Sinatra had a cold. Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel...

More explanation follows: the various enterprises and archetypes that hinge on Sinatra and the smooth functioning of his voice. Then, in paragraph five, Talese returns us to the scene with which he began: But now, standing at this bar in Beverly Hills, Sinatra had a cold, and he continued to drink quietly and he seemed miles away in his private world, not even reacting when suddenly the stereo in the other room switched to a Sinatra song, “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.”

That inspires another Talese reverie: this time on the romantic power of a Sinatra song. The “two blondes” (sorry) are invoked again to help Talese make the transition back to the bar. And so on—in and out of this scene. Sights, sounds or personages provide excuses for Talese to leave to teach us something about his subject, his subject's life or his subject's importance. But then Talese returns us to the solidity of the bar. We're not floating in some fog of writerly inferences. We're located—at a bar, watching a man holding a bourbon. On the other hand, we're not just in that bar, observing a silent, sullen Sinatra. We're learning things, being filled in. A few of Sinatra's friends are with him at that Beverly Hills bar. Talese uses their presence to note that for them Sinatra is “The boss. I] Padrone.” And then he writes: “Thad seen something of the Sicilian side of Sinatra last summer at Jilly’s saloon in New York.’ This line, at the beginning of paragraph ten, is Talese’s transition into a second scene—at Jilly’s. He justifies his transition by noting the acquaintances that come to pay their respects to Sinatra, i] Padrone at Jilly’s. And then Talese uses the more distant crowds trying to catch a glimpse of Sinatra as an excuse to recall Sinatra’s East Coast roots—since some in that crowd outside and inside Jilly’s (Talese has interviewed them) knew Sinatra or knew of Sinatra then. Next, Talese uses those

old acquaintances to launch a discussion of the singer’s unpredictable but generous personality, before returning—we're in paragraph 18 by now—to the original Beverly Hills bar. And, yes, he uses a reference to the “blondes” to guide us back. The demeaning male reduction of these women to their hair color does, at least, make them, and therefore that scene, easier to recall. We'll stay there for a while this time, for it turns out this is about to become the scene of some drama. Sinatra says “a few words to the blondes.” Then the singer makes his way to the poolroom. That's where things turn ugly. One young screenwriter near the pool table is dressed in a way Sinatra—a traditional jacket-and-tie guy—does not find appropriate: his boots seem the main issue. Sinatra begins insulting him. It is an uncomfortable, asymmetric confrontation, showing a thoughtless, bullying side of Sinatra, and Talese lets it play out for a couple of pages. Remember Talese composed this profile without Sinatra ever consenting to speak with him, but here he has gotten something maybe even more valuable than an interview: a look at

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Sinatra, in this case sullen and maybe a little drunk, in action. Quite a few more such looks follow in this profile. Obviously, scene-based journalism can work well with audio or, particularly, video added to words. Natural sounds are good for communicating ambience: imagine being able to record, at that Beverly Hills bar, the clinking glasses, the background buzz, the background music and the clack of billiard balls—let alone Sinatra's voice abusing that screenwriter with the boots. It’s hard to imagine being able to aim a video camera at Sinatra at that uncomfortable moment. But there is a grand tradition of organizing film documentaries around scenes: that has long been the method employed by Frederick Wiseman, whose work was discussed in Chapter 6 and who did manage to aim cameras at a lot of uncomfortable moments. Recall, too, the poignant and revealing extended scene, discussed in Chapter 4, where LaLee and her progeny greet their new trailer home in that documentary by Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson and Albert Maysles. Opportunities to write or record a scene are not difficult to find. Take a look around you, wherever you currently are. What are the salient objects? How might you describe or record the dominant sights or sounds? How is wherever you are lit? Can you put all that into words? From what angle might you might shoot it? Is any action taking place? What can we learn from this scene about the individuals— maybe only you—who occupy it? How might you communicate that? Next it would probably be wise to go someplace—a factory, a taxi garage, an immigration office—where there definitely will be others beside you and where there is likely to be more action, and try describing or recording again. Then—to give yourself a shot at such important elements as weather and heavenly bodies—find an outdoor scene in a park, on a farm, in front of a food cart, on a downtown street corner, outside a fashionable club. Thanks to the influence of writers like Gay Talese—and the loss of influence of other, more fact-dense writing styles—scenes have begun to dominate certain forms of journalism, particularly the magazine profile and cinéma vérité documentary. But, because the magazine journalists perpetrating these scenes are

rarely as industrious in their reportage as Talese, the scene they end up describing is usually just the de rigueur meal with the subject at some suitably fancy eatery. And because those documentarians are not as patient as Wiseman, we dont often get the slow revelations that arrive in his films. Scenes, it must be remembered, are not the only way to focus or structure

stories. If all we're going to see are some place settings and fresh greens covered with a vinaigrette, if all that is going to happen is some ordering, chewing and reaching for the check, please, forgo the scene! Let's get some quotes from acquaintances, some childhood reminiscences and the necessary plug for whatever movie is being promoted, and leave it at that. If your big documentary scene is just a homeless person on a bench, and we don't get to hear from that person and watch that person interact, please put your emphasis instead on a more traditional investigation of facilities available to help the homeless. Here, just to show what can be accomplished without benefit of a scene, is a

paragraph by the ever-challenging Kenneth Tynan from a 1977 New Yorker profile

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of the playwright Tom Stoppard. Not only has Tynan abandoned the scene here; he is doing what most writers ought never to do—publishing a paragraph from his notes: Preliminary notes from my journal, dated July 24, 1976: Essential to remember that Stoppard is an émigré. A director who has staged several of his plays told me the other day, “You have to be foreign to write English with that kind of hypnotized brilliance.” . .. Stoppard loves all forms of wordplay, especially puns, and frequently describes himself as “a bounced Czech.’ Like many immigrants, he has immersed himself beyond the call of baptism in the habits and rituals of his adopted country. Nowadays, he is plus anglais que les anglais—a phrase that would please him, as a student of linguistic caprice, since it implies that his Englishness can best be defined in French.’

There! A description of a person not sitting under any celestial object or sitting at a restaurant, a person coming alive through his background, interests and language—not his location. Yes, it can be done. But, of course, scenes can also be used to great effect. Probably the most dramatic journalistic description of the behavior of a heavenly body in a scene appeared in McClures Magazine in 1899. The writer is Stephen Crane, who had produced the best Civil War novel despite being born more than six years after the end of that war. Now, as a journalist, Crane is getting first-hand experience of the Spanish-American War. The heavenly body of interest here is the sun. It is an intense scene: We are with four Marine signalmen outside a U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, that is under assault by Spanish “guerillas” in the woods around it. The signalmen’s job during the night is to use lanterns and code to communicate with a ship offshore, which is firing at those Spanish soldiers. That requires a signalman to stand up while waving those lanterns—becoming, in other words, an easy target, a bullet magnet: Then—oh, my eye, how the guerillas hidden in the gulf of night would turn loose at those yellow gleams. .. . The bullets began to snap, snap, snap, at his head, while all the woods began to crackle like burning straw.

The only relief from this repeated torment—for the signalmen and Crane, who is lying in a trench with them—is for the night to end: Possibly no man who was there ever before understood the true eloquence of the breaking of the day. We would lie staring into the east, fairly ravenous for the dawn.... Then there would come into the sky a patch of faint blue light. It was like a piece of moonshine. Some would say it was the beginning of daybreak; others would declare it was nothing of the kind. Men would get very disgusted with each other in these low-toned arguments held in trenches. For my part, this development in the eastern sky destroyed many of my ideas and theories concerning the dawning of the day; but then, I had never before had occasion to give it such solemn attention.

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This patch widened and whitened at about the speed of a man’s accomplishment if he should be in the way of painting Madison Square Garden with a camel’s-hair brush. . . . I, at least, always grew furious with this wretched sunrise. I thought

I could have walked around the world in the time required for the old thing to get up above the horizon. ... Day was always obliged to come at last, punctuated by a final exchange of scattering shots. ...

Then it was a great joy to lie in the trench with the four signalmen, and understand thoroughly that that night was fully over at last, and that, although the future might have in store other bad nights, that one could never escape from the prison-house which we call the past.*

NARRATIVE Stephen Crane's “Marines Signaling Under Fire at Guantanamo” employs another organizing strategy besides its reliance upon the scene. It happens, not coincidentally, to be the organizing strategy human beings have been employing, when they have something to communicate to each other, pretty much since verbal communication began. Crane tells a story. These Marines receive an order. They stand up and maneuver their lanterns. They get shot at. They hope they don't get hit. Then they lie back down in the trench and wait desperately for dawn. Stories, narratives—short and long—appear all over the works of journalism cited in this book. The importance of storytelling has oft been noted—in explaining the remarkable success of 60 Minutes, that weekly collection of short documentaries on CBS, for instance. Don Hewitt, its creator and long-time executive producer, reduces the “formula” to “four little words.” They are: “Tell me a story.’ “That's all we do,’ Hewitt adds.’ In “The Death of Captain Waskow,’ Ernie Pyle allows himself some paragraphs of introduction, then he gets into his story and stays there. It is not, to be sure, much ofa story. There isn't a whole lot of suspense: we learn at the beginning that Waskow has died. The time element seems a bit confused: bodies “had been coming down the mountain all evening”; yet “the first one came early in the morning”; nonetheless, everything seems to take place in a ubiquitous “moonlight.” And Pyles tale doesn't feature much action: some bodies are brought down; one of them is Captain Waskow’s; some soldiers approach the captain's body; they mutter moving things. But Pyle’s quiet narrative accomplishes what it needs to accomplish: it provides a (mostly) coherent, unobtrusive framework for this article's real purpose—a purpose that is essentially poetic: conveying some of the sadness and mystery of death during wartime, illuminating a little the nature of that sadness and mystery, and finding in them, as humans are often left to do with their sadnesses, the inadequate

but indubitable consolation of shared feeling and maybe, also, of art. Pyle’s goal, in other words, is not so much to tell a story as to use a story. This view of narrative as device, not goal, is common—at least among the best journalists. Despite what Hewitt says, telling a story is not really the only thing 60 Minutes does

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or wants to do. It, too, uses stories to report something, teach something or expose something—to make points. The producers of “Harvest of Shame,’ an ancestor of 60 Minutes, use a narrative of sorts to organize their account of migrant workers: the yearly trek of migrants from Florida up north to participate in the harvests. But their documentary is not really about that trip: it is about the plight of those workers. John Hersey winds together the experiences of six survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, but the unimaginable destruction caused by that bomb, not their individual stories, is what he is really after. Joan Didion, similarly, seems more interested in her evaluation of lifestyles and aspirations in the San Bernardino Valley than in her narrative—a murder story. However, Didion, unlike Pyle, does have an intriguing story to tell. It is worth looking more closely at how she tells it. A considerable amount of thought, going back to Aristotle, has been devoted to the mechanics of storytelling. Much of the focus has been on the different parts—or “acts,” since a lot of this thought was expended on theater—into which “tragedies” or “dramas” can be divided. Most begin with some sort of setup. We learn where we are. Didion’s San Bernardino Valley—where “every voice seems a scream’—is awfully creepy, but it is thoroughly and vividly drawn: with lots of details about weather and landscaping, with lots of local color—including the Forty Winks Motel, which features a Native American theme: “SLEEP IN A WIGWAM—GET MORE FOR YOUR WAMPUM. Nonfiction writers have an advantage here over those who make things up: the settings in which their narratives take place are more likely to sound real since the audience has been promised that they are. According to the rules of journalism, this motel in the San Bernardino Valley, with rooms designed to look like tepees, must have existed. But even something that is real still has to be well and engagingly described: “the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves.” We are introduced, in Didion’s setup, to some characters, and it’s a good thing: stories usually have more meaning to us if they affect people who have meaning to us. Classical dramatic theory demands that one or two of these characters be sympathetic: Pyle’s “beloved” Captain Waskow certainly fits the bill. But sympathy is not Didion’s strong suit—at least not in this story. With the help of courtroom testimony, her thorough reporting and her literary skills, however, Didion’s characters, even if not lovable, do come alive. Lucille Miller, as a teenager: “She was an eighteen-year-old possessed of unremarkable good looks and remarkable high spirits.” Her husband, as a dentist with a pile of debt: “He told his accountant that he was ‘sick of looking at open mouths’ and threatened suicide” And their marriage, as seen through Didion’s piercing eyes: The conventional tensions of love and money had reached the conventional impasse in the new house on the acre lot at 8488 Bella Vista, and Lucille Miller filed for divorce. Within a month, however, the Millers seemed reconciled. They saw a marriage counselor. They talked about a fourth child. It seemed that the marriage had reached the traditional truce, the point at which so many resign themselves to cutting both their losses and their hopes.!°

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Joan Didion.

