The soul of journalism

At the annual gala to raise money for the Committee to Protect Journalists, the biggest names in the profession get served a reminder of the nameless journalists who often at great peril battle the darkness in places desperate for light.

From George Packer at the New Yorker:

At just the moment when any half-conscious journalist is beginning to feel a little sick—sick of the rich food, of the self-congratulatory tone, of the overdressed guests, of himself or herself, of the gap between what we say we do and what we aspire to do and what we all-too-often really do—it’s at that moment that the hosts announce the winners of the year’s awards. Along with the awards come videos that tell the recipients’ stories. The hum of chatter across the tables suddenly dies—for the stories are of brave, humorous, quietly defiant men and women, rarities and eccentrics who nonetheless seem to exist in every country, upholding high journalistic standards in the world’s most dangerous places, with no powerful backers, and almost no one paying attention except government thugs or anonymous gunmen.

Read the full post here.

Burying the lede, and everything else*, **

David Folkenflik had a fascinating and highly disturbing piece today on Morning Edition about a story written by reporter Scott Anderson for GQ that was buried so deep it's been scrubbed from the Internet. The story was entitled "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power." From NPR's web story:

[Anderson's] investigative piece, published in the September American edition of GQ, challenges the official line on a series of bombings that killed hundreds of people in 1999 in Russia. It profiles a former KGB agent who spoke in great detail and on the record, at no small risk to himself. But instead of trumpeting his reporting, GQ's corporate owners went to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure no Russians will ever see it.

The corporate owners don't seem to have any concerns over the accuracy of the story or with Anderson's safety. An email from Jerry S. Birenz, a lawyer for Conde Nast, the corporate owner of GQ, indicates financial motives were at play:

[Birenz] ordered that the article could not be posted to the magazine's Web site. No copies of the American edition of the magazine could be sent to Russia or shown in any country to Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers. Additionally, the piece could not be published in other Conde Nast magazines abroad, nor publicized in any way.

It wasn't just that there was no reference to Anderson's piece on the cover of this month's GQ, which featured a picture of Michael Jackson, a reference to tennis star Andy Roddick's wife and a ranking of obnoxious colleges and top drinking cities. At this writing, I cannot find any reference to Anderson's piece on the Internet.

Listen to the Morning Edition piece here.

*Update: Gawker is working on a Russian translation of the GQ story. The site has also scanned the article from the magazine for anyone who wants to read it.

**Update II: The New York Times picks up the story.

Report on reporters

Ah, to be poor, idealistic and tired.

Perks of the profession

One perk of becoming a professional journalist at a small- or medium-size paper is that you get to work longer than eight hours a day and more than 40 hours a week without getting overtime pay (much of the time). It's an unwritten rule of the trade, with the bosses usually offering compensatory time for the overtime worked. But if your job demands you work more than 40 hours a week already, it's tough to find the time to take off - especially when you're trying to make an impact so you get on with a better paper.

Most reporters accept the low pay and long hours as another part of paying their dues. Half of the job is about getting good experience and clips to move on to better things. But as papers continue to squeeze salaries and cut positions, as larger papers continue to shrink and as newsroom self-loathing increases, I have to wonder whether this wink-and-a-nod arrangement will fall apart. After all, why agree to take comp time you're never going to use if you see no light at the end of the tunnel?

This is a long lead-in to this story in The Times Leader in Pennsylvania. Looks like a disgruntled former employee at a competing paper called the feds about alleged overtime abuses. I doubt anything will come of the inquiry, as this isn't an administration that seems to excited about enforcing labor standards.

(Incidentally, I once asked a class action lawyer why no one ever went after newspapers for such abuses. He told me lawyers only go after companies with money.)