I try to connect with every individual I’m interviewing. I have experiences when I so enjoy talking to a person, like Dr. Foster out of LA. I love talking to him. He was brilliant, for one thing. He had ways of looking at the world where you were always learning.
Being able to sit at the knee of a person as they’re sharing this allows the reporter to be a student and teacher, by sharing what they have told you with the wider world. Foster was a character. I sat down to talk to him the first time and he said, “I love to talk and I’m my favorite subject.” The people in this book are extraordinary human beings. They had been through things and lived to tell it with forethought and consideration, prayer and deliberation, and were assessing me in their own way. So I just loved talking to them. It was like going to school, but you’re majoring in this individual.
Feature
06:00 AM - December 1, 2011
A Reporter in Full
Isabel Wilkerson listens
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (19)
The New York Times told me to take this down
“If you wouldn’t mind using another publication to advertise your infringement tool, we’d appreciate it”
In AP, Rosen investigations, government makes criminals of reporters
“[A]s flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration”
Jay Carney press briefing blues
“Reporters are increasingly skeptical about Carney’s demeanor and the veracity of some answers”
Jaron Lanier wants to build a new middle class on micropayments
A future where writers can gain wealth through a “freelance economy”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
