Article of Interest: "The Journalist's Guide to Twitter"

This guy clearly doesn't need a "Journalist's Guide" to anything: Source: bob520.wordpress.com

While searching out authors that are leveraging Twitter, Facebook and other social media to build an audience, I came across this article on www.Mashable.com: "The Journalist's Guide to Twitter." Leah Betancourt writes this practical piece laying out the ways in which Twitter and social media can actually aid in reporting in addition to building readership. Some interesting (and some obvious) points are made. Check it out!

Missing the Mark: Emily Bazelon’s “What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince?”

          The core insight in Emily Bazelon’s thought-provoking investigative article seems to be that, because “nobody, rightly, wants to blame the girl who died,” the community cast about for people to blame for Phoebe Prince’s suicide, finally resting on the hot button but retaliation-ready concept of school bullies. Bazelon points out that there is much more to the story than what was initially reported and then infers to the readers of Slate that she intends to get down to the truth of the matter. Her goal is ambitious, but one that I believe she fails to reach as a result of misleading and incomplete reporting, and a complete (and completely astounding) disregard for one of the most troubling aspects of this case: the media’s involvement.

            From the very first sentence of Bazelon’s three-part series, she positions the supposed bullies as the focus of her investigation. Rather than beginning with Phoebe Prince’s suicide or bullying experiences, as many other journalists have, the author seems to turn upside down readers’ preconceived notions about this highly discussed case by personalizing the defendants and calling into question the assumption that they are just bad eggs. This a bold and intriguing tactic, but I became less intrigued by this positioning and more troubled the more I read. What I first found dubious were the illustrations of the six accused, which appeared in the order in which the students were introduced in the article. For a news article, one that is supposedly based in fact rather than subjective interpretation, I find it concerning that primary sources such as photos were reinterpreted into illustrated portraits. With a caricature-like look to them, these illustrations are potentially deceiving: who knows what features the artist chose to soften, accentuate or alter in some way? Now, I’m not so conspiracy minded to think that Bazelon is purposefully trying to mislead us regarding these kids, but the presence of these illustrations certainly called to my attention that this article may indeed be slanted in a similar—though reversed—way that other articles concentrating solely on the victimhood of Prince are slanted. It made me question the motives behind the choice to include illustrations rather than the readily available photos and made me wonder what I could be missing from the photographic portraits themselves.

My concerns regarding the objectivity of this article continued as I read on to find that Bazelon chooses to include irrelevant, though humanizing information on the accused. I’m specifically thinking of sentences in Part 1 that detail the parental deaths experienced by some of Prince’s accused bullies. I really can’t help but wonder at the decision process behind including these bits of information that seem to be completely irrelevant to the matter at hand and the rest of Bazelon’s reporting. While reading this article, I couldn’t help but make many marginal notes along the lines of “Why are we being told this information?” I suspect that the author was attempting to humanize these students or inspire sympathy for them from her readers—but why couldn’t she do this by sticking to the facts of the case, which alone seem to offer strong enough humanizing factors? Why does she feel the need to fall back on these odd pieces of personal information that lead nowhere but beyond the subject at hand? These inclusions have me questioning the objectivity of this article and the reporting choices made by its author.

I’m not trying to argue that reporting should be—or even could be—fully objective. What I am arguing is that good reporting should be transparent—relayed in a way that allows readers to understand the purpose of that which is being reported and when reporting switches from fact gathering to subjective interpretation or appropriation of the facts. It seems to me that while Bazelon might not be purposefully attempting to obscure the facts of this case, some questionable choices on her part make this piece less than transparent.

            Speaking of questionable choices, I also find the author’s choice in sources to be troubling. I sympathize with Bazelon for the clearly difficult job she had obtaining reputable sources that would or could actually talk to her regarding this story. Yet, while I am aware that she had very limited interview outlets, I wonder how much credible information was offered by her continual use of “a source” or, much more concerning, “one adult at the school.” (Part 1) These inclusions bring up the oft-considered dilemma of many journalists—include a nameless source and hope that the article can survive with the questionable implications inherent in a context-less, consequence-less quote, or stick to the safety of designated sources. I believe that the “right” choice in this quandary is always dependent on the circumstances of the topic reported upon and the strength of the article itself, but in this case, I think that these anonymous sources offered more questions of credibility than valuable information. Here is an article about teenage politics—a world—as the author herself points out—that changes on an hourly basis and is shrouded in gossip and lies. With this in mind, what value can we find in the information about these teenage politics relayed by an “adult at the school”? How did these adults even receive information about these kids’ romantic relationships and what made Bazelon think that this info was reliable? It would be one thing if the author acknowledged the potential issues of the information she was relaying, but it seemed to me that Bazelon was so desperate for primary sources that she completely neglected these conflicts. In my mind, this neglect shows a serious lack of judgment in her reporting, therefore compromising the integrity of the article altogether.

