Reporters in Extremis
Scrapbook Reporters in Extremis THE SCRAPBOOK got a vision of the deep abyss into which the news business might soon fall—and frankly, it was truly horrifying. Yes, we’re talking about the...
...And Royall wasn’t done...
...but if they think readers share their curiosity or consuming interest in the matter, they’re kidding themselves...
...He moves while he writes to avoid becoming stale—from the Starbucks, to his windowless transition office, to his new, one-bedroom condo, where the only furniture in place is a blowup mattress on the hardwood floor...
...And then Favreau ruminates on his future: No matter how it goes, Favreau believes this will be his last job in politics—“anything else would be so anticlimactic,” he said...
...If any of this sounds surprising, it shouldn’t...
...Maybe I’ll write a screenplay, or maybe a fiction book based loosely on what all of this was like,” Favreau said...
...But wait, there’s more...
...Nie und nimmer...
...They had the gall to complain that Royall was trying to take their land in the first place...
...So Royall and the town set about invoking eminent domain to take Western Seafood’s land...
...We won’t bore you with the details that separate labor from management —the usual wage and benefit packages, employment guarantees, mutual recriminations, and so on—but the union felt so strongly about the issues that they resorted to this nuclear option comparatively early in the process...
...An article last Sunday about the film adaptation of the novel “The Reader” misspelled the German expression that means coming to terms with the past...
...It’s rare you find such concentrated badness...
...we couldn’t put it down...
...Main’s book paints a highly unflattering picture of Royall and the town fathers...
...In doing so, he would remind himself of the special opportunity he will have as president to speak to a world that still suffers from the anti-Western fury that . . . ” (David Ignatius, “Obama the Healer,” Washington Post, December 14...
...Reporters write their stories but demand that their names— their “bylines,” in newspaper lingo— be withheld from the final version...
...Royall also sued University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, who had the temerity to blurb the book...
...Does that not count as “drama...
...Sentences We Didn’t Finish ‘Here’s a contrarian thought: Before Obama assumes the burdens of commander in chief, maybe he should dust off that copy of Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and give the radical theorist another look...
...Sure, we wouldn’t mind a little personal publicity—maybe a photograph or a mention by name elsewhere in the magazine—but who, apart from THE SCRAPBOOK’s mother, would be interested...
...His lawsuit further includes Mark Lardas, a journalist in Texas who reviewed Main’s book...
...Answer: It is exactly what you think it is...
...Here, Saslow describes the boy wonder at work: Favreau believes he will transition well if he focuses exclusively on writing, which is why he has buried himself in the inaugural address...
...He sometimes writes until 2 or 3 a.m., fueled by double espresso shots and Red Bull...
...When deadline nears, a speech consumes him until he works 16-hour days and forgets to call home, do his laundry or pay his bills...
...For people in my generation, it was an unbelievable way to grow up...
...In journalism, it’s the content of the story, not the name of the writer or the state of his career, that draws in readers...
...It is Vergangenheitsbew?ltigung, not Vergangenheitsbewaltigung...
...Now, he has transformed into what one friend called a “Washington political force”—a minor celebrity with a downpayment on a Dupont Circle condo, whose silly Facebook photos with a Hillary Rodham Clinton cutout created what passes for controversy in Obama’s so far dramafree transition...
...Then, in 2001, a developer named H. Walker Royall decided to revitalize Freeport by building a private marina, which would, he contended, attract businesses, tourists, and other investment...
...But What He Really Wants to Do Is Direct Our friends think we’re crazy, but THE SCRAPBOOK actually read all 2,200 words of the Washington Post’s fawning front-page profile of 27-yearold Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau...
...Only an experienced, fully credentialed AP reporter could believe that the absence of his name would make the slightest difference to readers—assuming, of course, that readers are aware of his name in the first place...
...Try to read the following without gagging: Three months ago, Favreau lived in a group house with six friends in Chicago, where he rarely shaved, never cooked and sometimes stayed up to play video games until early morning...
...Really...
...In any event, once you remove all the clich?s Post staff writer Eli Saslow heaps on him, Favreau may still turn out to be a walking clich...
...He calls it “crashing...
...You had a bunch of kids working on this campaign together, and it was such a mix of the serious and momentous and just the silly ways that we are...
...Scrapbook Reporters in Extremis THE SCRAPBOOK got a vision of the deep abyss into which the news business might soon fall—and frankly, it was truly horrifying...
...By withholding his/her byline, the journalist is at once throwing down the gauntlet to management and signaling to readers that this is serious business...
...Royall has responded by suing Main and her publisher, Encounter Books, for defamation...
...A mix of the serious and momentous and just the silly ways that we are...
...The first defamation suit Royall filed was against the family who owns Western Seafood...
...What, you may ask, is a byline strike...
...Yes, we’re talking about the byline strike conducted last week by reporters at the Associated Press...
...Certainly THE SCRAPBOOK would never make such a mistake...
...himself...
...It may be that journalists are acutely aware of the bylines of other journalists as they appear on the front page, or on the wire...
...And the Galveston County Daily News, which published Lardas’s review...
...Leave aside the “silly” photo, which shows Favreau groping a cut-out of his boss’s former rival...
...Saslow seems unaware that everyone under the age of 50 calls this crashing...
...And as consumers of these pages must surely know, THE SCRAPBOOK has been on a byline strike since its inception...
...Their contract expired at the end of November, and the AP journalists’ union —the News Media Guild, not to be confused with the Newspaper Guild —has been in contentious negotiations with the management of the Associated Press...
...Can anyone seriously claim that the Obama transition has been “drama-free...
...Someday, he wants to write in his own voice, for himself...
...New York Times, December 14, 2008 Great Moments in Eminent Domain Last year Carla Main published Bulldozed, a book that told the story of Freeport, Texas, a working-class, Gulf Coast town that had fallen on hard times...
...What about that whole crooked-pol-caught-tryingtosell-the-president-elect’s-Senate-seat thing...
...It is also, from The Scr apbook’s humble perspective, a near-perfect example of the kind of professional arrogance, and suicidal self-absorption, that has gotten so many journalists (and their employers) into their present economic pickle...
...The only problem was that Royall needed the land occupied by one of Freeport’s few successful businesses, a family-owned shrimping outfit called Western Seafood...
...A byline strike...
...Eat your heart out, Peggy Noonan...
...Error in the Times Frankly, we are stunned that the New York Times could whiff on something as basic as this...
...In the annals of journalism, there is no more eloquent example of professional self-sacrifice—of defiant labor unity in the face of intransigent Big Capital— than the byline strike...
Vol. 14 • December 2008 • No. 15
