Writers Speak | Nick Cave on the ubiquitous location of inspiration
Interview | 4 Questions with Mary Jordan
Craft Lesson | Libel Pains
Audiobook to Savor | Four Thousands Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, written by Oliver Burkeman, narrated by the author.
Book World | Listen up
Tip of the Week | Give your reporting a report card
Help Royal Hospitallers save lives in Ukraine
WRITERS SPEAK
"The inspiration for writing isn’t really without, it’s within. And you can write really anywhere if your imagination is in good shape. It needs to be exercised. But it doesn’t really matter where you are."
- Nick Cave
INTERVIEW | 4 QUESTIONS WITH MARY JORDAN
Mary Jordan writes about national political issues for The Washington Post. She spent 14 years abroad as a foreign correspondent and Washington Post co-bureau chief in Tokyo, Mexico City and London. She has written from more than 40 countries. She and her husband and Washington Post colleague, Kevin Sullivan, won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for their investigation of the Mexican justice system. Jordan has taught journalism at Georgetown University, and she spent a year studying at Harvard University on a Nieman Fellowship and a year at Stanford University studying Spanish. She has been on-site covering many of the biggest stories of our time, including women’s rights in Pakistan and the 2016 presidential campaign. After the election, she spent months talking to the voters who elected Donald Trump. She and Sullivan have written two books together: “Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland,” which was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller in 2015, and “The Prison Angel” in 2005. Jordan is also the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump,” published in 2020. She also contributed to “Trump Revealed,” a Washington Post staff biography of Donald Trump published in 2016; and “Nine Irish Lives,” publishing in March 2018. She was the founding editor and moderator of Washington Post Live, which organizes current affairs forums and debates. In 2016, The Washington Post honored Jordan with the Eugene Meyer Award for distinguished service, based on the principles of the paper’s legendary former owner: Tell the truth for the public good and always be fair.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned as a writer?
Good writing is clear thinking. It’s jotting down what you have learned. Great writing is clear thoughts set to music – words and phrases and sentences with rhythm.
What has been the biggest surprise of your writing life?
That some people actually enjoy writing. I find it hard, even after all these years. I do love having written. Writing to me is like exercising. I find doing sit-ups and going to hot yoga hellish but appreciate their importance and enjoy the feeling when class is over.
If you had to choose a metaphor to describe yourself as a writer, what would it be and why?
A surprise-maker. Because the last thing writing should be is boring.
What's the best piece of writing advice anyone ever gave you?
If you are writing a book, don’t end the day when you hit a roadblock. Wrap up when you are excited about where you are going and see the path ahead. That way you start the next day with momentum.
CRAFT LESSON | LIBEL PAINS
The very word strikes terror in the heart of every journalist.
Libel—publishing false statements that expose someone to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule in writing or pictures—can trigger a costly lawsuit or the possibility of a hefty payout to settle the case. Originally limited to newspapers, it now includes broadcast news on radio and television. Slander is another form of libel that involves oral communication.
In 2017, Disney, the parent company of ABC News, settled a $1.9 billion libel lawsuit by paying a South Dakota beef production company $177 million. At issue was a 2012 broadcast that described a type of meat filler used in ground beef as ammonia-treated “pink slime,” once used only in dog food, according to the broadcast story and news reports. Disney’s insurers, the beef company said, paid the remainder of the total undisclosed settlement. The company, which maintained the filler is 100% beef, said it lost millions in sales and had to lay off 700 workers.
While such cases get big headlines, the reality is that routine stories that are insufficiently checked are behind most libel actions.
The bar is higher for public officials, and public figures—those who hold no office but are widely known. They must prove that the news organization knew the statement was false and published it anyway, known as “actual malice.”
Failure to prove that led a federal judge to dismiss former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s 2022 lawsuit against The New York Times over an editorial linking her political rhetoric to a mass shooting. The editor in charge acknowledged he moved “too fast,” but insisted he didn’t act out of malice, just carelessness. The paper immediately put out a correction.
THE ELEMENTS OF LIBEL
To prove they have been libeled by a news organization, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a person must demonstrate six things:
1. Publication in a newspaper, broadcast, or website.
2. Identification. The person doesn’t have to be named if their identity—a local coach, say—is clear.
3. Defamation that exposes a person to hatred and ridicule or injures her business. (Libel suits are often called defamation actions.)
4. False. Were the allegations false? Even an altered or incorrect quote can be false.
5. Fault. Did the publication know the story was false and defamatory and publish it anyway?
6. Injury/ Harm. The heart of a libel action is that the person’s reputation suffered injury, stated in dollars.
WINNING CAN HURT, TOO
Even winning a libel suit can be costly.
