The amazing books that made me fall in love with journalism all over again-1

A.J. Liebling is hailed as the first of the great New Yorker writers, a "colourful and tireless figure who helped set the magazine's urbane style".

I recently finished reading Just Enough Liebling, an anthology of his articles from the New Yorker. Read these excerpts and you will get an insight into the ingredients of great writing.

• From “A Good Appetite” (New Yorker, 1959):

“The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down. Each day brings only two opportunities for field work, and they are not to be wasted minimizing the intake of cholesterol.”

• From “Paris the First” (New Yorker, 1959):

“The graphic arts had their origin in the free patterns made in the snow by Ice Age man with warm water. This accounts for the fact that there have been few good women painters. Lot’s wife, who looked behind her, may have been a pioneer, but we had a head start of several million years.”

• From “Poet and Pedagogue”, Liebling’s magnificently descriptive feature on the New York professional debut of Cassius Clay, soon to thrill the world as Muhammad Ali (New Yorker, 1962):

 “Honest effort and sterling character backed by solid instruction will carry a man a good way, but unearned natural ability has a lot to be said for it. Young Cassius [Clay], who will never have to be lean, jabbed the good boy [Sonny Banks] until he had spread his already wide nose over his face.”

A.J. LIEBLING "CHANGED THE RULES OF MODERN JOURNALISM, BANISHING THE

DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN REPORTING AND STORYTELLING, BETWEEN NEWS AND ART".

• INTRO from Liebling’s “The World of Sport” (New Yorker, 1947):

“A police reporter sees more than he can set down; a feature writer sets down more than he possibly can have seen. I was eager to get a good job as a police reporter after I took my degree. As a maraschino cherry on the sundae of academic absurdity, the degree was entitled Bachelor of Literature, although what literature had to do with rewriting the [New York] Times paragraphs I never found out. I went swimming on commencement day.”

• CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH from Liebling’s “The World of Sport” (New Yorker, 1947):

“One night some boy with pimples in his voice called up from Brooklyn to tell the Times about a particularly unfascinating [basketball] contest between two Catholic-school fives. I took the call and noted down all the drear details until I got to who was the referee. 'Who was he?' I asked. 'I don’t know,' the kid said, 'and anyway I ain’t got any more nickels.' So he hung up. We couldn’t use a basketball score in the Times without the name of the referee, so I wrote in 'Ignoto', which means 'unknown' in Italian. Nobody caught on, and after a while I had Ignoto refereeing a lot of basketball games, all around town. Then I began bragging about it, and after a short while my feeble jest came to the ears of [the sports editor Major] Thomas.

“ ‘God knows what you will do next, young man,' he told me after the first edition had gone to press on a bitter night in March. ‘You are irresponsible. Not a Times type. Go.'

"So I lost my first newspaper job.”

If you want to know more about the book, go here.

• ALSO READ: "The amazing books that made me fall in love with journalism all over again-2"

How NOT to write a profile

The IPL controversies have led to many names being dragged in the mud, perhaps deservedly so. But did Sunanda Pushkar have to be lambasted in this fashion in the Outlook issue of April 26? Here are a couple of excerpts from Vrinda Gopinath's profile of the woman labelled — in a pull-quote — "the P3P queen of Masala Dubai":

Her skills in occasionally getting well-known sponsors made her rivals green with envy but the snide bitching barely fazed her. Says a former rival acidly, “Sunanda would claw her way to a sponsor and have him eating out of her hands, she was not a girl’s girl.”

*
Sunanda-watchers in Dubai say it was around this time she adopted her new style statement—Dubai flash trash of peroxide hair streaks, heavy make-up, razzle-dazzle, seductive couture, false eyelashes, chrome nail paint, and Louis Vuitton victimhood. It was a sign of her arrival in the league of the neo-rich tycoons.

Some of the facts in the article are possibly true. But most of the writing seems to be speculative; plain bitching, in my view.

• On the other hand, Shoma Chaudhury has tried to present Sunanda's side in this interview in Tehelka (April 30). Chaudhury also takes the media and the rest of us to task. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

A deep and unthinking misogyny has underscored all the reporting on her. Her real crime is that she is an attractive 46-year-old widow, who is bright, vivacious and hot — in the way only those women can be who have a comfortable relationship with themselves; who understand that beauty does not preclude one from being kind; or protect one from sorrow. If the media had wanted to try the two [Sunanda and Shashi Tharoor] for financial impropriety, it should have stuck to doing that. Instead, all of it has become an ugly spectacle about a society trying to decide what women are allowed and not allowed to be. Ambition, sass, and self-assured sexiness are clearly high on the list of India’s penal code for women.

Read the full interview here.

• Thanks to Nilofer D'Souza for the tip-off.

Why is Plato known as Aflatoon in the subcontinent?

