joffe-walt

journalism, if you truly think about it, is the business of telling stories. and stories, inherently, require characters. these actors that experience terror and love are what all great stories come down to, if you parse it down to its bare bones.

and perhaps this is how i am to rationalize my fascination with intellectuals, writers, artists, musicians, politicians, athletes, judges, attorneys, senators, congressional staffers, lobbyists, terrorists, and priests. if you give them enough time, everyone will prove themselves to be fascinating.

and benjamin joffe-walt is one who doesn’t need to try too hard. i first learned about joffee-walt when he began to direct colors magazine (formerly of tibor kalman and oliviero toscani), back in 2007. i had been following kalman’s work for some time (at first through my obsession with maira kalman, his wife, and later through equal measure adoration for stefan sagmeister, his mentee). so naturally, when i got hold of the rumours that the beloved magazine (of the bennetton fame) had at its helms, a young south african editor, i had to peer into his past.

and what i found was all marvels. i learned that he had dabbled in various liberal arts ventures – beginning his academic journey at oberlin, through ramallah (birzeit university), montreal (mcgill university), and ultimately, convocating from my own alma mater, university of toronto.

and then, joffe-walt moves to jo-burg. writing for a range of left-leaning publications (e.g. this magazine), he is the first western journalist to enter darfur to write on rape campaigns, and other atrocities of war.

he is then picked up by the guardian and dispatched to china to work on a story on recycled electronic waste to china, which wins him the society for environmental journalism award.

he continues to write for the guardian on all-issues-up-my-alley, only to move on to what i consider, one of the best publications of our time (no pressure at all): colors, a magazine which bills itself as “the interactive platform about the rest of the world.”

and so, the fascination continues.

post script: fun fact. in case you were wondering, yes. he is the brother of the famed chana joffe-walt! of planet money!

art according to schnabel

i have been fascinated with the schnabels for some time now. and this week’s t magazine has a q&a with its rising member, vito schnabel – art collector/curator extraordinaire.

one thing caught my eye.

To the question, “What does it take to get attention as an artist nowadays?” Vito answers:

“Luck. Good work. Being at the right place at the right time. Being a hard worker.”

which is not too far off from advice that a veteran reporter would give to a rookie start up. perhaps and the drive to be unsparingly critical, but sometimes, i can’t help but wonder if luck is the deciding factor in more things than we care to admit.

did i ever mention that i heart roger cohen?

“In many ways, journalism is a young person’s game. When the phone goes in the middle of the night and you’re 25 and you’re asked to go to Beirut, it’s the greatest thing. But when that happens at 50, less so.”

above is a snippet from an interview roger cohen did with the independent a few years back. yes, in many ways, journalism is a young person’s enterprise, and as someone who is on the other end of the “career” arc, cohen is definitely on my list of journalists i have come to admire, if not only for his lucid writing, then for the compassion that is evident in his writing (an example).

cohen on south africa:

“The other day I was talking to a distant relative, an economist named Andrew Levy. He said: “I don’t fear for my life, and that’s the miracle of South Africa. I say hello to a black in the street and he’ll say hello to me in a friendly way. I know I might get killed in the course of a robbery, not because I’m white, not because they hate me, but because there’s poverty. I’m a patriot in the end. I love this country’s beauty. And when I see the unity and good will the World Cup has created, I believe we can succeed.”

cohen on poland and the world:

“So do not tell me that cruel history cannot be overcome. Do not tell me that Israelis and Palestinians can never make peace. Do not tell me that the people in the streets of Bangkok and Bishkek and Tehran dream in vain of freedom and democracy. Do not tell me that lies can stand forever.”

while doing my iran research, ever so often, i would come across his columns. and the co-existence of gentle and firm in his writing struck me.

here is what i have found out about your man, roger.

cohen was born in london. when he was eighteen, him and his friends traveled all through the middle east, triving in a volkswagen kombi named after the grateful dead frontman.

after oxford, he moved to paris, then was hired by reuters and sent to brussels on a one year assignment. he later joined the wall street journal and was transferred to beirut. later, upon joining the new york times, he covered the bosnian war and the genocide that soon followed. returning to its paris bureau, he continued to work from its berlin bureau, and became the foreign editor after 9/11. cohen now files columns for the tribune and the times.

what illustrious career! i can’t help but wonder if such a career might be no longer possible in the age of outsourcing and live blogging. but one can only hope.

malcolm says embrace numbers

in his interview with TIME magazine, gladwell tells aspiring journalists to go get a master’s in statistics. as i begrudgingly struggle with my online course on numeracy for journalists, the need to embrace numbers has never been greater.

If you had a single piece of advice to offer young journalists, what would it be?
The issue is not writing. It’s what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he’s one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how to read a balance sheet. That means Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. He’s unique. Most accountants don’t write articles, and most journalists don’t know anything about accounting. Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master’s in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that’s the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter.

M.I.A. Hates On Journalists

Recently, M.I.A. and The Venerable New York Times had a pow wow which ended with M.I.A. posting author of said contentious article Lynn Hirschberg’s mobile number on her Twitter.

It all began with a far from flattering article Hirschberg penned for The Times, portraying her as an attention-seeking maybe-artist.

If you thought the article was scathing and unfair, fear not, M.I.A. rights all wrongs here.

(Thanks Lucas for sharin!)