In 2021, a federal court judge threw out a libel suit clearing Reveal, a nonprofit newsroom run by the Center for Investigative Reporting, from charges that it defamed Planet Aid, an international charity that received federal funds. Reveal’s reports linked the charity to an alleged cult and questioned its spending.
“While the judge’s decision is an unequivocal legal win for Reveal, it took more than four-and-a-half years and millions of dollars to get there,” wrote Reveal’s general counsel, D. Victoria Baranetsky, in an article about the case in Columbia Journalism Review.
Frank Greve, an investigative reporter for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a former colleague, beat back a libel suit, but he still called the experience “20 months of acute professional anxiety.” In his case, truth, as it is generally, was the best defense against a libel action.
But that doesn’t cover everything, as I discovered when Frank shared the lessons he learned with me:
The tougher the story, the more generous a reporter should be in allowing its target to have his or her say.
Reporting findings is more useful to readers than reporting conclusions. Distinguishing between findings and conclusions is libel insurance.
Check all numbers. Check them again. Then get someone else to check them.
If the target won’t comment, send a letter with your questions well before you publish. Follow up with a phone call. It’s impressive evidence of a reporter’s intent to be fair.
Do some reporting on your sources’ motives.
Listen to your inner voice that asks incessantly: Is what I’m writing fair?
AUDIOBOOK TO SAVOR | FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS: TIME MANAGEMENT FOR MORTALS, BY OLIVER BURKEMAN, NARRATED BY THE AUTHOR
This engrossing book, vigorously narrated by former British journalist, Burkeman represents a mind-change for this productivity expert. Its subject is ostensibly time management and personal and professional productivity. But I found it a riveting and deeply-researched work of philosophy, drawing on modern thinkers, the sages of ancient Greece and Zen Buddhists, that immediately altered my neural pathways. Lately, I have been trying to live my life by one of the many lines from it I have copied out: Will this choice enlarge or diminish me?
Of course, it’s also available an ebook and paperback if you prefer those reading choices.
Twice a month, he publishes “The Imperfectionist,” “an email on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment.” I signed up at oliverburkeman.com. Previous posts are very inviting. Can’t wait to dive in.
THE BOOK WORLD | LISTEN UP
If all goes according to plan, the audiobook of 33 Ways Not To Screw Up Your Journalism will soon be available for sale. If you’ve followed this saga in the Book World section over the past few weeks, you know that I narrated the audiobook, which was edited by the inestimable Luis Aponte of Caracas, Venezuela. I just got word this afternoon that Findaway Voices, which distributes audiobooks to Audible, Amazon, Apple Books and 40 other retailers accepted mine just two days after I uploaded it to their free platform. If you’re someone who prefers listening to reading sometimes, stay tuned to my social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. I set the price at $5.99 to meet journalistic budgets. (Audible will set its own price.) I’ll be launching the audiobook with a couple of days of bargain prices! Here’s the audiobook cover
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TIP OF THE WEEK| GIVE YOUR REPORTING A REPORT CARD
Alix Freedman always kept in mind her Wall Street Journal editor’s description of journalism’s essential challenge: “Distill a beer keg’s worth of information into a perfume bottle.”
That’s why the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter cataloged her reporting on a legal pad where she listed quotes, examples, statistics and themes she uncovered in her reporting.
Each got a grade. Only those marked “A” made it into print. Freedman’s aim was to “maximize impact,” to use “not just an example but a telling example,” she said. Not just a quote but “a quote on point.”
The power of a story comes from what’s not in it.
It’s a paradox, one of many contradictions that lie in the journalist’s path.
But you ignore it at your peril.
UNLOADING TIPS
Copy Alix Freedman’s approach. List your reporting ingredients, grade them and only use the ones you give a top grade.
From #8 Iceberg Right Ahead! 33 Ways Not To Screw Up Your Journalism
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Royal Hospitallers, Ukrainian's brave volunteer paramedic battalion, save lives every day. Please support them here!
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May your writing go well.
Chip
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Hi Bobby! Oh, it's my acute pleasure to have the honor of such writing greats. And I couldn't agree more. Mary Jordan demonstrates the power of concise writing; there's so much wisdom in just 28 words (if my finger counting is accurate.) Considering her incredible professional career, it's clear she has learned how to apply it to her own work. She gives others hope they might be able to do the same. Thanks for responding. Have a great day and may the writing go well. Chip
Wow....love that first response, "Good writing is clear thinking. It’s jotting down what you have learned. Great writing is clear thoughts set to music – words and phrases and sentences with rhythm." Thanks for this.