The setup, classical theory holds, should also announce a complication— trouble. If a “season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread” doesn’t sufficiently portent trouble, we have Didion’s pairing of “love and death” Next in a tragedy comes conflict (or, in some versions, confrontation): in this case the criminal justice system has set about proving that one of the seemingly “reconciled” Millers—the more high-spirited one—killed the other—the indebted, despondent dentist. Here we are dealing with what Aristotle calls “the soul of a tragedy”: plot. The Greek philosopher defines it as “the arrangement of the incidents.”!! The purpose of a plot—the purpose of a narrative, too, for that matter—is to build and sustain interest. That often requires journalists to do something that does not come naturally to them: withholding, for a time, information. The elements of the conflict may be portioned out slowly. While Pyle gives away the fact of Captain Waskow’s death one sixth of the way into his tale, Didion makes us wait for a number of crucial facts—such as the evidence against Lucille Miller. That's called building suspense. Didion accomplishes it, in part, by doing something else that may not on first glance seem natural for journalists: fiddling

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with time. Her “arrangement of the incidents” in this California tragedy is not entirely chronological. David Grann’s lengthy narrative on the nightmare experienced by Cameron Todd Willingham follows almost entirely the order in which the events occurred: from the fire itself, in which his three children died; through his arrest and conviction for setting that fire; then the development of the scientific analysis that demonstrated that crucial evidence used to convict him of arson and, therefore, murder was fallacious; followed, nonetheless, by Willingham’s execution. Gramm organizes his story, in other words, chronologically. But journalists don’t have to surrender quite so completely to the dictates of time. After four paragraphs spent assailing the weather, vegetation and inhabitants of that part of southern California, Didion provides a two-paragraph version of the death and funeral of Lucille Miller’s husband, which concludes by noting that Miller herself was unable to attend that funeral since she was at the time “being held without bail in the San Bernardino County jail on a charge of first-degree murder?” This is indeed a moment of drama—our first large taste of this particular blend of “love and death” A wife has been arrested for murdering her husband. That certainly qualifies as a conflict. It is an example, too, of what Aristotle calls peripeteia, a sudden “reversal” of expectations or circumstances: Lucille Miller has gone from grieving widow to accused murderer. This is also a moment of suspense. We are wondering what happened to convince police that this woman was guilty of murdering her husband. But at this dramatic and suspenseful moment Didion, who has also written novels, uses an old novelist’s or filmmaker’s trick: she cuts away—back in time to fill us in on Lucille Miller’s history and the history of her marriage. It is an effective trick. She has momentarily eased the drama but prolonged the suspense. That unanswered question—why this woman was arrested—helps keep us reading through this much longer chronological narrative—the story of Lucille Miller’s life—which eventually returns us to a more thorough account, Lucille Miller’s account, of the evening her husband died. But, since this is just her side of the story, that question remains. Now, Didion doubles back in time yet again to finally answer it: explaining how the police began to see an apparent accident as a poorly planned murder and how they uncovered an affair as a possible motive. Didion then presses rewind a fourth time to tell the story of that acrimonious affair. Journalists, unlike novelists or filmmakers, can never change what happened when. But, as Didion demonstrates, they have considerable freedom in determining when they will present what happened. That freedom is routinely exploited on very different kinds of stories and in different media—on 60 Minutes, for example. Don Hewitt entitled his autobiography Tell Me a Story. In that book Hewitt expresses particular pride in a story Morley Safer and producer Joseph Wershba reported for 60 Minutes in 1971: “I consider [it] to be as good a piece of reporting as any I've been associated with,” Hewitt writes.'* The story’s subject was of great political significance: it is about the August night in 1964 upon which, Safer says in the piece, the war in Vietnam really began. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution

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authorizing military action against North Vietnam because two USS. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin were attacked on that night, as Safer puts it, “by Communist torpedo boats.” But then he adds: “Or were they?” Did the United States escalate the Vietnam War based on an error or a lie? The importance of this question does not prevent 60 Minutes from telling a story: first in the form of an official Pentagon reenactment of events before and during that night in the Gulf of Tonkin. Then 60 Minutes doubles back and tells that story again in Safer’s own words; among those words were these: “Senate investigators now believe there never was any battle that night.” Then an officer gives his account of those events, saying there was indeed a battle. Next a sailor, in charge of looking for evidence of enemy vessels that night, says he is “certain” there weren't any enemy vessels. That's four versions of events in a row—serial chronologies. Storytelling is a more complicated craft than it may initially appear. In constructing their narratives out of words, sounds or images journalists can rewind, pause, fast forward, replay and, of course, edit. Time, in this sense, is pliable. The opening of Frederick Wiseman’s documentary Titicut Follies, discussed in Chapter 6, provides a somewhat different example. For it tells its story by cutting among three scenes at a hospital for the criminally insane—three scenes that were not taking place at the same time: a theatrical revue performed by inmates and staff, a series of strip searches and a therapy session for a child molester. Together these scenes form a powerful narrative. But the order of this narrative is Wiseman’s construction, not time's. And Wiseman’s narrative—as with that in many longer works of journalism— is not just telling one story: it weaves together a number of narratives. The final part or act in a drama or tragedy is the resolution or dénouement. The high point of Didion’s narrative lies in the evidence against Lucille Miller. Having presented that, Didion now reports on Miller’s trial and incarceration. She manages to include more digs at the California dream in this resolution. Here Didion is describing the prison to which Miller was sent: A lot of California murderesses live here, a lot of girls who somehow misunderstood

the promise.’*

As a literary device narratives, like Didion’s here, are anything but new. However, they are newly in vogue in journalism: increasingly celebrated, increasingly taught, probably even increasingly employed. They appear to be among the few techniques in which journalists, after a couple of decades of crisis and revolution in their field, retain confidence. Certainly, Don Hewitt now has plenty of company in insisting that journalism can be boiled down to those “four little words.” This consensus, according to the logic of this book, should make us a little suspicious— not only of that ancient, three-part formula for storytelling but maybe even of storytelling itself. Narratives work great. They carry readers along—smoothly, briskly. But there are other ways of leading us through a work of journalism—and other alternatives to the increasingly outdated “inverted pyramid” —besides telling a tale: The aforementioned (and easy to combine with narrative) scene can work. Our old friend

from a few chapters back, argument, can also keep the paragraphs flowing. So can

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a historical presentation of events. Humor, too, can help organize a work of journalism. By all means learn to tell a story. Visit an assisted-living home and interview someone; then recount some episode in that person’s life as dramatically as the facts will allow. Attend a trial and produce a narrative account of the alleged crime and its outcome—with all due suspense. Find a person who lost a home when a mortgage was foreclosed and tell the tale—before, during and after; setup, conflict, resolution (or absence of resolution).

But keep in mind that narrative, too, is a tool, albeit a venerable one. And keep an eye out for other, perhaps even better tools.

NEW STRATEGIES The rapidly morphing digital universe is already showing signs that it will prove less friendly to scene- and narrative-based story organizations than print, film and television have been. “Long-form” stories have seemed less at home on laptops, tablets and smart phones, at least in the initial decades of these technologies, than they have been in magazines, film and certainly books. We tend to surf—at least so far—skittishly, impatiently. In fact, we tend to do a lot, nowadays, skittishly and impatiently. Scenes take time and space to establish. Narratives take time and space to tell. And they would seem to require some concentration and stick-to-itiveness to read. Perhaps were losing that. But, to look at this less pessimistically, there are also signs that we are using these digital tools to come up with alternative organizational strategies for stories: strategies that might be, of all things, more effective than scenes or narratives. Web sites and much of the rest of what appears on the screens of laptops, tablets and smart phones tend to break out information into lists, charts, graphics or, even, moving lists, charts and graphics. Might such more visual and intuitive organizational strategies eventually begin to overcome our early-21st-century entrancement with the scene or the narrative? This book is nearing its end. Maybe it’s time to attempt to peer into the future and imagine a journalism very different from Ernie Pyle’s, Joan Didion’s and Don Hewitt’s. What, for example, might journalism look like if we ditched all the introducing, weaving, scene setting, storytelling and (not yet discussed) concluding? What I am about to ask may sound like blasphemy, but here goes: Could Pyle’s “The Death of Captain Waskow” be broken down into boxes: one with the basic facts on the deceased officer, one with the quotes from the soldiers who served under him and maybe some other boxes, each with quick descriptions of an aspect of, okay, the scene—the mule trail, the mules laden with bodies, the cowshed, “the

shadow of the low stone wall”? What if readers—or perhaps in this case perusers— were then given the opportunity to find their own way, to pick and choose among these kernels of story? What if some sort of videogame-like reward system were employed to make our journey through these options more fun? Might that not be less “mean,” to use that word as Aristotle used it at the end of the previous chapter,

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than the attempt of dictatorial writers like Pyle to force us to march through story elements and information in a manner and order of their choosing? What, to continue with these irreverent questions, if Didion’s assessment of San Bernardino Valley living were reduced, clever wordings intact, to bullet points?

¢ The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past. + This is the country in which a belief in the literal interpretation of Genesis has slipped imperceptibly into a belief in the literal interpretation of Double Indemnity. . . . Could a separate, shorter list then be devoted to Didion’s thoughts on traditional marriage? What if bios on Mrs. and Mr. Miller, the details of her affair and various accounts of how he died were each confined to separate boxes on a map of the San Bernardino Valley? What if audio or video were also available to us so that we could hear from some of these characters in their own words? What if 60 Minutes had simply placed each of its conflicting video accounts of events in the Gulf of Tonkin on that night in 1964 in separate boxes and left it to us to play and evaluate them in an order of our choosing? These certainly seem rather drastic alternatives—ones that would take away from journalists quite a bit of what they currently fancy themselves doing. But is that just because we still see journalists as providing packaged tours, where they determine what we experience when? Is that just because we are holding onto a romantic view (this book's view, for sure) of the journalist as artiste, creating pretty, polished packages for our appreciation? Is that just because we cant let go of a godlike view of the journalist as determiner of reality—including its structure and its order? Is that just because we can’t surrender a view of the journalist as the one who organizes and orchestrates everything for us—who, to borrow a metaphor from the end of the last chapter, spoon-feeds? Perhaps we need to be more drastic. Perhaps it is time to imagine journalists more as collaborators with their audiences, with us. Perhaps. New computer-generated charts and graphs are already, in fact, making it possible to explain what journalists previously had great difficulty explaining—certainly online, also in print, but perhaps with most consequence in video. Broadcast news had long shied away from numbers and other complex facts because they seemed too difficult for audiences to follow when they—as they then had to be—were simply read out loud. But computers began allowing those numbers not only to appear on screen in useful tables and diagrams but to engage in edifying actions: cost-of-living numbers could jump in and out of shopping carts or pour out of gas pumps, dollar signs representing health-care costs could grow or shrink with the passage of time or the prospective passage of various bills. Visual representations of information, digitally formulated, have already made journalism more intelligent. That should continue. Perhaps it will continue at the expense of scenes and narratives. Would we be losing something basic to humans were journalists, in fact, to tell fewer stories? It seems so. But in being untrue to our species we might be

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honoring an even older and more basic allegiance: we might be proving truer to our order. “Primates are visual animals,’ asserts Stephen Jay Gould, the late scientist and science writer. “And we think best in pictorial or geometric terms. Words are an evolutionary afterthought.” Perhaps the journalistic exploitation of digitalized visuals has just begun. End of attempt to peer into the future.

ENDING The first article in Judy Pasternak’s Los Angeles Times series on the Navajo and uranium mining begins with Mary and Billy Boy Holiday’s purchase of their hooghan—to which they added a floor made from sand and rock from an old mine. Shortly before that article ends, more than 4,000 words later, Pasternak re-

turns to that hooghan. After Billy Boy and a great-nephew, both of whom had gotten lung cancer, had died, it is finally being destroyed by the Environmental Protection Agency as a health hazard: Where the Holidays had lived for decades, the wrecking crew wore moon suits and radiation badges for a single day’s work.'®

This long-overdue action resolves the story of that hooghan. And the precautions taken to protect those who demolished that radioactive structure also give Pasternak one last chance to highlight the government's outrageous failure to protect the Navajo—the point of her story. Theres no overly explicit, high-school-essay-—style conclusion here. Yet this incident does allow Pasternak to use her conclusion to conclude: in the article's very last sentence the Holiday's great-nephew’s wife attributes his death “to uranium.” Resolving, highlighting, concluding—these are all good uses for an ending. Chronology often succeeds at reasserting itself here: stories often conclude with the last thing that happened. In most cases, given the three-part story organization discussed above, that will be something that takes place after the conflict, something that belongs to a story’s resolution or dénouement. Pasternak’s article is no exception. But, since life inevitably has gone on, there is usually a selection of possible last things of which a few might contribute to a resolution. By including this one near the end of her tale—the demolition of the Holiday’s hooghan— Pasternak is accomplishing something additional, something literary: she is giving her story a kind of unity by returning to the beginning at the end. The traditional newspaper story, on the other hand, often has the opposite of such a literary ending. In an “inverted pyramid,’ the more newsworthy a piece of information is, the higher in the story it is supposed to go. That doesn’t leave much for the end—the skinny part of the “pyramid.” Stories peter out. Good writers can still manage some sort of resolution at the end. Louis Start ends his report, dis-

cussed in Chapter 6, on the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti thusly: Mr. Jackson and Mr. Felicani [two supporters of Sacco and Vanzetti] arranged for the bodies of the two men to be turned over to Mrs. Sacco and Miss Vanzetti.”

CHAPTER 8 « Sculpting: More Shapely Forms

163

Nonetheless, this traditional method of ending stories is almost designed to encourage people not to read the end of stories. Nontraditional journalists, at least those not breaking their stories into boxes, have been doing better—in many cases much better. The final two words of Joan Did-

ions final two sentences subtly and cleverly sum up her critique of the San Bernardino Valley attitude toward life. Those two words have some snap. Using a vocabulary some of us may find challenging, Didion is describing the wedding, after Lucille Miller’s trial, of the man with whom Miller had her affair and his former babysitter: The bride wore a long white peau de soie dress and carried a shower bouquet of sweetheart roses with stephanotis streamers. A coronet of seed pearls held her illusion veil.

Sometimes, on the other hand, journalists use the ending of their stories not so much to wrap up what has happened but to ponder what might happen next. Samantha Power—if Imight return to this book’s beginning—closes her New Yorker story on Darfur on a pessimistic note by quoting an optimistic look into the future by a man she believes to be on the wrong side, janjaweed leader Musal Hilal: “Every government comes and finds us here. When they leave, we will still be here. When they come back, we will still be here. We will always be here.”

Good journalists usually manage to end with something memorable. The last paragraph of Ernie Pyle’s “The Death of Captain Waskow” doesn’t sum up or look into the future. Pyle leaves the dead to their shadowy death and then ends his tale as sad days and nights usually end: with everyone going to sleep. It is an understated ending but in keeping with the understated tone of his piece. And it has its own power. Here and elsewhere in his writing, Pyle has proven a master of one of the techniques championed in this book: finding great meaning or great emotion in small behaviors: “We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.” Indeed, among the distinctions Pyle is eerily inclined to obscure in the “half light” of his story on Captain Waskow’s death is that between great and small. For Pyle seems to be insisting that great meanings and emotions—such as those surrounding the death of a beloved young man—have nowhere to go except into such small, everyday, incommensurate behaviors as lying down and going to sleep. What else, in the end, can we do? Life does indeed go on. Pll conclude with one last, not-so-small example and an attempt to sum up the main points of this book: it is an example of an ending that was rejected. Film editor John Schultz had prepared a final sequence for “Harvest of Shame” that, when he played it in a screening room, brought the staff to tears. It showed the faces of a number of migrant farm workers over the voice of a little girl singing a sad, sad song. But Edward R. Murrow wouldr'’t let Schultz use the sequence. “He

wanted anger, indignation, not this sort of ‘tsk, tsk, those poor people,” Schultz recalls.'* Murrow wanted more from his journalism.