Mint columnist Aakar Patel gives us the lowdown in this erudite, fact-filled, and interestingly written piece.

Also, here's another interesting column on the origins of our gaalis.

• Aakar Patel, former editor of Mumbai's Mid Day, is now the director of Hill Road Media. His column in Mint, "Reply To All" touches upon the most unusual topics. On March 25, he explained why Indians are too self-absorbed to be team players; on January 21, he must have sparked a myriad classroom, boardroom, and cocktail party conversations with his analysis of why women are turned on by power, men by beauty. Bookmark his column and read it regularly.

Calcutta in the New York Times

Somini Sengupta has produced a gem of a travel piece in the New York Times. Pay attention to the writing style. See how Somini begins the piece; study the transitions — how does she link one para to the next?

Study the quotes — there are not many because a piece littered with quotes can be very boring — and see how they add punch to the writing. Somini also paraphrases some of what she has been told by her sources.

The whole feature is a great example of good writing — you want to read from beginning to end.

The article ends with an apt quote. It is very important to provide an appropriate conclusion to every feature (but not to hard news reports).

Also pay attention to the sidebars: If You Go; Where To Stop; Where To Eat; What To Do At Night; Where To Stay; Getting There.

And isn't that a fantastic picture at the top of the page of a young bride at the Kalighat temple in south Calcutta? Go through the slide show, too.

• Photo courtesy: The New York Times

Time says the iPad will usher in a new era for journalism

The managing editor of Time, Richard Stengel, writes: "In the media these days, we have to participate in things that we also cover. I am not one of those who see the tablet as the solution for all the media's problems, but I do see it as a dynamic new way that we can present great reporting and writing to our readers. For the first time since the magazine's birth in 1923, we will soon be delivering the entire contents of TIME to paying customers in a radically different way: as a self-contained application that you can download to the iPad."

Read more.

Time put Steve Jobs on the cover of the April 12 issue and also commissioned Stephen Fry, the actor and writer, to go to Apple headquarters and write about the iPad.

Fry is an unabashed admirer of both Jobs and Apple. Here is his intro: 

It is a gorgeous spring day when I arrive at the coolest address in the universe: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, Calif., where Apple has been headquartered since 1993. The campus, for such they call it, is enormous yet not big enough to contain Apple's current rate of expansion. An additional site is being designed and built. After stocking up on "I visited the mothership" T-shirts at the company store (we fanboys are pathetic, I readily confess), I am shown around the canteen, lawns and public spaces. It is right to call this a campus, for everyone looks and dresses like a student. I should imagine the only people ever caught wearing suits here have been visiting politicians.

Read the rest of the article here.

And then savour the review of the iPad by Lev Grossman, "Do we need the iPad?".

All three pieces are writing of the highest quality. Enjoy.

• Photo courtesy: Time

 

 

 PRECILLA LEONITA'S iPAD WAS GIVEN THE ONCE-OVER BY SURAJ AND HIREN,

MY WIFE'S NEPHEWS, WHEN THEY VISITED COMMITS RECENTLY.

• For an Indian take on the iPad, here's Arun Katiyar, the Bangalore-based content and communication consultant and a former India Today journalist, writing about the "newest shiny toy on the block" in Mint.

 

"The Reporter: A Handbook For Every Journalist"

Here's an interesting book that should be helpful for media students. Though it has its share of typos and cliched writing, The Reporter has some useful advice for novice journos. The authors Arindam Basu and Sujoy Dhar, both senior journalists, have thoughtfully included sections on the different kinds of reporting: from beat reporting to rural reporting and political reporting to wire reporting — they are all in this handbook.

An added attraction: There's an "expert view" at the end of each chapter, with well-known journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai and Raju Narisetti, the founding editor of Mint, weighing in on the important issues in their field.

A copy has been placed in the Commits library but those interested in print journalism will benefit from buying a copy. At Rs.175, it is a steal.

• ALSO READ: Golden words of advice for journalism students and "ONE YEAR ON, THE MANY LESSONS I HAVE LEARNT AS A REPORTER"
• PLUS: 12 basics of interviewing, listening and note-taking
  

Heard of online video cartooning?

No? Well, when Mark Fiore won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning this week, it was the first time since the category of editorial cartooning was created in 1922 that the Pulitzer had gone to an artist whose work does not appear in print.

The Pulitzer jury said Fiore's "biting wit, extensive research and ability to distill complex issues set a high standard for an emerging form of commentary" -- online video cartooning. Read more here.

And go here to enjoy his work.

The BEST blog on photojournalism

Lens — the New York Times blog on "photography, video, and visual journalism" — is a magnificent web classroom for photography buffs, especially those keen on photojournalism.

In the section titled "Art of Photojournalism", you can study "the finest pictures, past and present". In "Craft of Photojournalism", you can go behind the scenes and on assignment with news photographers around the world.

