Friday, September 3, 2010
Media / News Bites Journalism: What It's Good For?
Posted by Michael Miner on 09.03.10 at 08:02 AM
A young journalism teacher in Missouri has a problem. Alisa Wartick says most of her students "read little on their own outside of fashion and gossip magazines." So before she can teach her subject she has to reveal it. She's looking for articles and photos that will flip the switch, showing her class what journalism can do with words and pictures.
I spotted Wartick asking for help on Mizzoumafia, the listserv for graduates of the University of Missouri journalism school. Want to think for a minute about journalism's power to inspire and astonish, instead of its flaws and woes? If a piece of work rocked your world, mention it here. Wartick will be watching this space.
Comments (10)
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There's a great compendium of phenomenal magazine articles here: http://www.good.is/post/the-100-best-magaz…
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dislikePreaching to the choir here, but the pieces you folks ran years ago from Lee Sandlin on the war and memory did it for me: they made me think, they sent me to Paul Fussell, they've lingered in my mind for years.
For straight journalism, the Library of America volumes of journalism from World War II are an amazing reminder of the power of journalists. Of more recent vintage, the Post's series on the hidden national security state of a month ago is astonishing; the This American Life episode from the summer about the Numi auto plant covers a ton of fascinating ground in an hour; almost any of Joe Posnanski's writings on baseball for SI show what great sports reporting can be.
ProPublica, Frontline and the Times-Picayune killed this series on post-Katrina police violence:
http://www.propublica.org/nola/story/nopd-…
I'm partial to Mark Mazzetti at the Times for straight reporting. His stories exposing the breadth of American involvement in Iraq and Afghanishtan leave you wondering how many dozens of sources he got, and how. Plus, they're written so perfectly.
And as for back in the day, how about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold?
If I was teaching the class, I would try to bridge it with something that is "voice-y" and has a kind of bloggy irreverence/first person to it but is still really fine reporting and writing in the classic sense--which makes me think Matt Taibbi's war and politics stories for Rolling Stone. Ann Powers and Jon Caramanica from the LA and NY Times respectively write deeply and persuasively about pop music that teens/post-teens are going to be aware of, if not fans of. Start with ground that is in some way familiar or of natural interest and then work 'em up to the hard stuff...
And I second Frank Sinatra Has A Cold.
And Didion. Slouching Towards Bethlehem is gripping stuff. Or her profile of Nancy Reagan--or was it just the gubernatorial homestead--where she shreds them without shredding them?
For an oldie, check out Ray Sprigle's series in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (September 13-19, 1937) about Justice Hugo Black's prior membership in the Alabama Klan. The series ran a month after the Senate confirmed Black's nomination, and it netted Sprigle a Pulitzer.
I think the story of Gary Webb and his series on CIA involvement in the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s is pretty inspiring and, better yet, instructive for anyone considering the profession.
Basically, the story was that the US government turned a blind eye and even helped cover up right-wing Nicaraguan contra involvement in the US drug trade in the '80s, the proceeds from which helped fund the contra effort to overthrow the left-wing government in Managua. Webb's series on this, published in 1996 in the San Jose Mercury-News, sparked off a lot of outraged government denials and, far more tellingly, intense efforts by the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times to knock down Webb's reporting rather than do the obvious thing and dig into the CIA drug connection themselves. The Mercury-News, disgracefully, backed off and disowned Webb's stories.
To cut to the chase, Webb's series did indulge in some overstatement and could have benefited from closer editing. But the general outline, thrust and bulk of what the series said was correct, as various investigations and journalistic reflections over the years have revealed, albeit in fragments and dribbles that have had the (probably intended) effect of preserving intact the public impression that there was nothing to Webb's reporting.
And, oh yes, Webb ended up committing suicide a few years ago.
So we're looking for "inspiring" and "astonishing," right? How does this qualify? Certainly, it says some astonishing things about American (read East Coast establishment) journalism. It shows us, for instance, how the repeated front-page fabrications of Judith Miller pre-Iraq war were not an unfortunate exception but quite consistent with the core mission of journalism as conceived along the Wall Street-Washington corridor: Advance the mission, whatever it is at any moment, and throw up an existential defense of the institutions when necessary. This occasionally entails a little ass-covering when truth does leak out, but the effect of this can easily be diluted in a variety of ways.
So how is Webb's story inspiring? In this way: One man made a difference. That difference is buried right now. But it won't stay that way. As a radical Christian and a fan for Rosa Luxemburg, I don't believe that anything is wasted. I suppose that puts me in the class of zombie historians: The rot that Webb revealed will rise from its grave.
Bob Woodward, in "All the President's Men": "We screwed up, but we weren't wrong."
Screwing up is something we've all done -- but ultimately, being not wrong matters. Rest in peace, Gary Webb.
Show them the documentary on photojournalist James Nachtwey: War Photographer. Or the documentary on Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye. Both are very powerful and inspiring.
Also, here's a very recent interview with photojournalist, filmmaker and educator Ed Kashi: http://nounandverb.org/2010/09/07/a-conversation-with-ed-kashi/.