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JOURNALISM UNBOUND

He ends “Harvest of Shame” with a call for legislation to protect migrant farm workers, and then—before his trademark sendoff, “Goodnight and good luck”— Murrow, with his face alone on screen, says: The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruits and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do.

This book has tried to question the easy reliance on formulas—old and new— in journalism. It has insisted that we honor the strengths of the individuals upon whom we are reporting, that we (Didion is an exception) treat them—particularly the poor—with empathy and respect, not condescension. The book has called for indignation—not false attempts at balance—where indignation is due. But this chapter and this book have not questioned recourse to emotion—even eliciting tears. Ernie Pyle, for example, sings some sad, sad songs. Am I sure that I would have been as quick as was Murrow to abandon that tear-jerking ending to “Harvest of Shame”? I am not. But we ought to applaud the effort he and the dozens of other journalists whose work is celebrated in this book have made and continue to make to avoid easy outs, to ask journalism to accomplish more, to make it better, to aim higher.

Notes

Preface

ip Mitchell Stephens, the rise of the image the fall of the word. New York, 1998. 2. “The Future of Journalism Education” http://journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/archives/ future/index.html Introduction

ile Samantha Power, “Dying in Darfur: Can the ethnic cleansing in Sudan be stopped?

New Yorker, August 30, 2004. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830fa_fact1#ixzz1S2RIIIZP . http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Top%20100%20page.htm. http://journalism.nyu .edu/decade/

. Course on great journalism: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Journalistic%20 Tradition%20page.htm. “Top Hundred Works of Journalism of the Century:” http://www.nyu.edu/classes/ stephens/Top%20100%20page.htm “Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade:” http://journalism.nyu.edu/decade/ . I have also made use of an excellent old and sadly out-of-print collection: Louis L. Snyder and Richard B. Morris, A Treasury of Great Reporting. New York, 1949. . Mitchell Stephens, “Journalism Education: A Manifesto.” Columbia Journalism Review,

September/October 2000. Chapter 1 ie Judy Pasternak, “Blighted Homeland: A peril that dwelt among the Navajos,” “Oases in m « Navajo desert contained ‘a witch’s brew; “Navajos’ desert cleanup no more than a mirage,” “Mining firms again eyeing Navajo land” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 20, 21, 22, 2006.

http://www. latimes.com/news/la-na-navajo19nov19,0,5351917.story . “Big Think Interview With Gay Talese,’ September 28, 2009. http://bigthink.com/ ideas/16573

. http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/system/documents/478/original/nate_silver.pdf . http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/a-bad-economy-could-harmhouse-republicans/ 165

166

NOTES

. In an interview on Charlie Rose, January 12, 2007. http://www.charlierose.com/view/ interview/49

. Italics in the original. Robert S$. Boynton, The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft. New York, 2005, 62. . Gay Talese, “How I Joined the Family.” New York, October 18, 1971. . Gay Talese, Honor Thy Father. New York, 1971, 5. . Ibid., 40.

WDE, BBs . John Hersey, Hiroshima. New York, 1989, 1. . See Jerry Lanson, Writing for Others, Writing for Ourselves: Telling Stories in an Age of Blogging. New York, 2011. . John Hersey, Hiroshima. New York, 1989, 16.

. Ibid., 64. . Murrow, This is London. New York, 1941, 144. . Ibid., 144.

. Ibid., 169.

. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money . Judy Pasternak, “Blighted Homeland: A peril that dwelt among the Navajos,’ “Oases in Navajo desert contained ‘a witch’s brew,” “Navajos’ desert cleanup no more than a mirage, “Mining firms again eyeing Navajo land.” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 20, 21, 22, 2006.

. Samantha Power, “Dying in Darfur: Can the ethnic cleansing in Sudan be stopped?” New Yorker, August 30, 2004. . John Hersey, Hiroshima. New York, 1989, 25. . Ibid., 16. . Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft. New York, 2005, 229. onl id. 229)

. Mitchell Stephens, A History of News. New York, 2007, 124-8. . Murrow, This is London. New York, 1941, 147, 144. . Mia Fineman, ‘Children of Bad Memories.’ Slate, June 10, 2009.

. Ibid. . www.mediastorm.com/publication/intended-consequences . Ernest Hemingway, “A New Kind of War.’ In By-Line Ernest Hemingway. New York, 2002. . See Matthew Ricketson, “Sporting reads,’ theage.com.au, October 2, 2004. . http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/wartime-columns/a-long-thin-lineof-personal-anguish/ . Murrow, This is London. New York, 1941, 162. . Cited, Ann M. Sperber, Murrow, His Life and Times. New York, 1998, 176.

. Ernie Pyle, David Nichols, Ernie’s War: The Best of Ernie Pyle’s World War II Dispatches. New York, 1987, 42.

. Ibid. . The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. Berkeley, 2005, vol. I, 186. . Ibid., 187. . Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction

Writers on Their Craft. New York, 2005, 23. . David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Boston, 1997, 83. . Ibid., 89.

Notes

167

Chapter 2 ik Edward R. Murrow, Fred W. Friendly and David Lowe, CBS Reports: “Harvest of Shame.” http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7087479n&tag=contentMain;

contentBody

. Ibid. . Tom Wolfe, “The New Journalism? In Tom Wolfe and Edward Warren Johnson, The New Journalism. New York, 1973, 32.

- Cited, Ralph Engelman, Friendlyvision: Fred Friendly and the Rise and Fall of Television Journalism. New York, 2011, 150.

- Quoted by Bill Moyers. Cited ibid., 150. . Edward R. Murrow, Fred W. Friendly and David Lowe, CBS Reports: “Harvest of Shame.’ http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/ *id=7087479n&tag=contentMain;content Body . Ibid. . Interview by Jonathan Dee, Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, vol. 8, Palo: - Edward R. Murrow, Fred W. Friendly and David Lowe, CBS Reports: “Harvest of Shame.” http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7087479n &tag=contentMain;content Body . Ibid.

. Ibid. . Ibid.

. Robert Miraldi, Muckraking and Objectivity: Journalism’ Colliding Traditions. New York, 1990, 91.

. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family. New York, 2004, 15. . Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Non-

fiction Writers on Their Craft. New York, 2005, 60. . Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives. New York, 1890, 64. . Ibid., 48. . Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family. New York, 2004, 27.

. Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives. New York, 1890, 56, 104. https://play.google. com/store/books/details?id=zhcv_oA5dwgC&rdid=book-zhcv_oA5dwgC&rdot=1 20. Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Non-

fiction Writers on Their Craft. New York, 2005, 64. S Ibid: . Ibid., 16.

. http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/system/documents/478/original/nate_ silver.pdf . Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft. New Yorkm 2005, 60-1. Interview with Brian Lamb, Booknotes,

WS),

26. DT 28. m3).

November 10, 1996. http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/75246-1/Leon+Dash.aspx Robert Miraldi, Muckraking and Objectivity: Journalism’s Colliding Traditions. New York, 1990, 88. See also http://web.archive.org/web/20050911084222/http://times.discovery .com/convergence/harvestofshame/harvestofshame.html Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’ Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft. New York, 2005, 229. Interview by Jonathan Dee, Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, vol. 8. http://www.onthemedia.org/2008/aug/15/40-years-later-hersh-on-my-lai/transcript/ The My Lai Massacre: Seymour Hersh’s Complete and Unabridged Reporting for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 1969/Candide’s Notebooks.

168

NOTES

Chapter 3 Ie Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family. New York, 2004, 3-4. Xe, Charles Dickens, “On Duty with Inspector Field” In The Works of Charles Dickens.

&pg Volume V. New York, 1900. http://books.google.com/books?id=WpkoAQAAIAAJ =PA488&lpg=PA488&dq=Dickens,+On+Duty+ with+Inspector+Field&source=bl&ot s=_-8yy2eRhO&sig=EJ9h1nPMtBLFWr_mlte7swZDcfM &hl=en&sa=X&ei=4Y YIUL XCE6nq6wGCl7 W0BQ&ved=0CDsQuwUwA Q#v=onepage&q=Dickens%2C%20 On%20Duty%20with%20Inspector%20Field&f=false . See Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. New York: New Haven, 2007. Jeal argues that Stanley’s first words to Dr. Livingstone were not in fact that “misguided attempt at sangfroid”: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” See pp. 6, 117-119. For the date Stanley found Livingstone, see p. 120. . Charles Dickens, American Notes. Leipzig, 1842, 99.

ealDidspl37e ibid: 161. . Samantha Power, “Dying in Darfur: Can the ethnic cleansing in Sudan be stopped? Oo ND New Yorker, August 30, 2004. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830fa_fact1#ixzz1S2RIIIZP . http://www.aidsdiary.org/story.html . Edward R. Murrow, Fred W. Friendly and David Lowe, CBS Reports: “Harvest of Shame.” http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7087479n &tag=contentMain; contentBody . See also, David K. Shipler, The Working Poor: Invisible in America. New York, 2005, 96. . Ann M. Sperber, Murrow, His Life and Times. New York, 1998, 604. . James Baldwin, “Nobody Knows My Name.” In James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985. New York, 1985. . In an interview on Charlie Rose. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/49. . David Gonzalez, “House Afire: A Sliver of a Storefront, a Faith on the Rise.’ New York

Times, January 14, 2007. . John Hersey, Hiroshima. New York: 1989, 8-9.

. Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York, 2008, 13.

. Wolfe says yes in Chet Flippo, “The Rolling Stone Interview: Tom Wolfe,’ 1980. In Dorothy McInnis Scura, Conversations with Tom Wolfe. Mississippi, 1990, 152. He says no in “10 Questions for Tom Wolfe,” Time, August 28, 2008. WY, See Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. New York: 2007, 65-6, 85. 18. James Campbell, Talking at the Gates: a Life of James Baldwin. Berkeley: 2002, 119.

David Adams Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography. New York: 1994, 137. 1} Interview by Jonathan Dee, Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, vol. 8. George

Sullivan, Journalists at Risk: Reporting Americas Wars. Minneapolis, 2006, 48. 20. James Campbell, Talking at the Gates: a Life of James Baldwin. Berkeley: 2002, 119.

David Adams Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography. New York: 1994, 137. Ale David Bornstein, “The Barefoot Bank With Cheek? Atlantic Monthly, December 1995.

Chapter 4 ile Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family. New York, 2004, 5. De Ibid., 118. OF The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. Volume I. Berkeley, 2005, 184-6. 4. Lillian Ross, “The Yellow Bus.’ In Lillian Ross, Reporting. New York, 1981.

Notes

169

. Mitchell Stephens, A History of News. New York, 2007, 124-8. ; http://minnesota. publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/23/youthradio-hmongcollege/ 3 http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/talese/biographyseven. htm] on- Norman Finkelstein, With Heroic Truth: The life of Edward TONG CONES R. Murrow. Lincoln, Neb., 2005, 61.

. Gay Talese, Honor Thy Father. New York, 2009, 19. - Gay Talese, “When Frank Sinatra Had a Cold” Esquire, November 1987. . Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York, 2008, 115.

- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff: Illustrated. New York, 2004, 249.

. Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism. New York, 1972, 20.

. David Foster Wallace, “Up, Simba.” In Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays. New York, 2006. . David Foster Wallace, “Oblivion.” In David Foster Wallace, Oblivion: Stories. New York, 2004. . David Foster Wallace, “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart.’ In Consider the Lobster:

And Other Essays. New York, 2006. . John Hersey, “The Legend on the License” In Tom Goldstein, Killing the Messenger: 100 Years of Media Criticism. New York, 2007, 220. - Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism. New York, 1972, 19-20. Jack Fuller, however, argues that Phil Spector's confirmation that Tom Wolfe is accurately reporting his description of his own thoughts does not prove that those were in fact Spector’s thoughts at the time; Jack Fuller, News Values: Ideas for an Information Age. Chicago, 1997, 148. Still, that seems awfully close to what we are looking for. 19. Gay Talese, “When Frank Sinatra Had a Cold.” Esquire, November 1987. 20. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family. New York, 2004, 243. Ne Margaret Gunther, “Modern Love: My Clock Was Already Ticking.” New York Times, New March 27, 2009. MP http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html Translation by S. H. Butcher. 23: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-Klein/2010/12/people_like_people_who_like_th -html 24. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family. New York, 2004, 35. MB) Gay Talese, Thy Neighbor’s Wife. New York, 1980, 11, 615. 26. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff. New York, 1979, 44. 27k Ibid., 58. The ellipses here are Wolfe’s and, presumably, Yeager’s. 28. Mark Twain, Clemens of the “Call”: Mark Twain in San Francisco. Edgar Marquess Branch, ed. Berkeley, 1969, 141. UY). Mitchell Stephens, A History of News. New York, 2007, 242. 30. James Baldwin, “Nobody Knows My Name.” In James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985. New York, 1985.

Sil a2, 33) 34.

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood. New York, 1994, 27. David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Boston, 1997, 261. Ibid., 227.

Ernest Hemingway, “Bullfighting: A Tragedy.” In By-Line Ernest Hemingway. New York: 2002.

35: Dorothy Thompson, “Good-By to Germany.’ Harpers Monthly Magazine, December 1934. 36. Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York: 1968. Sy) www.mediastorm.com/publication/intended-consequences 38. David Foster Wallace, “Up, Simba,” in Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays. New York: 2006, 207, 224-9.