            Finally, I arrive at what I believe to be the largest oversight in “What Happened to Phoebe Prince.” This is an article that supposedly evaluates the factors that caused a complicated situation to be simplified, misjudged and spun out of control. To explain this result, Bazelon looks at school district politics, problems of the justice system, conflicts of discipline in the digital age and improper counseling. She writes about how the case blew up overnight and how incorrect information began being taken as truth—yet she never turns her attention to what I believe to be one of the largest factors in the evolution of the Phoebe Prince controversy: media involvement. In part 3, Bazelon writes:

 The Prince family hasn’t spoke publically since Phoebe’s death. Nor, with the exception of Sharon’s mother, have the families of the kids who were charged. That left the field to the bullies’ accusers and to the school district, which was restricted by confidentiality laws and was ill-prepared to handle the press. The result was a spring of recrimination and stonewalling, not healing.”

Here, the author asserts that because people wouldn’t speak about the specifics of the case, the result was “recrimination and stonewalling” but she fails to look at where the connection lies between this result and the silence of those involved. Instead and without comment, she goes on to explain the back and forth between the accusers and the accused that occurred on the Today show with Matt Lauer, Anderson Copper and the Boston Globe.  How is it that Bazelon never turns her search inward, looking at what role the media (aka newspapers, magazines, news shows) had in turning the silence into speculation, which then turned into misinterpretation which then created “a spring of recrimination and stonewalling.” This case got a massive amount of media attention, and (as far as I know) until this piece all attention was put on Prince as the victim and the need to find those responsible. Furthermore, a DA who is potentially using the media attention she receives as a platform for reelection is perpetrating the legal cases against the accused. With these elements so obviously apparent, I am shocked that the author of this article never evaluates them in depth and instead localizes her inquiry, basically blaming the people in the town for letting the truth be swept under the rug. In my mind, this oversight is a damning one for the author. It stands to me as further evidence of incomplete or unreliable reporting and causes me to question the overall legitimacy of the article and its journalist.

            In a nutshell, it seems to me that “What Happened to Phoebe Prince” missed the mark. Yes, it exposed some of the nuances of the case that had previously been overlooked, but it failed to do so in a reputable, convincing manner and insufficiently evaluated why the case evolved as it did.

Reading Response: Interpretation and “My Mother’s Lover” by David Dobbs

Reading Response: Interpretation and “My Mother’s Lover” by David Dobbs

            For a work saddled with a seemingly sensationalist title and a tabloid synopsis (Deathbed revelation! Illicit affair!) I was surprised to find David Dobb’s “My Mother’s Lover” to be subtly complex and movingly honest. The author’s tone of kindness and meticulous approach to both the research and the subjects elevated this piece from the voyeuristic gossip-drama it could have been to a story that converges on real themes of love (both man/woman and parent/child), truth and lives lost. Yet, there are still some aspects of this story that I find troubling.

            In reaching the end of this piece, I was struck by its concluding sentiment of acceptance:

“Then I opened my mother’s crumbling photo album and slipped the pictures into the two remaining empty sets of corner mounts. I considered pulling those mounts off and pasting the photos closer to one another. But I though, No: My mom had glued those holders in that way, and I shouldn’t change it. This was as close I could get them.” (final page)

In this excerpt, Dobbs resists the urge to change his mother’s story, neither for his own satisfaction nor to save the lasting reputation of the subjects involved. It must have been difficult for the author to discover unflattering truths about his mother and the affect she had on a family many miles away, but for much of the text he does not attempt to justify or revise. Instead, he speckles the story with lines that allude to this resolve—most notably the line spoken by one of Angus’s children: “The past is approved and the future is open.” In leaving us with a sentimental scene of acceptance, and by excluding from his text any overt evidence of his own grappling with the truth, it seems to this reader that Dobbs is suggesting that the facts offer comfort enough. Learning the truth of his mother’s love affair and the truth about the man she loved seems to have brought the author closer to his deceased mother, simply because he feels that he knows her and the origin of her emotions a little better.

That truth can be a cure-all is a powerful notion for anyone—if not especially for a nonfiction writer—and would be a warming conclusion to this story, if Dobbs had really found the truth, which I don’t believe he did. I think he manufactured the truth for himself, and in doing so demonstrated one of the pitfalls of writing about family history, or anything close to the writer’s heart. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying that Dobbs invented this story or maliciously led his readers astray. This story is laden in facts. Lots of them. He discovered Angus’ dates of deployment, the dates his mother was in Hawaii, the contents of a footlocker. I don’t contest the truth of this information. But I’m troubled by the areas of this story where he strays from these facts and moves into subjective interpretation. I’m talking of course about the photographs. Dobbs takes those black and whites—otherwise objective sources—and attempts to bleed emotion and intention from them.

