Interviewing the subject of a profile is overrated.
Wait, what?
That counter-intuitive bit of writing advice comes from none other than David Remnick, esteemed editor of The New Yorker, in an interview on Storyboard, the Tumblr blog dedicated to showcasing people who use Tumblr.
It’s not that Remnick dismisses the need to interview someone when you write about them, especially if they are the story. But your decision to write a story should not hinge on whether or not the subject of the story is going to make themselves available to talk. After all, Remnick tells Storyboard, “I’ve written profiles where you never even meet the person. Janet Flanner wrote an amazing profile of Adolf Hitler. I don’t think there was a lot of Hitler access!”
Storyboard’s Chris Mohney uses the occasion of Remnick’s comprehensive profile of Bruce Springtseen to talk to him about the art of the profile. Remnick’s biggest beef with today’s reporters is that they don’t try hard enough, he tells Mohney. Remnick holds New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh out as an example of how tenacious a reporter should be. Remnick tells Mohney:
Hersh “was working on the Watergate story. The New York Times needed to catch up with the Washington Post … it was killing them. He needed to get Charles Colson, one of the bad guys of Watergate, on the phone. How did he do that? He got to the office at 8 a.m. — nobody gets to a newspaper at 8 a.m. — and on a rotary phone, he called Chuck Colson’s home number every 15 minutes till 7 p.m. 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., every 15 minutes on a rotary-dial phone. … He got Chuck Colson, and there was the front page story.” When I hear a writer say that they ‘put in a call,’ Remnick concludes, “I want to pull my hair out.”
Here are some other good reads for writers from this week:
Reve Tour women complete Tour de France course – Portland freelancer Heidi Swift and the team of five other women cyclists completed the 21-stage Tour de France course a day ahead of the professional riders. Swift’s feature story on the ride will appear in the September issue of Peloton Magazine. Until then, read the kudos pouring in on Swift’s Twitter account, or catch her daily diary of the ride on Peloton.
‘There will be no more professional writers in the future’ (Globe and Mail) – British author Ewan Morrison is down on what’s happening in the traditional book publishing industry. What do you think?
Kalamazoo freelance journalist launches swing-state reporting project (Mlive.com) – Chris Killian raised more than $2,000 on Kickstarter for SwingStateStories.com, a mobile reporting project to cover the presidential election from 11 swing states. “We’re told we’re so polarized. My hypothesis is that we’re not as polarized as we are told. It turns people off to politics, off to the political process and what ends up being lost – because of what we’re seeing – are the stories that comprise our country,” Killian tells the Kalamazoo Gazette.
25 Famously Successful People Who Started Off Freelancing (Onlinecollege.org) – Granted some of these “Famously Successful People” are not now and never really were writers. But a lot of individuals on this list are, including Ray Bradbury, Stephen King and Cameron Crowe. That’s reason enough to give it a quick once over the next time you need a little inspiration.