170

INOMES:

Chapter 5 Il http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-inside-job-gotwrong/2011/05/19/AGgGoJgH_blog.html . http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/ the_affordable_care_acts_spend.html

. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/first-thoughts-on-the-cboscore/37720/

. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/interview-with-ezra-klein/ . Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Boston, 1980, 33-4. el GidmoD:

. Ibid, 39. . Sridhar Pappu, “Washington's New Brat Pack Masters Media.” New York Times, March sp An oN 25, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/fashion/27 YOUNGPUNDITS.html?_r=1& pagewanted=all . http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/ does_the_news_media_spend_ too.html

. This is the subject of my new book, Beyond News: The Future of Journalism. New York, 2014. See also Mitchell Stephens, “The Case for Wisdom Journalism—and for Journalists Surrendering the Pursuit of News.’ Daedalus, Spring 2010. ie http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/how_does_the_individual_ mandat.html x, Sridhar Pappu, “Washington's New Brat Pack Masters Media.” New York Times, March 25, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/fashion/27YOUNGPUNDITS.html?_r=1& pagewanted=all is). http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/transcript 14. Richard Grant White, “The Morals and Manners of Journalism.” The Galaxy, December 1869, VIII, 6. American Periodicals Series, 840. 13). Benjamin Franklin, “Rattle-Snakes for Felons,’ Pennsylvania Gazette, May 9, 1751. In J. A. Leo Lemay, ed., Benjamin Franklin: Writings. New York, 1987, 359-61. 16. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/how-you-know-the-negotiationshave-truly-failed/2011/05/19/AG13r5qH_blog.html We http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/common-mistakes-made-byeconomists/2011/03/09/ABNsdBQ_blog.html 18. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/11/el_bulli.html 19% Natalia Brzezinski, “Washington Post’s Ezra Klein: A Millennial Perspectives Interview.” http://www. huffingtonpost.com/natalia-lopatniuk-brzezinski/washington-posts-ezra-kle _b_792246.html 20. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/11/the_end_of_the_do-something_

co.html#more 2 http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html Ip, http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-12-2009/cnn-leaves-it-there M3), http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/business/03aig.html. http://pressthink.org/2009/

04/he-said-she-said-journalism-lame-formula-in-the-land-of-the-active-user/ 24. http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/system/documents/478/original/nate_silver.pdf US), http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/thinktanks-gone-wild-on-the-

economics-of-mass-transit-and-the-value-of-common-sense/#more- 10393 26: Jane Mayer, The Dark Side. New York, 2009, 9. MG http://www.ted.com/ talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html 28. James Madison, “Public Opinion.” National Gazette, December 19, 1791. In Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison, V1. New York, 1906.

Notes

171

Js), http:/ /voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/ joe_lieberman_lets_not_make_a.

html; http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/01/a _ good_time_to_turn_down_ the_t.html;

http:/ /voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/health_care_doesnt_

keep_people.html 30. Dave Barry, “Ok, Who Stole The Universe?” Chicago Tribune, January 29, 1995. http:// articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-01-29/features/95012901 29_1_astronomers-distant-

galaxy-dormitory-environment Sic Leslie Stephen, “The Duties of Authors.” In Leslie Stephen, Social Rights and Duties,

II. London, 1896. 32: Erik Maza, “Mirror Awards Honor Excellence in Reporting? Women’s Wear Daily, June 6, 2013. 33: New York University, we like to think, has taken the lead here. http://journalism.nyu

.edu/graduate/ 34. Sridhar Pappu, “Washington's New Brat Pack Masters Media.” New York Times, March

25, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/fashion/27YOUNGPUNDITS.html?_ r=] &pagewanted=all 35: Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism. New York, 2003, 63, 99, 120. Chapter 6 ITs See David Mindich, Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism. New York, 2000. . From Louis L. Snyder and Richard B. Morris, A Treasury of Great Reporting, New York, 1949, 452-60. The rest of the story Stark produced—under deadline pressure, it should be emphasized—is not so spare as these opening paragraphs. He does manage to capture quite a bit of the emotion of the scene. We learn, for example, that Sacco’s last

words included, in Italian, “Long live anarchy!” and then, in English, “Farewell my wife and child, and all my friends!” and finally, “Farewell, Mother.’ But Stark does restrict himself to independently verifiable facts: based on what he, some assistants working for him and the only reporter allowed to attend the execution could see for themselves or what they learned at press conferences or from interviews with the warden, the chaplain and defense lawyers. And he certainly does not employ the more energetic writing styles discussed in this chapter. . Truman Capote, In Cold Blood. New York, 1993, 337-41. 4. Bill Mears, “Mexican national executed in Texas.” CNN Justice, July 7, 2011. The contro-

versy here was over whether his rights as a foreign national had been honored. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-07/justice/texas.mexican.execution_1_executionmexican-consulate-sandra-babcock?_s=PM:CRIME

. George Plimpton, “The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel.” New York Times, January 16, 1966. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/28/home/capote-interview.htm] . Ibid. . Tom Wolfe, “The New Journalism.” In Tom Wolfe and Edward Warren Johnson, The New Journalism. New York, 1973, 17-8.

. Ibid., 16.

. David Foster Wallace,

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Boston, 1997,

257-8.

. From Louis L. Snyder and Richard B. Morris, A Treasury of Great Reporting. New York, 1949, 441. And, to push things further back, in his book, Damon Runyon, Jimmy Breslin credits Runyon’s style to Coleridge; Jimmy Breslin, Damon Runyon. New York, 1992S

1/2

NOlES

11. Mike Royko, “Daley Embodied Chicago.” Chicago Sun Times, December 21, 1976. http://www.columnists.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Avlon-Top-Columns.pdf 12. Hunter S. Thompson, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” In Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time. New York, 1979. 13. Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography and Other Writings. New York, 1961, 29. 14. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/jeff-scher/ 15. http://www.videosurf.com/mark-pellington-362774 16. See Mitchell Stephens, “Thinking Through Moving Media.” Social Research, Winter AQUI

17. Many of these ideas and issues are discussed in Mitchell Stephens, the rise of the image the fall of the word. New York, 1998. 18. Ernest Hemingway, “A New Kind of War? In By-Line Ernest Hemingway. New York, 2002.

19. Cited, Mitchell Stephens, the rise of the image the fall of the word. New York, 1998, 122. 20. Barry Keith Grant, Frederick Wiseman, Five Films by Frederick Wiseman. Berkeley: 2006, 16-9.

21. Madeleine Blais, “The Arithmetic of Need.” Washington Post Magazine, June 7, 1992. 22. Freya Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia. Nyack, NY, 1936, 13. 235 Ibid 72:

24, 25. 26. 27.

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood. New York, 1993, 10. Ibid., 5. Freya Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia. Nyack, NY, 1936, 69. From Louis L. Snyder and Richard B. Morris, A Treasury of Great Reporting. New York, 1949, 160.

28. Nora Ephron, “A Few Words About Breasts.’ Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women. New York, 1974. 29. https://twitter.com/jdickerson/status/106063745415004160 30. http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/08/17/081711-news-brando-couch/ Chapter 7 1. Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York, 1968. 2. Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Boston, 1980, 39. 3. “Robert J. Mayo: Notes to His Son,” New York Times, November 6, 2001. http://nytimes .com/2001/11/06/national/portraits/POGF-605-7MAYO.html. For Scott’s role: http:// www.loc.gov/loc/Icib/0211/911-victims.html. 4. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm . From one of his journals. http://www.readingemerson.com/2011/05/30/no-man-canwrite-well-who-thinks-there-is-any-choice-of-words-for-him/ . Ralph Engelman, Friendlyvision: Fred Friendly and the Rise and Fall of Television Journalism. New York, 2011, 150.

. Cited, Henri Troyat, Flaubert. New York, 1992, 121. . http://www.sonyclassics.com/awards-information/insidejob_screenplay.pdf . Ernest Hemingway, “Trout Fishing in Europe.’ In By-Line Ernest Hemingway. New York, 2002.

. See, for example, the powerful and well-crafted sentences of Richard Harding Davis, perhaps the best-known journalist in the United States at the end of the 19th century. 11. Cited, Mitchell Stephens, Broadcast News, 4th ed. Belmont, CA, 2005, 46. 12. http://www.sonyclassics.com/awards-information/insidejob_screenplay.pdf

Notes

173

13; http://web.archive.org/web/20050717230946/http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index -php?dish_inc=archives/2005_07_03_dish_archive.html 14. See http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/01/10/138084/ scarborough-palin-apologize/ 1S Ernie Pyle, David Nichols, Ernie’ War: The Best of Ernie Pyles World War II Dispatches. 16. We 18. 19! 20.

New York, 1987, 42. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html Translation by S. H. Butcher. Gay Talese, Honor Thy Father. New York, 1971, 5. Mason Wade, ed., The Writings of Margaret Fuller. New York, 1941, 423. In Tom Wolfe and Edward Warren Johnson, The New Journalism. New York, 1973, 192.

Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” In Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York, 1968.

21: Tom Wolfe and Edward Warren Johnson, The New Journalism. New York, 1973, 20. 22. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html Translation by S. H. Butcher. Ze Kenneth Tynan, “Fifteen Years Of The Salto Mortale”” New Yorker, February 20, 1978. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1978/02/20/ 1978_02_20_047_TNY_CARDS_00032647

7#ixzz1VPVrLKpb

Chapter 8 ule http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/wartime-columns/the-death-ofcaptain-waskow/ . Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York, 1968.

. http://www, thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money . Cited in Jerry Lanson and Mitchell Stephens, Writing and Reporting the News, 3rd ed. New York, 2008, 502.

. Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities. New York, 1967, 19.

6. Nora Ephron, “Baking Off? In Crazy Salad. New York, 1976, 114-5. . Kenneth Tynan, “Withdrawing with Style from the Chaos. New Yorker, December 19, 1977. http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1977-12-19#folio=040 . Stephens Crane, “Marines Signaling Under Fire at Guantanamo.” http://en.wikisource .org/wiki/Marines_Signaling Under_Fire_at_Guantanamo . Cited, http://www.writersandeditors.com/narrative_nonfiction_57378.htm. Don Hewitt,

Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television. New York, 2001, 1. . Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In Joan Didion, Slouching Toward

Bethlehem. New York, 1968.

. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.htm] Translation by S. H. Butcher. . Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York, 1968.

. Don Hewitt, Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television. New York, 2001, 117. . Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In Joan Didion, Slouching Toward

Bethlehem. New York, 1968. 15). Cited, Mitchell Stephens, the rise of the image the fall of the word. New York, 1998, 62. 16. After describing the demolition of the hooghan, Pasternak also includes a description

of the great-nephew’s death. Judy Pasternak, “Blighted Homeland: A peril that dwelt among the Navajos.’ Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2006. http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-navajo19nov19,0,5351917.story fe From Louis L. Snyder and Richard B. Morris, A Treasury of Great Reporting. New York: 1949, 452-60. 18. Ann M. Sperber, Murrow, His Life and Times. New York, 1998, 604.

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Credits

PHOTOGRAPHS

PAGE 3 © Michal Safdie 9 Judy Pasternak 14 Dmitri Kessel/TIME & LIFE Pictures/ Getty Images 34 CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images 43 Robert Sherbow/TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images 48 © Kristine Larsen 1994 54 Edwin Pagan/Seis del Sur 63 Ted Thai/Getty Images 76 Giovanni Giovannetti/Effigie 84 Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

99 Alfred Eisenstaedt/TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images 106 Martha Holmes/TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images 113 Herve Bruhat/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images 127 The Estate of David Gahr/Getty Images 135 Portrait Of Feminist Margaret Fuller © Bettman/CORBIS 143 Photoquest/Getty Images 157 Julian Wasser/Getty Images

175

ha |

2

Index

Academy Awards, 129, 146

Argument

Afghanistan, 33, 147 African Americans, 50-51, 54

bias and, 86, 91 facts and, 2, 8, 13, 19, 23-24 (see also

A.1L.G., 93

Facts)

Alertness

finer wordings and, 126, 129-130, 140

Carson and, 99 cultural, 78 deeper truths and, 64, 78, 81-82 different perspectives and, 8, 12 enlivening and, 113 finer wordings and, 122 Friendly and, 31 Klein and, 87

honesty and, 96-97 objectivity and, 91-93, 96-97 penetrating approaches and, 41-42 sculpting and, 159 understandings and, 86, 91-102 Aristotle, 72, 121, 131, 141-142, 156-161 Armies of the Night (Mailer), 136 Asking. See Questions

Lowe and, 46 the overlooked and, 55-57

Associated Press, 44 Atlantic Monthly magazine, 58-59, 85

Pasternak and, 8, 46 penetrating approaches and, 28-31, 46 Power and, 28, 30, 46 practice of, 28 precision and, 30 understandings and, 87, 99 the unfamiliar and, 53-55 wandering and, 48, 53-57, 60 Wolfe and, 29

Audio, xv, 5 creativity and, xvi elevating and, 122, 126, 129 enlivening and, 114 Hemingway and, 30 learning and, 26, 32-33, 42 microphones and, 30, 32, 52 pondering and, 88 Radio diaries and, 52

Al Qaeda, 102

recorders and, 30, 32-33, 52, 114

American Journalism Review, 72

scenes and, 151, 153

American Notes (Dickens), 50

sculpting and, 142, 147-148, 151,

American Prospect magazine, 85 American Revolution, 119

N35), JIL wandering and, 52

Anchors, 92, 96

wondering and, 16

Anecdotes, 17, 46, 87, 147-149

Youth Radio and, 65-66

Angles, 18-19, 23, 102, 145, 153

zingers and, 146-149

Anonymity, 45-46

See also Sounds

WAGE

178

INDEX

Austin, Tracy, 69

Bush, George W., 94-95, 124, 129

Awards, 3, 19, 27, 42, 58-59, 129,

Butcher, S. H., 141

146-147

Calley, William L., Jr., 44 Bahrain, 93 Baldwin, James, 47, 54-55, 57-58, 61, 75

Cameras enlivening and, 111-114

Barry, Dave, 97

penetrating approaches and, 27, 30-32,

Bazin, André, 111

35, 37, 39-40 sculpting and, 149, 153

Bean Blossom Township High School,

wandering and, 52, 60

64-66, 77-78, 114

Bennett, James Gordon, Jr., 57-58

Cancer, 7-8, 16-17, 162

Berman, Paul, 83, 101-102

Capote, Truman, 75, 103-105, 107, 110,

Bernstein, Carl, 45-46

115-116

Beyond News: The Future of Journalism

Carson, Johnny, 141, 148-149

(Stephens), xvi Bias, 86, 91 Bin Laden, Osama, 102

Carson, Rachel, 83, 99-102

Blais, Madeleine, 103, 114

CBS

Blogs cleverness and, 117

deeper truths and, 73 different perspectives and, 10 enlivening and, 117, 119 finer wordings and, 121, 129-131 FiveThirtyEight.com and, 10, 94, 98 Kaus and, 90 Klein and, 73, 84-87, 90-92, 96-97