“But my mother turns an ashen face away from Angus and the camera. She looks distinctly as if she wishes she were somewhere else. Was she suddenly feeling ashamed? Had she and Angus been fighting? Had the regrets latent in the earlier photographs broken into the open?” (from 3. Hawaii)

From a base of facts, Dobbs builds the part of his story around how he infers his mother and her lover to feel and to think. Who is to say that the sun wasn’t simply in her eyes for this photo? Who is to say that this wasn’t one of the happiest days of their affair? Dobbs is inferring the shame and regret he perhaps hopes his mother felt—and he continues to infer the emotions of each subject of every photo he evaluates.

            Is it unethical or wrong that he is placing feelings upon still subjects in a crumpled old photo album? I would argue no—he clearly frames these interpretations around the premise of this photo album and even includes copies of some of the photos for the readers to interpret as they wish. No, I don’t think the author’s use of the photos is wrong, but I do think that it calls into question his concluding sentiment of acceptance and truth. The photo interpretations seem to prove that Dobbs did or does in fact grapple with the truth of his mother’s life and (whether conscious of it or not) is attempting to revise certain parts of it to better fit his own feelings about who she was and what she did.

            Dobb’s slide into personally based interpretation makes me wonder if this is not a problem encountered by all nonfiction writers. In interpreting the facts, do we not place our own expectations, wants or feels on the subjects at hand? Is this a curse of nonfiction or something that brings a further depth and artistry to the genre? I know that very few texts can ever be wholly objective, but where must one draw the line between evaluating the facts and interpreting them for oneself? I hope to delve into these questions throughout this semester.

 

Of Interest: Hilarious Typo

This amazing article from the Guardian showed up via Electric Literature's Facebook feed:


"Shift Dropped on Author After Typo in Her Romantic Novel."


Looks like this poor author's week is off to a "shitty" start.

Interesting that this typo only showed up in the e-books. Is there a different editing process for e-books as opposed to print editions? Can a typo (or other mistake) be retroactively corrected in all e-books easily, or does the publisher have to issue a whole new e-book edition?

More Nonfiction Inspirations

Since Wednesday's class my mind has been flooded with the names of nonfiction authors that somehow refused to be recalled by my brain when we were making our "Inspirational Author" posts. My omission of David Sedaris's name from my list had me kicking myself the entire bus ride home that night. Tobias Wolff's name emerged Thursday morning, Tony Horwitz, Truman Capote and Frank McCourt came by that evening. (On a side note: Why is it that when asked to recall something, the titles of favorite books for instance, one's brain often goes blank? It is like a bizarre performance anxiety of the brain. Or maybe it isn't that the mind goes blank but that it is flooded with so many options that it disguises itself as blank in order to keep from being overwhelmed. Either way-- what an annoyance.)

There are two authors, however, that I feel compelled to briefly glorify on this new post, mostly because their work is so influencing mine at this moment:

Bill Bryson. I read his newest volume, At Home, this past winter and was completely captivated by it. It was tangential and incredibly detailed--two qualities that often prove to be the kiss of death for similarly long-winded works of nonfiction. However, even as he described the origin of the parlor and the impact of the electric stove, I was glued to each word he wrote. In my opinion, he was able to assert such command over me as a reader for several reasons: First, the book was outrageously well researched. Delving into obscure texts he found information not just on the larger themes of his chapters but also on smaller, equally interesting though perhaps not as relevant subjects. Second, Bryson has cultivated a voice and tone in his works that is friendly and warm, throwing 

authoritativeness to the wayside and substituting instead a voice that exuded the excitement of new discovery and insight, which inspired and then mimicked this reader's own excitement while reading. I have yet to read his many other works, but I look forward to evaluating when and how he established these skills as a nonfiction writer. I think I'll be picking up The Lost Continent next. (photo source: www.randomhouse.com/features/billbryson/)

Studs Terkel. At first I wondered if one could label this extraordinary man a nonfiction author. He was a radio man of the kind (fearless, progressive, an unapologetic cigar-smoker) that no longer exists. However, because his work went beyond radio and were transcribed into books, I think he is fair nonfiction game. Terkel was both a genius in asking the right questions and knowing when to shut up--two qualities I long for as a writer. He let his subjects do their own talking, and thanks to this technique his works (particularly those on the Great Depression and the civil rights movement) provide us with invaluable insight into the lives and thinking of individuals who would otherwise be completely lost to history. In reading his work, it seems as though he was always confident that every person has an interesting story that they are able to tell for themselves--a humbling notion that I hope to remember throughout my writing career. (photo source: guardian.co.uk)