And these are just two of the gems waiting to be discovered by Commitscions.

Dig into this veritable treasure here. 

And here's a topical post on the Pulitzer Prizes for photography.

Quick on the draw

Hadi Farahani is the most brilliant illustrator and cartoonist I have met. I had the pleasure of working with him in Dubai in the '90s when I was the Features Editor of the Khaleej Times. His incomparable art lent both colour and life to the articles I edited and published in the paper.

Hadi has since moved to Canada and his work has appeared in all the big-name publications in the West. And he has been nominated three times for best magazine and newspaper illustrator of the year by the National Cartoonists' Society in the US.

You can take a look — and gaze in wonder — at his work here.
 

Marvel at his illustrations for newspapers and magazines (samples above). And also admire the logos in the 'design' section.

Hadi is a great role model for any young illustrator among you. Don't you think the college newspaper will benefit greatly if you can produce illustrations like these?

• Also read: A Commits alumna's long-drawn affair with illustrations

A Pulitzer Prize in 2010... and a Gannett Award in 2011

Sanjay Bhatt, who's a staff writer with The Seattle Times in Washington State in the US, was a speaker at the Commits seminar 'Expressions 2005' in Bangalore. (He also happens to be my nephew.) On Monday, Sanjay and his colleagues at the paper won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News coverage. Here he gives us a detailed account of how that coverage was put together:

It began at 8:15 a.m. on Sunday, November 29, last year. A felon walked into a small town coffeehouse and assassinated four police officers sitting at a table. He then disappeared, with dogs, police, and the media on his trail. He surfaced hours later in a quiet Seattle neighborhood where, just weeks earlier, another police officer had been killed by an assassin. Everyone was on edge.

The Seattle Times newsroom mobilised and responded with unprecedented speed to this deadliest attack on law enforcement in state history: We were the first news outlet to report the name of the suspect, Maurice Clemmons, and the first to report that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had granted clemency years earlier to Clemmons, freeing him from prison.

We quickly produced in-depth profiles of the four deceased officers, who collectively left behind nine children. We used social media like Twitter, Google Wave, and Dipity to enrich our coverage and reach a wider audience. And we kept digging up scoops every hour and every day because of the deep expertise and sourcing of our reporting staff, eventually leading to a comprehensive profile of the killer and his tangled family ties.

Earlier this week, The Seattle Times received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News coverage. You can read all about it here.

There were many, many people who made our coverage so distinctive. So many people, in fact, that it's why the Pulitzer was actually awarded to no single individual but to the entire staff, including editors, researchers, web producers, photographers, video producers, graphic designers, page designers, copy editors, and company managers. We're lucky to work at a "newspaper" that has evolved into a multi-platform, cutting-edge news organisation.

Like others, I played a supporting role: In the cold pre-dawn air, I posted dispatches from the scene where police had surrounded a Seattle house in which they believed Clemmons was hiding. I constructed the Clemmons family tree from interviews and other people's notes. I made lots of phone calls, many fruitless, to Clemmons family members. Some of those calls eventually led to some in-depth interviews, which added context and nuance to our profile of Maurice Clemmons.

You'll notice on that page this important note to readers:

HOW THIS STORY WAS REPORTED AND WRITTEN
The story was reported by staff writers Ken Armstrong; Sanjay Bhatt; Nicole Brodeur; Jack Broom; Charles Brown; Jim Brunner; Mike Carter in Marianna and Little Rock, Ark.; Christine Clarridge; Sara Jean Green; Susan Kelleher; Jonathan Martin; Justin Mayo; Steve Miletich; Maureen O'Hagan; Nick Perry; Eric Pryne; Jennifer Sullivan; Craig Welch; Christine Willmsen; and news researchers Gene Balk, David Turim and Miyoko Wolf. Armstrong and O'Hagan were the lead writers.

Like so many newspapers, The Seattle Times was on the brink of bankruptcy and closure last year. Morale has been low. The Pulitzer really validates what we've been doing to create a print-online news company that serves the community with distinction.

JUBILANT JOURNALISTS

Seattle Times newsroom staffers celebrate after receiving news that

the paper had won a Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News.

The Pulitzer is The Times' eighth. (Photo courtesy: The Seattle Times)

• To read an earlier post about Sanjay Bhatt's work for The Seattle Times, go here.

• UPDATE/June 15, 2011: Sanjay has won another award. He has been selected as the 2011 winner of the Gannett Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism. The Seattle Times submitted an enterprise story and a data visualisation Sanjay put together on the failure by the nation's biggest banks to honour their agreements with Treasury to modify eligible homeowner loans. This award comes with a $5,000 prize.

• UPDATE/February 21, 2012: Watch an interview with Sanjay Bhatt on Seattle's local TV news channel here.