LeBlanc and, 38 McArdle and, 85

opinion effects of, 119 penetrating approaches and, 38, 41-42 sculpting and, 146 Silver and, 10, 41-42, 93-94, 98

Sullivan and, 121, 129 understandings and, 83-87, 90-94, 96-98, 101

Yglesias and, 101, 130 Blumberg, Alex, 16, 87-88, 146 Bonanno, Bill, 11-12, 28, 68, 70, 134

Bornstein, David, 58-60, 79

Boston University, 53 Bottom-up reporting, 37 Bowman, Jay, 78 Boynton, Robert S., 11, 24, 38, 41 Brando, Marlon, 117 Breslin, Jimmy, 109

Casinos, 7-8, 33, 43 Catholicism, 10, 55, 121 60 Minutes and, 142, 155-156, 158-159, 161

“Harvest of Shame” and, 26-27, 30-31, 34-40, 42, 46, 53, 119, 126, 148, 151, 156, 163-164 radio and, 15, 32, 66, 129

CBS Reports (TV show), 26-27, 31, 35 Chad, 1, 51 Child abuse, 19, 38, 112 Cinema

deeper truths and, 66 penetrating approaches and, 32 sculpting and, 149 vérité style and, 32, 111-115, 1395153

voice and, 139

Civil Rights movement, 75 Clarity, 95, 131, 140-141 Clauses, 128, 130, 132, 134

Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain), 74-75, 82, 103, 116 CNN, 92-93, 104

Columbia School of Journalism, 41, 93 Congress, 10, 89, 91, 96, 130, 158

Conover, Ted, 24, 26, 40-41, 137 Conservatives, 53, 82, 90-91

Cosmopolitan magazine, 20

Bridge of San Luis Rey, The (Wilder), 43

Coyotes (Conover), 24 Crane, Stephen, 142, 154-155

Broadcast journalism, 4-5, 27, 104, 141,

Creativity, xvi, 5

148, 161 Burnett, Marty, 31

Burrows, William E., 146

elevating and, 135-136 enlivening and, 116 leads and, 148-149

Index

recognizing and, 78 sculpting and, 148 Cunningham, Rosa Lee, 11, 42 Curiosity deeper truths and, 70 different perspectives and, 9-12, 25 finer wordings and, 121-123, 125,

138-139

sculpting and, 146 surprise and, 9, 18-19, 25, 67, 114 wandering and, 60 Daily Caller (news site), 90

Daily Show (TV show), 92, 130 Darfur

deeper truths and, 81-82 different perspectives and, 16-17 finer wordings and, 130, 137, 140 genocide and, 17 janjaweed and, 1, 28-30, 32, 43-44, 46, 51-52, 163 Mohammed and, 1, 17, 37, 51

suicide and, 76, 145-146, 156-157 See also War

Death of a Salesman (Miller), 82 “Death of Captain Waskow, The” (Pyle), 142-145, 149-151, 155-157, 160, 163

Deeper truths alertness and, 64, 78, 81

argument and, 78-79 attitudes and, 74-77

blogs and, 73 curiosity and, 70 Darfur and, 81-82 Didion and, 79-80 documentaries and, 61, 66 emotion and, 61-62, 66-67, 71-72

empathy and, 79, 81 facts and, 62, 79

Hemingway and, 77 Hersey and, 70 honesty and, 69-70, 76, 80

interpretation and, 74

Potemkin program and, 140

investigation and, 72-74 Klein and, 73

Power and, 1-5, 17, 28-30, 37, 46,

leads and, 64

51-52, 81, 130, 137, 140, 163

sculpting and, 163 wandering and, 51-53

LeBlanc and, 61-62, 71-75, 79-80, 82

life and, 63-67 love and, 71-74

Dark Side, The (Mayer), 94

meaning and, 77-79

Darwin, Charles, 55 Dash, Leon, 7, 11, 26, 38, 40, 42, 43f

morals and, 77, 79-81 Murrow and, 66-67

Davidson, Adam, 16, 87-88, 146

objectivity and, 81 paying attention and, 81-82 politics and, 61-67, 71, 73, 81

Day-Glo style, 57, 103, 111 Death Al Qaeda and, 102 cancer and, 17, 162

Power and, 81 questions and, 64-65, 70, 73, 77-79

Capote and, 105

research and, 28, 43-44

Derrida and, 100-101

Ross and, 61, 63-66, 77-80

Didion and, 146, 157-158

sources and, 67, 70, 75 Steffens and, 62

electric chair and, 103-104, 138 fear of, 76

Talese and, 61, 66-71, 74

My Lai massacre and, 44-46

thoughts and, 68-71 Torgovnik and, 40, 61, 80-81 Wallace and, 61, 69-70, 76, 81 wandering and, 86 Wolfe and, 61, 68-71, 74 Deep Throat, 45

Pyle and, 132, 145-146, 149-151, 155,

Democrats, 91-92, 95-96

hanging and, 101, 103, 105, 112 infant, 89

jokes about, 24 lethal injection and, 104 Mafia and, 68

157, 160, 163

rhetoric and, 97 Sacco-Vanzetti trial and, 103-105, 108, 138, 162, 171n2

he)

Derrida, Jacques, 100-101 Detroit Free Press, 12

Dewey, Alvin, 104 Dickens, Charles, 47, 49-51, 57, 82

180

INDEX

Dickenson, John, 117 Dickson, Deborah, 66, 112, 153 Didion, Joan

deeper truths and, 79-80 finer wordings and, 121-123, 125, 134, 136-140

judgmental approach of, 137-138 Miller story and, 145, 156-159, 161, 163

morals and, 80 narrative and, 156, 159

quotations and, 136-137 sculpting and, 142, 145-146, 156-164 “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” and, 122, 140, 146

voice and, 137-139

Different perspectives

truth and, 7, 21, 23-24

Wallace and, 24-25

zooming and, 13-14, 16-17, 121 Digital technology audio and, xv—xvi, 5, 16, 26, 32-33, 42, 52, 88, 114, 122, 126, 129, 142, 147-148, 151, 153, 161

cameras and, 27, 30-32, 35, 37, 39-40, 52, 60, 111-114, 149, 153

elevating and, 129, 131, 140 enlivening and, 110 Facebook and, 52, 64

microphones and, 30, 32, 52 multimedia and, 4, 11, 19, 56

pondering and, 86, 95 recorders and, 30, 32-33, 52, 114

alertness and, 8, 12

sculpting and, 142, 160-162

alternative perspectives and, 19-22 blogs and, 10

Twitter and, 52, 90, 93, 98, 117, 129-131

curiosity and, 9-12, 25 Darfur and, 16-17

documentaries and, 16 emotion and, 20 expertise and, 9

facts and, 8, 13, 19,.23-24 finding an angle and, 18-19, 23, 102, 145, 153

Hemingway and, 7, 19, 23-24 Hersey and, 7, 12-17, 21

video and, xv—xvi, 5, 26-27, 31-32, AD)

W950 LO 1 O35 11 Os

=a1/5)

122, 126, 129-130, 139-140, 142, 146-148, 151, 153, 160-161

Web sites and, 104, 110, 160-162 YouTube and, 27, 52

Discrimination, 53-54 Dispatch News Service, 44 Documentaries deeper truths and, 61, 66

different perspectives and, 16

Hiroshima and, 7, 12-17, 21

enlivening and, 103, 111-114, 119

honesty and, 21-25 interpretation and, 17 investigation and, 7, 11-12, 18 larger perspectives and, 16-18 leads and, 7, 9 LeBlanc and, 7, 18 Murrow and, 15, 18, 21 opinion and, 17 Pasternak and, 7-12, 16-17 penetrating approaches and, 28-30, 37, 46 politics and, 10, 17

finer wordings and, 121, 126, 129, 139 penetrating approaches and, 26-27,

Power and, 17 Pyle and, 7, 20-22, 24

questions and, 10-13, 15, 20 research and, 7, 9 Silver and, 10

smaller perspectives and, 12-16 sources and, 9, 11, 23 Steffens and, 23

surprise and, 18-19 Talese and, 7, 10-12

Torgovnik and, 7, 19, 23

31-32, 35-37

sculpting and, 146, 153, 155-156, 159 understandings and, 87-88 vérité style and, 32, 111-115, 139, 153 wandering and, 54 Drug culture, 149

dealers’ girlfriends and, 18, 42, 47, 61-62, 71, 73, 75, 82

Dash and, 11 Gonzalez and, 55

LeBlanc and, 18, 38-42, 47-49, 61-62, WM 13h, HS, IS), BD

Thompson and, 109 Wiseman and, 113 Wolfe and, 56-57, 68 DuPont-Columbia Award, 19 Education, 1, 53, 56

Hmong women and, 66 increased rates of, 140

Index

increasing maturity of, 5 Torgovnik and, 19 Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The (Wolfe), 57

Elevating audio and, 122, 126, 129 creativity and, 135-136 digital technology and, 129, 131, 140 video and, 122, 126, 129-130, 139

impassioned style and, 118-120 interpretation and, 115-116, 120 investigation and, 103 just-the-facts journalism and, 103-104, 108, 111 leads and, 103-104, 119 Murrow and, 119

opinion and, 114, 119

Eloquence, 34-35, 154

originality and, 109-110

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 121, 125

Paine and, 120 politics and, 103-104, 117

Emotion

181

deeper truths and, 61-62, 66-67, 71-72

Pyle and, 121, 131-132, 137 questions and, 113-114, 118, 120

different perspectives and, 20 empathy and, 37-40, 53, 79, 81, 92, 164

Ross and, 114

enlivening and, 117-119, 171n2

Sacco-Vanzetti trial and, 103-105, 108, 138, 162, 171n2

finer wordings and, 123-124, 138-139

sounds and, 105, 108

humor, 82, 85, 89, 97, 116-118, 160

truth and, 109, 111 vérité and, 32, 111-115, 139, 153

impassioned style and, 118-120 love, 19, 23, 36, 48, 61-64, 71-74, 80, 82, 97, 108, 120, 124, 131, 136, 142, 145-146, 150, 156-158, 163

penetrating approaches and, 31, 34, 38 sculpting and, 142, 163-164 truth and, 38 Empathy

video and, 103, 110, 114-115 voice-of-God style and, 103, 111-112, 114 Wallace and, 103, 108-110 Wolfe and, 103, 105-111, 116

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 16, 162 Ephron, Nora, 103, 117-118, 142, 148

deeper truths and, 79, 81

ESPN, 10

exercises in, 53

Esquire magazine, 117, 127, 148

penetrating approaches and, 37-40, 53 sculpting and, 164

Everything Bad Is Good for You

understandings and, 92

different perspectives and, 9 understandings and, 97-100

Encyclopedia Brittanica, 44 Enlivening alertness and, 113 audio and, 114 blogs and, 117, 119 cameras and, 111-114 creativity and, 116 digital technology and, 110 documentaries and, 103,

(Johnson), 140 Expertise, 4

Facebook, 52, 64 Facts

anecdotes and, 17, 46, 87, 147-149 deeper truths and, 62, 79 different perspectives and, 8, 13, 19, 111-114, 119

emotion and, 117-119, 171n2 engaging styles and, xv, 79, 88, 103-121, 139 MAG wots 156

evocative styles and, 115-116 facts and, 103-104, 108, 111, 116, 119 Franklin and, 110

“Harvest of Shame” and, 119 Hemingway and, 111 honesty and, 114, 117-119 humor and, 116-118 hyperkinetic approach and, 106-111 images and, 103, 105, 110

23-24

double checking, 2, 44-45, 171n2 enlivening and, 103-104, 108, 111, 116, 119

finer wordings and, 138-139 just-the-facts approach and, 62, 86, 103-104, 108, 111

Klein and, 85 leads and, 9, 35, 43, 45, 104, 142,

145-149

Lippmann and, 85 penetrating approaches and, 27, 38, 41-42, 44, 46

182

INDEX

Facts (Continued)

phone calls and, 85-86 sculpting and, 145-149, 157, 160-161 understandings and, 85-86, 88, 91, 93, 95-96

wandering and, 50, 55, 59-60

Talese and, 121, 127-130, 133-134, 139 voice and, 136-139 Wallace and, 140 Wolfe and, 121, 139 First Amendment, 95 FiveThirtyEight.com, 10, 94, 98

Fascism, 67

Five W’s, 104, 108, 145-147, 149

Felt, W. Mark, 45 Ferguson, Charles H., 121, 126, 129 Finer wordings alertness and, 122 argument and, 125f, 126, 129-130, 140 beauty and, 121 blogs and, 121, 129-131 challenging and, 140-141 clarity and, 140-141

Flaubert, Gustave, 126

clauses and, 128, 130, 132, 134

curiosity and, 121-123, 125, 138-139 Darfur and, 130, 137, 140

Franco, Angel, 11 Franklin, Benjamin disassembling of sentences and, 110 enlivening and, 110

teaching and guiding and, 89 understandings and, 83, 87-89, 95 Freedom of speech, 93 Freedom of the press, 95 Friendly, Fred W., 27, 31, 35-36, 42, 55 IAG

Didion and, 121-123, 125, 134, 136-140

Frisell, Bill, 131 Froemke, Susan, 66, 112, 153

documentaries and, 121, 126, 129, 139

Fuller, Margaret, 121, 135-136

emotion and, 123-124, 138-139

facts and, 138-139

Gabriel, Peter, 52

Fuller and, 121, 135-136

Garcia, Humberto Leal, Jr., 104

“Harvest of Shame” and, 126

Gay community, 53, 67, 72-73 Geithner, Timothy, 126

Hemingway and, 121, 128-130, 137-139

Hersey and, 137 Hiroshima and, 137 honesty and, 131, 137 imagery and, 134-136 impressive, 122, 131 interpretation and, 121, 123 Klein and, 140 leads and, 124-125, 131, 134 Lippmann and, 121-122, 133 Murrow and, 129, 139 music and, 131-134 opinion and, 125, 139 originality and, 121, 125, 132 Paine and, 121, 136 politics and, 124, 130, 136

Geneva Convention, 94 Genocide Darfur and, 17

Germany and, 67 Rwanda and, 19, 40, 80

Germany bombing of London and, 15-16, 18, D225 24; 325 129; 1325145

genocide and, 67 Nazis and, 20, 22, 67, 77, 94

Ghiglione, Loren, 53 “Giant Pool of Money, The” (NPR), 16, 87-88, 146 Global financial crisis, 7, 16, 84, 87, 126, 129

Potemkin program and, 140

Gonzalez, David, 7, 10-11, 43, 47,

Power and, 121, 130, 134, 137, 140 precision and, 124-125, 128

Google, 90, 140

questions and, 123-124, 130, 137, 139 rhythm and, 123, 131-134

Government bailouts, 93 Grameen Bank, 59

sentences and, 126-131 sex and, 139 snappy style and, 130-131 sounds and, 125, 132 sources for, 124 Steffens and, 122

54f, 55, 60

Grann, David, 142, 147, 149, 158

Grantland (Web site), 140

Graziano, Rocky, 20 Greenberg, Maurice R., 93 Gulf of Tonkin, 158-159

Gunther, Margaret, 72-73

Index

Hangouts, 48, 56-57, 109

Sasaki and, 12-15, 17, 32

Harlan County USA (film), 146

sculpting and, 156

Harper’s magazine, 24-25, 57-58, 77,

Shawn and, 58 understandings and, 100, 102

82, 108

Harvard, 4 “Harvest of Shame” (CBS documentary) bottom-up reporting and, 37 enlivening and, 119 finer wordings and, 126 Friendly and, 27, 31, 35-36, 42, 53, 126 King and, 26-27, 36-37 Lowe and, 27, 35-40, 42, 46 Murrow and, 27, 31, 34-35, 37, 53, 119,

148, 163-164

originality and, 27 penetrating approaches and, 26-27,

183

voice and, 137 wandering and, 56, 58 World War II and, 7, 12-15, 17, 21, 32, 35, 42-43, 56, 58, 100, 137, 156

Hersh, Seymour, 26, 44-46 “He said, she said” journalism, 92 Hewitt, Don, 142, 155-156, 158-160 Hilal, Musa, 29-30, 163

Hippies, 56-57, 60, 70

Hiroshima bomb flash of, 12-14, 32, 56

30-31, 34-40, 42, 46

different perspectives and, 7, 12-17, 21 finer wordings and, 137

Schultz and, 31, 37, 126, 163

Hersey’s reporting on, 7, 12-17, 21, 32,

sculpting and, 148, 151, 156, 163-164

Steinbeck and, 42 talking heads and, 31 wandering and, 53 Health insurance, 84-87, 96 Hecht, Ben, 79 Heinz, W. C., 20 Hemingway, Ernest

death and, 24 deeper truths and, 77 different perspectives and, 7, 19, 23-24 enlivening and, 111

excitement of anticipation and, 77 finer wordings and, 121, 128-130, 137-139

penetrating approaches and, 30 sound descriptions of, 30 Spanish Civil War and, 19-20, 24, 30, 111, 138

truth and, 24, 129 voice and, 138-139 word invention and, 30 Hendrix, Jimi, 131

Hersey, John deeper truths and, 70 different perspectives and, 7, 12-15, i, OM

finer wordings and, 137 Hiroshima and, 7, 12-17, 21, 32, 35, 43, 56, 58, 100, 137, 156

narrative and, 32 penetrating approaches and, 26, 32, 35, 42-43

questions and, 32, 35

35, 43, 56, 58, 100, 137, 156

penetrating approaches and, 32, 35, 43 Red Cross hospitals and, 15 Sasaki and, 12-15, 17, 32

sculpting and, 156 Shawn and, 58 understandings and, 100 wandering and, 56, 58 History of News, A (Stephens), xvi HIV/AIDS, 19, 52 Hmong people, 61, 65-66, 77

Holiday, Billy Boy, 8-10, 16, 147, 162 Holiday, Mary, 8-10, 16, 32-34, 38, 147, 162 Honesty argument and, 96-97

bearing witness and, 51-52 deeper truths and, 69-70, 76, 80 different perspectives and, 21-25 enlivening and, 114, 117-119 finer wordings and, 131, 137 penetrating approaches and, 41, 45 Pyle and, 22, 24 sculpting and, 149 Torgovnik and, 80 understandings and, 96-97 vérité style and, 32, 111-115, 139, 153 Wallace and, 25, 69 See also Truth Honor Thy Father (Talese), 11-12, 28 Hooghans, 8, 32, 34, 162, 173n16

How the Other Half Lives (Riis), 39 Hull, Anne, 142, 147, 149 Human rights, 2, 4, 52, 94, 98 Humor, 82, 85, 89, 97, 116-118, 160

184

INDEX

Hutu tribe, 19 Hyperkinetic styles, 106-111

iPhones, 49 Iraq War, 16, 33, 146-147

Islam, 101-102

Images, 5

enlivening and, 103, 105, 110 finer wordings and, 134-136 overabundance of, 29 penetrating approaches and, 29-32 precision and, 31 sculpting and, 145, 148, 159 vérité style and, 32, 111-115, 139, 153

See also Video Immersion journalism, 4, 38, 42, 47, 57 Impassioned styles, 118-120 In Cold Blood (Capote), 75, 103, 105, 107, 115-116 Inside Job (Ferguson), 126, 129, 151

Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape (Torgovnik), 19 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 88 Internet, 129-130 learning and, 27 pondering and, 101, 119

recognizing and, 65 short sentences and, 129-130 virtual travel and, 60 Web sites and, xvi, 104, 110, 125f

Interpretation

deeper truths and, 74 different perspectives and, 17 enlivening and, 115-116, 120 finer wordings and, 121, 123 Franklin and, 88-89

Klein and, 88-89 Lippmann and, 88-89 sculpting and, 161 understandings and, 83-85, 88-91, LBs Mi, SY

Investigation Bernstein and, 45-46 deeper truths and, 72-74

Janjaweed attempt to cover up crimes by, 52 Darfur and, 1, 28-30, 32, 43-44, 46,

Hil Ay NOS

Hilal and, 29-30, 163 status details and, 29, 163 Jews, 39, 121

Johnson, Steven, 150 Journalism

argument and, 86, 91 (see also Argument) background advantages and, 53-55 bearing witness and, 51-52 bias and, 86, 91 broadcast, 4-5, 27, 104, 141, 148, 161

business, 98 changes in, xv curiosity and, 9-12, 25, 60, 70, 121-123, 125, 138-139, 146 editors and, 4, 18, 24, 31, 37, 53, 57-59, 855955995126, 1163

engaging styles and, xv, 79, 88, 103-121, 139, 146, 151, 156

expertise and, 9, 97-100 facts and, 2, 45 (see also Facts) finding an angle and, 18-19, 23, 102, 145, 153

freedom of speech and, 93 freedom of the press and, 95 freelance, 18, 44, 72 “he said, she said”, 92 honesty and, 21-25, 41, 45, 69-70,

76, 80, 96-97, 114, 117-119, 131, 137, 149

immersion, 4, 38, 42, 47, 57

importance of reading widely and, 41-43

different perspectives and, 7, 11-12, 18

injustice and, 8, 28, 50-51, 53, 55-56,

enlivening and, 103 importance of, 26 penetrating approaches and, 26, 28, 44-46

60, 62, 82, 92, 120 investigative, 7, 11-12, 18, 26, 28, 44-46, 72-74, 86, 93, 96, 103, 146-147, 153, 159

Power and, 46

just-the-facts, 62, 86, 103-104,

Hersh and, 44, 46

sculpting and, 146-147, 153, 159 Tarbell and, 45

understandings and, 86, 93, 96 Woodward and, 45, 45-46

108, 111

leads and, 9, 35, 43, 45, 104, 142, 145-149

muckraking, 23, 85, 95, 146

Index

narrative and, 155-160 (see also Narrative)

LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (film),

note-taking and, 33, 70, 108, 114, 154 “pale beige’, 103, 105-106, 111 permission and, 71, 114 precision and, 32, 124-125, 128 Pulitzer Prize and, 27, 42, 58, 147 routines and, 2-3, 23, 27, 33, 44, 62,

Language ear for, 107-108

116, 158

66, 112

eloquence and, 34-35, 154

engaging styles and, xv, 79, 88, 103-121, 139, 146, 151, 156

finer wordings and, 122-141 Franklin’s exercises and, 110

science, 98 storytelling and, 115, 137, 155-156, 159-160 suspense and, 155, 157-158, 160 tragedy and, 62, 64, 72, 85, 131, 157-159

lingo and, 39, 109-110 musicality and, 22 personality and, 34

truth and, 7, 21, 23-24, 38, 40, 50, 57, 61-82, 86, 93, 109, 111, 129

power of explanatory, 32 power ofwritten, 110-111, 115

undercover, 40-41, 51

precise, 31

vérité style and, 32, 111-115, 139, 153

rhythm and, 107 sculpting and, 151, 154 sex and, 73

voice-of-God style and, 103, 111-112, 114, 138-139 Joyce, James, 69

Judgment, 94 being judgmental and, 38 bias and, 86, 91

Didion and, 137-138 opinion and, 17 (see also Opinion) Ross and, 66, 80 Just-the-facts journalism, 62, 86, 103-104, 108, 111

185

King’s English and, 109

potential of, 122

straightforward, 104

street talk and, 109 translation and, 1, 33, 59, 65, 141, 151 Lanson, Jerry, 13 Leads anecdotal, 148 deeper truths and, 64 delayed, 148-149 different perspectives and, 7, 9 enlivening and, 103-104, 119

Kaus, Mickey, 90 Kennedy School, 4

finer wordings and, 124-125, 131, 134 first paragraph and, 64, 103-104,

Kesey, Ken, 56 King, Aline, 26-27, 36-37

Five W’s and, 104, 108, 145, 147, 149

Kiser, Becky, 65

Klein, Ezra alertness and, 87 apprenticeship of, 85 background of, 84 deeper truths and, 73 explanation and, 86-87 facts and, 85 finer wordings and, 140 interpretation and, 88-89 Potemkin program and, 140 understandings and, 83-92, 95-98, 102 youthful accomplishments of, 84-85 Knowles, David, 117 Koppel, Barbara, 146 Kristof, Nicholas, 93 Krugman, Paul, 85

124-125

grabbing attention and, 146 loosened formula for, 104 nut grafs and, 148-149 penetrating approaches and, 35, 43, 45 scene-setter, 148

sculpting and, 142, 145-149 story angle and, 18-19, 23, 102, 145, 153

zingers and, 146-149 Learning audio and, 26, 32-33, 42 Internet and, 27 video and, 26-27, 31-32, 42 LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole deeper truths and, 61-62, 71-75, 79-80, 82

different perspectives and, 7, 18

186

INDEX

LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole (Continued)

drug dealers and, 18, 42, 47, 61-62, 71, TSAO,

morals and, 38, 79-80 narrative and, 79 penetrating approaches and, 38-39, 42 Random Family and, 18, 42, 47, 61-62, Dk P35 P35

truth and, 38 understandings and, 102 Village Voice and, 18 wandering and, 47-49, 60 Lesbians, 53, 67, 72-73 Liberals, 53, 82, 87, 91, 96-97, 101-102 Lieberman, Joe, 96-97

Liebling, A. J., 120 Lingo, 39, 109-110

Lippmann, Walter apprenticeship of, 85 background of, 83

finer wordings and, 121-122, 133 interpretation and, 88-89 New Republic and, 83, 89-90 search for wisdom and, 90 Steffens and, 85 understandings and, 83-86, 88-90, 98, 102

youthful accomplishments of, 83, 85 Livingstone, David, 50, 57-58, 168n3 Lobbying, 7 Los Angeles Times, 7-9, 12, 162 Love, 36, 97, 108

deeper truth and, 61-64, 71-74, 80, 82 drug dealers and, 48, 61-62 finer wordings and, 120, 124, 131, 136

“Modern Love’ series and, 72 rape and, 19, 23

sculpting and, 142, 145-146, 150, 156-158, 163

unwanted children and, 19, 23, 80 Lowe, David, 26-27, 35-40, 42, 46 LSD, 56

Manoff, Robert, 53 “Marines Signaling Under Fire at Guantanamo” (Crane), 155

Massachusetts Spy newspaper, 119 Mauritania, 51

Maximum City (Mehta), 118

Mayer, Jane, 83, 94-95 Maysles, Albert, 66, 112, 153

Meaning, 77-79 Medill School of Journalism, 53

Mehta, Saketu, 103, 118-120 Merry Pranksters, 56-57 Metaphors, 122, 134-135, 161 Miami News, 27, 40 Microphones, 30, 32, 52 Miller, Arthur, 82 Miller, Lucille, 145, 156-159, 161, 163 Modest Proposal, A (Swift), 117-118

Mohammed, Amina Abaker, 1, 17, 37, 51 Monopolies, 45 Morals deeper truths and, 77, 79-81 Didion and, 80 drugs and, 38, 79 Franklin and, 89

honesty and, 21-25, 41, 45, 69-70, 76, 80, 96-97, 114, 117-119, 131, 137, 149 injustice and, 8, 28, 50-51, 53, 55-56, 60, 62, 82, 92, 120

LeBlanc and, 38, 79-80 Liebling and, 120 Mayer and, 94 Murrow and, 34-35 paying attention and, 81-82, 92 politics and, 94

Ross and, 80 search for meaning and, 77 Torgovnik and, 80-81 truth and, 7, 21, 23-24, 38, 40, 50, 57, 61-82, 86, 93, 109, 111, 129

Moua, Mee, 65-66 MTV, 110 Muckraking, 23, 85, 95, 146

McArdle, Megan, 85 McClure’s magazine, 45, 146, 154 Mack, Charlie, 31

Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 126 Madison, James, 95 Mafia Bonanno and, 11-12, 28, 68, 70, 134

Talese and, 11-12, 28 Mailer, Norman, 75, 121, 136-137

Multimedia, 4, 11, 19, 56

Murrow, Edward R. deeper truths and, 66-67 delayed leads and, 148 different perspectives and, 15, 18, 21 enlivening and, 119 finer wordings and, 129, 139 German bombing of London and, US =Mey, IS iL, 32, 12S)

Index

187

“Harvest of Shame” and, 27, 31, 34-35,

penetrating approaches and, 30, 32-33,

37, 53, 119, 148, 163-164 morals and, 34-35

sculpting and, 147, 149, 162

nontraditional style and, 66-67

uranium exposure and, 7-10, 16-19, 19,

penetrating approaches and, 27, 31-35

questions and, 35-36 sculpting and, 142, 148, 163-164

35, 46

32-33, 46, 147-148, 162

US. government and, 18 wandering and, 53

voice and, 139

Nazis, 20, 22, 67, 77, 94

wandering and, 53

NBC, 149

as war correspondent, 7, 15, 18, 21, 27,

31-32, 67, 129 My Lai massacre, 44-46 Narrative, 112 Aristotle and, 157

New New Journalism, The (Boynton), 38, 41

New Republic magazine, 83, 89-90, 102 Newsday newspaper, 42 Newsweek magazine, 19 New Yorker magazine

Hersey and, 58, 100

beginning and, 145-149 Crane and, 155

influence of, 42 Liebling and, 120

Didion and, 156, 158-159

Power and, 1-3, 5, 17, 28, 46, 51-52,

effect on readers, 159-160 ending and, 162-164 Grann and, 158 Hersey and, 32

137, 140, 163 Ross and, 63, 114 sculpting and, 146 Shawn and, 58

Hewitt and, 155-156, 158-160

Tynan and, 141, 153-154

LeBlanc and, 79

New York Herald, 57-58

new strategies and, 160-162

New York Times

Pyle and, 155

Berman and, 102

scenes and, 151-155 sculpting and, 142, 145-164

Derrida and, 100 enlivening and, 109-110, 118-119

storytelling and, 115, 137, 155-156,

Gonzalez and, 10, 55

159-160

tragedy and, 62, 64, 72, 85, 131, 157-159

transition words and, 149-152 weaving and, 149-151 Wiseman and, 159

zingers and, 146-149 National Magazine Award, 3 National Public Radio (NPR), 7, 16, 87

National Security Council, 4 Navajo people cancer and, 7-8, 16-17, 162 Environmental Protection Agency and, 16, 162 Holidays and, 8-10, 16, 32-34, 38, 147, 162

hooghans and, 8, 32, 34, 162, 173n16

influence of, 42, 63

Klein and, 85 Kristof and, 93

Krugman and, 84 Mehta and, 118-119 “Modern Love’ series and, 72

“Profiles of Grief” series and, 123-124 Rosen and, 93 Scher and, 110

Silver and, 10, 98 Stark and, 103-104 Talese and, 11 = Ngubane, Thembia, 52 Nixon, Richard, 45 Nobel Prize, 59, 85 Non-attribution agreements, 45

Northwestern University, 53

Indian Health Service and, 16-17

Note-taking, 33, 70, 108, 114, 154

lobbying and, 7 Los Angeles Times and, 7-9, 12, 162

Nut grafs, 148-149

as overlooked people, 8

Obama administration, 4, 10, 84, 86, 89,

Pasternak and, 7-10, 16-17, 32-33, 46, 147-149

91, 126 Objectivity, 81, 91-93, 96-97

188

INDEX

On the Waterfront (film), 117 Opinion

Hersey and, 26, 32, 35, 42-43

different perspectives and, 17

honesty and, 41, 45 images and, 29-32

enlivening and, 114, 119

importance of reading widely and,

finer wordings and, 125, 139

penetrating approaches and, 38 sculpting and, 146 understandings and, 83-85, 95-97, 101 Originality, 4 Dickens and, 47, 49-51, 57 enlivening and, 109-110 finer wordings and, 121, 125, 132

penetrating approaches and, 27 understandings and, 101-102 wandering and, 47 Orwell, George, 124

41-43

investigation and, 26, 28, 44-46 leads and, 35, 43, 45 LeBlanc and, 38-39, 42

Murrow and, 27, 31-35 Navajo people and, 30, 32-33, 35, 46 opinion and, 38

originality and, 27 Pasternak and, 26, 32-33, 37, 43, 46 politics and, 27, 41-42 Power and, 1-2, 26, 28-30, 32, 37, 44, 46

precision and, 30-32, 40 Paine, Thomas, 83, 97, 120-121, 136

questions and, 26, 32-38, 43-45

Pasternak, Judy, 173n16

quotations and, 34, 36, 39, 46 research and, 43-44 Silver and, 26, 41-42 sounds and, 30-32 sources and, 27, 35-36, 40, 44-46 Talese and, 26, 28 telling images/sounds and, 30-32

alertness and, 8, 46 Detroit Free Press and, 12

different perspectives and, 7-12, 16-17 Los Angeles Times and, 7-9, 12, 162

Navajo people and, 7-10, 16-17, 32-33, 46, 147-149, 162

penetrating approaches and, 26, 32-33, 37, 43, 46

questions and, 32-33 sculpting and, 142, 147-149, 162

serendipity and, 8-10 Steffens and, 23 truth and, 7

uranium exposure and, 7-10, 16-19, 32-33, 46, 147-148, 162

Yellow Dirt and, 33-34

PBS, 110 Pellington, Mark, 110

Penetrating approaches alertness and, 28-31, 46 argument and, 26, 41-42

background noises and, 30 blogs and, 38, 41-42 cameras and, 27, 30-32, 35, 37, 39-40

Darfur and, 28-30, 37, 46 documentaries and, 26-27, 31-32, 35-37

emotion and, 31, 34, 38 empathy and, 37-40, 53 facts and, 27, 38, 41-42, 44, 46

“Harvest of Shame” and, 26-27, 30-31, 34-40, 42, 46

Hemingway and, 30

truth and, 38, 40

Wolfe and, 29 Pentecostals, 10, 43, 47, 55 Permission, 71-72, 114 Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, 69 Phone calls, 85-86 Placer Weekly Courier newspaper, 116 Politics, 2 Bush and, 94-95, 124, 129 Congress and, 10, 89, 91, 96, 130, 158 conservatives and, 53, 82, 90-91 deeper truths and, 61-67, 71, 73, 81 Democrats and, 91-92, 95-96 different perspectives and, 10, 17 enlivening and, 103-104, 117 Fascism and, 67 finer wordings and, 124, 130, 136 government bailouts and, 93 health insurance and, 84-87, 96

“he said, she said” journalism and, 92 liberals and, 53, 82, 87, 91, 96-97, 101-102 lobbying and, 7 morals and, 94

Moua and, 65-66 Nazis and, 20, 22, 67, 77, 94 Obama and, 4, 10, 84, 86, 89, 91, 126

Index

penetrating approaches and, 27, 41-42 Republicans and, 10, 89, 91-92, 96

Price of a Dream, The: The Story of

rhetoric and, 94, 97, 130, 136

Priest, Dana, 142, 147, 149

Sacco-Vanzetti trial and, 103-105, 108, 138, 162, 171n2

Prisons, 112, 155

sculpting and, 158 understandings and, 84-85, 90-92, 96, 98, 100, 102

Pondering audio and, 88 digital technology and, 86, 95 Internet and, 101, 119 video and, 95, 101 See also Understandings Potemkin program, 140 Poverty penetrating approaches and, 26-27, 36-38, 38, 42 understandings and, 87, 94

wandering and, 49-51, 53, 58, 60 See also “Harvest of Shame” (CBS

documentary) Power, Samantha alertness and, 28, 30, 46 bearing witness and, 51-52

Bosnia and, 4 Darfur and, 1—5, 17, 28-30, 37, 46, 51-52, 81, 130, 137, 140, 163

deeper truths and, 81 different perspectives and, 17

Grameen Bank (Bornstein), 59

Capote and, 104-105 Clemens and, 74, 82 conditions in, 50 Conover and, 40-41 Dash and, 42 Dickens and, 50 Didion and, 159 drug dealers and, 18, 55 Power and, 46 Sing Sing, 40 Stark and, 104, 115 Wiseman and, 111, 113 Wolfe and, 106-107

Profundity, xv, 63-64 Pulitzer Prize, 27, 42, 58, 147 Pyle, Ernie

“The Death of Captain Waskow” and, 142-145, 149-151, 155-157, 160, 163

different perspectives and, 7, 20-22, 24 enlivening and, 121, 131-132, 137 German bombing of London and,

21-22, 24, 132, 145

honesty and, 22, 24 musical style of, 21-22, 131-132 narrative and, 155 Normandy beach and, 20

finer wordings and, 121, 130, 134, 137, 140

scenes and, 151

as government official, 4-5

sculpting and, 142-146, 149-151, 155-157, 160-164 truth and, 24

imagery and, 134

janjaweed and, 1, 28-30, 32, 43-44, 46, 51-52, 163 Mohammed and, 1, 17, 37, 51

National Magazine Award and, 3 New Yorker and, 1-3, 5, 17, 28, 46,

51-52, 137, 140, 163

189

Scripps-Howard newspapers and, 20

use of repetition by, 142, 150 voice and, 137 World War II and, 7, 20-22, 24, 131-132, 137, 142-143, 145-146, 149-151, 155-157, 160-161, 163-164

penetrating approaches and, 1-2, 26, 28-30, 32, 37, 44, 46

Potemkin program and, 140 sculpting and, 163 sound and, 30 wandering and, 47, 51-52, 57 as war correspondent, 4 Precision alertness and, 30 finer wordings and, 124-125, 128 penetrating approaches and, 30-32, 40 video and, 31-32

Questions

curiosity and, 10 deeper truths and, 64-65, 70, 73, 77-79 different perspectives and, 10-13, 15, 20 enlivening and, 113-114, 118, 120

finer wordings and, 123-124, 130, 1B

7el39

Friendly and, 35-36 Hersey and, 32, 35 Lowe and, 35-36 Murrow and, 35-36

190

INDEX

Questions (Continued) Pasternak and, 32-33

Riis, Jacob, 38-39 Rock, Chris, 118 Rockefeller, John D., 45

penetrating approaches and, 26, 32-38,

Rolling Stone, 81

note-taking and, 33

43-45

Rosen, Jay, 92-93

phone calls and, 85-86 sculpting and, 143, 150, 158-159, 161, 164

subjects for, 35-37 tough, 1-2 understandings and, 83-85, 92-94, 100-101

Rosling, Hans, 95 Ross, Lillian deeper truths and, 61, 63-66, 77-80

enlivening and, 114 morals and, 80

vérité style and, 114 Routines, 2—3, 23, 27, 33, 44, 62, 116, 158

wandering and, 47-48, 57 Quotations, 2-3, 60

Royko, Mike, 109

Runyon, Damon, 108-110

Capote and, 105 Conover and, 40

Rwanda

genocide and, 19, 40, 80

Didion and, 136-137

Hutu tribe and, 19

editing of, 33 extensive notes and, 33

Tutsi tribe and, 19

Torgovnik and, 19, 23, 40, 49, 80-81

Friendly and, 31

Mayo and, 124 penetrating approaches and, 34, 36, 39, 46

Sacco, Nicola, 103-105, 108, 138, 162, 171n2 Safer, Morley, 158-159 Sasaki, Toshiko, 12-15, 17, 32

Ross and, 78, 114 sculpting and, 153, 160, 163 unattributed, 46

Saturday Evening Post journal, 146

understandings and, 86, 101

Scott, Janny, 124 Scripps-Howard newspapers, 20 Sculpting argument and, 154, 159

Wolfe and, 139 Qurb, Sayyid, 101-102

Scher, Jeff, 110 Schultz, John, 31, 37, 126, 163

Radio Diaries, 52

audio and, 142, 147-148, 151, 153, 161

Random Family (LeBlanc), 18, 42, 47,

beginning and, 145-149

61-62, 71, 73, 75, 82

blogs and, 146

Rape, 19, 23, 40, 49, 73, 80

Recognizing. See Deeper truths Recorders, 30, 32-33, 52, 114 Reflexive balance, 82 Religion, 10-11, 43, 47, 55, 60, 79, 120-121, 123

Repetition, 123, 142, 150 Republicans, 10, 89, 91-92, 96 Research, 5

different perspectives and, 7, 9 Five W’s and, 104, 108, 145-147, 149

medical, 98 penetrating approaches and, 28, 43-44 wandering and, 59-60 Rhetoric, 94, 97, 130, 136

Richardson, Mike, 64 Right Stuff, The (Wolfe), 74

Didion and, 142, 145-146, 156-164

digital technology and, 142, 160-162 documentaries and, 146, 153,

“Reporting the Other” (Manoff course), 53

Rhythm, LO NO7- MDS

cameras and, 149, 153 creativity and, 148 curiosity and, 146 Darfur and, 163

aloes 4ai5al

HSI NSIO; USS)

emotion and, 142, 163-164 empathy and, 164 ending and, 162-164 facts and, 145-149, 157, 160-161 Five W’s and, 145, 145-147, 149

“Harvest of Shame” and, 148, 151, 156, 163-164

Hersey and, 156 Hiroshima and, 156 honesty and, 149 images and, 145, 148, 159

Index

interpretation and, 161 investigation and, 146-147, 153, 159 language and, 151, 154 leads and, 142, 145-149

60 Minutes (TV show), 142, 155-156, 158-159, 161

Slate magazine, 102, 117, 130 Slavery, 50-51, 54

Murrow and, 142, 148, 163-164 narrative and, 142, 145-164 new Strategies and, 160-162 opinion and, 146 organizing stories and, 142, 145,

Smith, Dennis, 65 Smith, Howard Van, 40 Snappy style, 130-131

149-162 Pasternak and, 142, 147-149, 162

Sounds, 1, 5

politics and, 158 Power and, 163

enlivening and, 105, 108 finer wordings and, 125, 132 penetrating approaches and, 30-32 sculpting and, 145, 152-153, 159 Sources anonymity and, 45-46

Pyle and, 142-146, 149-151, 155-157, 160-164

questions and, 143, 150, 158-159, 161, 164

quotations and, 153, 160, 163 scenes and, 151-155 sounds and, 145, 152-153, 159 Steffens and, 146, 148 suspense and, 155, 157-158, 160 Talese and, 142, 151-153 video and, 142, 146-148, 151, 153, 160-161

weaving and, 149-151 zingers and, 146-149 Sea Around Us, The (Carson), 99 Serendipity, 8-10 Sex child abuse and, 38, 112 finer wordings and, 139 gay/lesbian community and, 53, 67, 72-73 international sex trade and, 51

“Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream”

(Didion), 122, 140, 146

.

background, 30

deeper truths and, 67, 70, 75

different perspectives and, 9, 11, 23 Encyclopedia Brittanica and, 44 finer wordings and, 124

hangouts and, 48, 56-57, 109 investigation and, 45 leads and, 9, 35, 43, 45, 104, 142, 145-149

making deals and, 45 non-attribution agreements and, 45 penetrating approaches and, 27, 35-36, 40, 44-46 research and, 44 understandings and, 89, 99 Southern Gates of Arabia, The (Stark), 115 Spanish Civil War, 19-20, 24, 30, 111, 138 Spector, Phil, 68, 139, 169n18 Spelling, 35, 44

rape and, 19, 23, 40, 49, 73, 80 sexual revolution, 70 Talese and, 70, 139, 151 Sex in the City (film), 64

Standard Oil company, 45 Stanley, Henry Morton, 47, 49-50, 57-58, 69, 168n3 Stark, Freya, 115-116

Shame ofthe Cities, The (Steffen), 95-96

Stark, Louis, 103-105, 108, 162, 171n2

Shawn, William, 58

Steel, Ronald, 85

Silent Spring (Carson), 100 Silver, Nate background of, 98 Columbia lecture of, 41-42 different perspectives and, 10 FiveThirtyEight.com and, 10, 94, 98 math skills of, 98 penetrating approaches and, 26, 41-42 understandings and, 83, 93-95, 98

Steffens, Lincoln deeper truths and, 62

Similes, 28, 116, 134

Sinatra, Frank, 127-128, 134, 151-153

191

different perspectives and, 23

finer wordings and, 122 objectivity and, 96 sculpting and, 146, 148 The Shame of the Cities and, 95-96

truth and, 23 understandings and, 83, 85, 96 Stephen, Leslie, 97 Stepp, Carl Sessions, 72

192

INDEX

Stereotyping, 39 Stern, Mike, 131

Torgovnik, Jonathan

deeper truths and, 40, 61, 80-81

Stewart, Jon, 92

different perspectives and, 7, 19, 23

Stoppard, Tom, 154 Street talk, 109 Studio 20 masters program, xvii

Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape and, 19

foundation of, 19, 40

Sudan, 1, 28, 46, 51, 134, 136 Suicide, 76, 145-146, 156-157

morals and, 80-81

Sullivan, Andrew, 121, 129 “Supposedly Fun Thing Pll Never Do Again, A” (Wallace), 109 Surprise, 9, 18-19, 25, 67, 114 Suspense, 155, 157-158, 160

wandering and, 49

Swift, Jonathan, 117-118

Talese, Gay deeper truths and, 61, 66-71, 74 different perspectives and, 7, 10-12

finer wordings and, 121, 127-130, 133-134, 139

Honor Thy Father and, 11-12, 28 Mafia and, 11-12, 28 penetrating approaches and, 26, 28 scenes and, 151-153 sculpting and, 142, 151-153 sex and, 70, 139, 151 Sinatra and, 127-128, 134, 151-153 Thy Neighbor's Wife and, 70, 74 Tarbell, Ida, 45 TED talks, 95, 101 Teenagers, 56, 63-65, 156 Tell Me a Story (Hewitt), 158-159

Rwanda and, 19, 23, 40, 49, 80-81 Toronto Star, 76-77, 128 Tragedy, 62, 64, 72, 85, 131, 157-159 Transgender community, 53 Transition words, 149-152 Translation, 1, 33, 59, 65, 141, 151 Truth assumptions and, 23-24, 93 bearing witness and, 51-52 cinema and, 32,111

concept of, 93 deeper, 61-82 (see also Deeper truths) different perspectives and, 7, 21, 23-24 effort in, 93 emotion and, 38

enlivening and, 109, 111 finer wordings and, 169 Hemingway and, 24, 129

journalism and, 7, 21, 23-24, 38, 40, 50, SMO l=e¥s, 1815), 9/3}, MOE, I, LeBlanc and, 38

This American Life (radio documentary),

as multifaceted, 21 Pasternak and, 7 penetrating approaches and, 38, 40 Pyle and, 24 routines and, 23-24 understandings and, 86, 93

7, 16, 87-88 Thomas, Isaiah, 119

wandering and, 50, 57

Terror and Liberalism (Berman), 101-102 Terrorism, 94, 102, 118, 120, 123, 129

Thompson, Dorothy, 61, 77, 79, 103 Thompson, Hunter S., 103, 109-111, 116, 137-138

Thy Neighbor's Wife (Talese), 70, 74

vérité style and, 32, 111-115, 139, 153 Tutsi tribe, 19 Twitter, 52, 90, 93, 98, 117, 129-131 Tynan, Kenneth, 121, 141-142, 148-149, 153-154

Tisdale, Sallie, 61, 82

Titicut Follies (Wiseman), 111-113, 159 Tonight Show (TV show), 141

“Top Hundred Works of Journalism in

Ulysses (Joyce), 69

Undercover reporting, 40-41, 51 Understandings

United States in the Twentieth

alertness and, 87, 99

Century’, 11, 15, 27, 44-45, 95, 100, WOW, NU, 133

argument and, 86, 91-102

“Top Ten Works of Journalism in the United States in the First Decade of

the Twenty-First Century’, 88, 123

Berman and, 83, 101-102 blogs and, 83-87, 90-94, 96-98, 101

Carson and, 83, 99-102 documentaries and, 87-88

Index

193

expertise and, 97-100 explanation and, 86-88 facts and, 85-86, 88, 91, 93, 95-96

enlivening and, 103, 110,

Franklin and, 83, 87-89, 95

potential of, xvi precision and, 31 scenes and, 151, 153 sculpting and, 142, 146-148, 151, 153,

Hersey and, 100, 102 Hiroshima and, 100 honesty and, 96-97 ideas and, 100-102 interpretation and, 83-85, 88-91, 93, 975,99 investigation and, 86, 93, 96

Klein and, 83-92, 95-98, 102

LeBlanc and, 102 Lippmann and, 83-86, 88-90, 98, 102 Mayer and, 83, 94-95 objectivity and, 91-93, 96-97 opinion and, 83-85, 95-97, 101 originality and, 101-102 Paine and, 83, 97, 120 phone calls and, 85-86 politics and, 84-85, 90-92, 96, 98, 100, 102

questions and, 83-85, 92-94, 100-101 quotations and, 86, 101 reflexive balance and, 83 search for wisdom and, 90-91

Silver and, 83, 93-95, 98 sources and, 89, 99 Steffens and, 83, 85, 96

114-115

learning and, 26-27, 31-32, 42 pondering and, 95, 101

160-161

talking heads and, 31 vérité style and, 32, 111-115, 139, 153

voice and, 139 wondering and, 52 zingers and, 146-149 Vietnam War, 44, 46, 136, 158-159

Village Voice newspaper, 18 Virtual travel, 60 Voice, 136-139

Voice-of-God style, 103, 111-112, 114, 138-139

Vue, Kao Choua, 65-66, 77-78 Walker, Laura Lee, 66-67, 112, 153 Wallace, David Foster, 140 deeper truths and, 61, 69-70, 76, 81 different perspectives and, 24-25 enlivening and, 103, 108-110 finer wordings and, 140 honesty and, 25, 69

truth and, 86, 93 United Nations, 5

hyperkinetic style and, 108 intracranial terrain and, 69 other’s mental room and, 70

University of Maryland, 72

Potemkin program and, 140

University of Minnesota, 66 uranium exposure

suicide of, 76 Wall Street, 23, 48, 62

cancer and, 7-8, 16-17, 162

Wall Street Journal, 146

Environmental Protection Agency and,

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 147, 149 Wandering alertness and, 48, 53-57, 60 the art of going and, 57-59 audio and, 52 cameras and, 52, 60 curiosity and, 60 Darfur and, 51-53 deeper truths and, 86 documentaries and, 54 facts and, 50, 55, 59-60 “Harvest of Shame” and, 53 Hersey and, 56, 58 Hiroshima and, 56, 58 LeBlanc and, 47-49, 60 Murrow and, 53

16, 162

Los Angeles Times and, 7-9, 12, 162 Navajo people and, 7-10, 16-19, 32-33, 46, 147-148, 162

US News & World Report, 4 Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 103-105, 108,

138, 162 Vérité, 32, 111-115, 139, 153

Video, xv, 5

cinema and, 32, 66, 111-112, 114, 139, 149, 153

coordination and, 31

creativity and, xvi elevating and, 122, 126, 129-130, 139

194

INDEX

Wandering (Continued) originality and, 47

Washington Post newspaper, 11, 38, 42, 45, 84-85, 147

the overlooked and, 55-57 Power and, 47, 51-52, 57

Waskow, Henry T., 142-145, 149-151,

questions and, 47-48, 57

Weaving, 149-151

research and, 59-60

Web sites, xvi, 104, 110, 125f£ Welfare (Wiseman), 113

Stanley and, 47, 49-50, 57-58, 69, 168n3

street environment and, 47-49, 60

Torgovnik and, 49 truth and, 50, 57 the unfamiliar and, 53-55 virtual travel and, 60 where to start, 60 Wolfe and, 47, 56-57, 60 War

155-157, 160, 163

White, Richard Grant, 88 Wilder, Thornton, 43 Williams, Connie, 65 Williams, Larry, 64, 65 Willingham, Cameron Todd, 147, 158 Wiseman, Frederick, 103, 111-113, 139, Ts)3), S38) Witnesses, 30, 51-52, 67, 104, 119, 149

Afghanistan and, 33, 147 Bosnia and, 4 D-Day and, 20 genocide and, 17, 19, 40, 67, 80 German bombing of London and, 15-16, 18, 21-22, 24, 32, 129, 132, 145

Gulf of Tonkin and, 158-159 Hemingway and, 7 (see also Hemingway, Ernest) Hersey and, 15 (see also Hersey, John) Hiroshima and, 7, 12-17, 21, 32, 35, 43, 56, 58, 100, 137, 156

Iraq and, 16, 33, 146-147 Mafia and, 18 Murrow and, 7, 15, 18, 21, 27, 31-32, G7 129

My Lai massacre and, 44-46 Nazis and, 20, 22, 67, 77, 94 Power and, 4

Pyle and, 7 (see also Pyle, Ernie)

Witness organization, 52

Wolfe, Tom bravura and, 107 Day-Glo style of, 103, 111 deeper truths and, 61, 68-71, 74 enlivening and, 103, 105-111, 116

finer wordings and, 121, 139 hippies and, 56-57, 60 hyperkinetic style and, 106-108 pale beige journalism and, 103, 105-106, 111

penetrating approaches and, 29 voice and, 139 wandering and, 47, 56-57, 60 Wondering audio and, 16

different perspectives and, 7-25 video and, 52 See also Different perspectives Woodward, Bob, 45-46 World Trade Center, 124-125

rape and, 19, 23, 40, 49, 73, 80 Spanish Civil War and, 19-20, 24, 30, E38

Vietnam War and, 44, 46, 136, 158-159 Waskow and, 142-145, 149-151, 155=157; 1605 163

World War I and, 83, 90 World War II and, 7, 12-17, 20-22, 24, 32, 35, 42-43, 55-56, 58, 100, 129, 131-132, 137, 142-146, 149-151, 155-157, 160-164

Washington Monthly magazine, 85

Yeager, Chuck, 74

Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed (Pasternak), 33-34 Yglesias, Matthew, 87, 101, 121, 130

Youth Radio, 65-66 YouTube, 27, 52 Yunus, Muhammad, 59

Zingers, 146-149 Zooming, 13-14, 16-17, 121

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“ Journalism Unbound’s greatest strength is the author's use of masterful writing. Stephens uses great examples that should inspire any student.” —Jennifer Atwater, Towson University

ournalism is rapidly changing. Journalism education must too. In Journalism Mitchell Stephens introduces new methods of teaching reporting and writing— audio and the written word. In lively chapters full of examples and anecdotes,

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a number of ways journalism might take advantage of the current digital revolution less formulaic and more engaging, searching, diverse in its concerns and relevant, pa younger audiences. Although the focus is on what journalism might be, the book em

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amples the best of what journalism has been—from Joan Didion to Nate Silver, Edwara n. wri 1OW to Samantha Power, and James Baldwin to Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.

, Professor of Journalism in the Carter Institute at New York University, is the

author of Beyond News: The Future of Journalism (2014); the rise of the image the fall of the word (1993); A History of News (1988); and Broadcast News (2004). He is also coauthor of Writing and

Reporting the News (2007) and coeditor of Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 17 (2003).

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

ISBN 978-0-19-518992-6

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www.oup.com/us/he Cover Photograph: iStockphoto Cover Design: M. Laseau and Meredith Pahoulis

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