Bringing truth into focus

The Extraordinary GENE WEINGARTEN STORY BY SYDNEY COOPER • PHOTO The celebrated writer reveals his own personal FROM CREATIVE COMMONS truth as he pursues the truth from others

aybe you were there and Weingarten would later say. After two days, Weingarten felt the can recall what he said, The first situation dealt with a 2004 article was falling flat, but things changed or maybe you heard about story published in The Washington Post, on the third day. Weingarten went to the it from someone who was where he was on staff until his retirement man’s house for a barbecue and a friend of Mthere. But when two-time Pulitzer Prize in 2009. He continues to write “Below the the man pulled out a marijuana pipe which winning feature writer Gene Weingarten Beltway,” a syndicated humor column he offered to Weingarten. The conflict decided to host a Q&A session at the 2011 for the newspaper. But the story he seemed obvious: The Washington Post had Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, mentioned at the conference concerned a strict policy that its journalists could what he said polarized the audience and a pressing question in the run-up to the not break the law while reporting a story, sent Twitter a-trending. Whether it was 2004 presidential election: Why were so and in Michigan at that time, possession some kind of narrative mea culpa for many Americans not voting? To answer of marijuana was against the law. On the past reporting indiscretions or a chance that question, Weingarten spent several other hand, “I felt if I had a chance at the to educate emerging journalists about days with a non-voter in rural Michigan. kind of intimacy I wanted in this interview, the ethical traps the pursuit of truth But even though he did his best to immerse it was now or never.” places in the path of every good reporter, himself in the man’s life, he was having Weingarten chose the pipe and the pot. Weingarten expressed little regret about trouble getting the man to open up to him. With this truth revealed, he asked the the two scenarios he mentioned. And while Weingarten and his subject liked Mayborn crowd if they would do the same. “I was very comfortable with the way each other, the man didn’t seem to trust As he recalls, one-third of the audience I acted in those situations, except one,” him. raised their hand for ‘yes” and two-thirds

1 2020 MAYBORN MAGAZINE gene weingarten

said “no.” While the ethical lines seemed clear, Weingarten felt other men who approach Eric’s level of dysfunction, including that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He understood he had a duty myself.” to represent The Washington Post as For Weingarten, being it would like to be represented, but he unapologetically himself and also knew his journalistic duty was to maintaining his journalistic integrity get the story. are not mutually exclusive. And as “The story went from a B minus to a humor writer, he finds himself to an A,” Weingarten said. “I don’t regret be the best butt of every joke. “Self- it. I don’t apologize for it.” deprecating humor is something Weingarten did express some everyone likes, and it keeps you in regret to the audience about a second your place,” he says. “I like confessing incident, one that transpired early to my foibles – you can’t get too full in his career when he was a young of yourself if half of what you write is reporter for The Knickerbocker making fun of yourself.” News in Albany, New York. The city Inspiration for his narratives not of Albany was engulfed in a bribery only stems from his own quirks, scandal, and a businessman at the neuroses and eccentricities, but center of the scandal had been also from his insight about the hospitalized. fundamental nature of storytelling. He Weingarten snuck into the man’s has dedicated much of his journalism hospital room. “He was in and out to the notion that “there is a story of lucidity,” Weingarten said. “He in everything”; that no matter how addressed me as ‘doctor,’ even though mundane, trivial or boring something I told him I was a journalist. I again might seem, if you dig deep enough, told him I was a journalist, and he searched for the truth hard enough, seemed to understand that, but instead you could find the extraordinary in of shaking his hand, I took his pulse.” the ordinary. His latest book seems From the information the man gave an attempt to actually prove this him that day, Weingarten broke the philosophy. story and landed on the front page. “One Day: The Extraordinary Story “I would never do it again,” he said. of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America,” “I think it was the only dishonest thing released in 2019, is the compilation of I did as a journalist.” six years of interviews that examines A writer from the Washingtonian the title’s implicit premise: there is magazine was in the audience at the no such thing as an ordinary day. His conference, shadowing him for an methodology for picking that single extensive profile that he would publish about Weingarten five day drew media attention to the book. months later. In his profile entitled “How Do You Explain Gene “I went to a restaurant, brought [an] old green fedora,” he told Weingarten?” Tom Bartlett was troubled about why Weingarten NPR in an interview. Inside were 63 crumpled pieces of paper — would sully his own reputation. “My theory is that this is 31 on the first drawing, drawn by a little boy for the day of the consistent with his tendency toward self-flagellation,” wrote year. Twelve in the second one for the month the year, and 20 for Bartlett. “He reveals his faults in his columns. He writes stories the third one; I had limited the year to one of 20 years. I wanted about people whose mistakes and quirks mirror his own.” people alive who I could talk to who remembered what happened. Although Weingarten would disagree with this “theory,” So, we limited it to 1969 to 1989.” Bartlett did have a point. The date chosen was December 28, Take his gut-wrenching Pulitzer 1986 — which, in the hands of a lesser Prize winning story, “Fatal Self-deprecating writer, might have dampened interest. Distraction,” about parents who humor is something December 28 was a Sunday, a slow carelessly, unwittingly leave their news day during a slow news cycle – young children in the backseat of everyone likes, the holidays between Christmas and their cars to die from hyperthermia. New Year’s. Weingarten told NPR that he had his and it keeps you in But Weingarten found much to own moment 30 years before when he “ write about: a heart transplant, a fire “came within seconds of killing” his your place,” he says. “I like fighter, a romance, a chapter on AIDS, daughter. “The only reason that she’s which was still raging at the time. And alive today is that at the last minute, confessing to my foibles if the book review in The Washington just before I was about to turn off the – you can’t get too full of Post was any indication, Weingarten car and go into work in a 90-degree had proven his point: Miami day, she woke up and said yourself if half of what “‘One Day’ is full of scenes and something. And that’s why she’s alive wordsmithing that can make a reader and not a little pile of bones in the you write is making fun of elbow her partner in the ribs and ground somewhere…I tell you this can force him to listen to a read-aloud. happen to anyone.” yourself.” That’s the hallmark of memorable Weingarten also identified with - GENE WEINGARTEN feature writing. More, please.” the central character of what many believe is his best narrative work, “The Peekaboo Paradox,” about children’s performer, Eric Knaus, who went by the stage name of We at Mayborn magazine are committed to giving you “more” Weingarten. In the same “The Great Zucchini.” Eric had an innate sense of playfulness and 2011 conference in which he confessed his ethical imbroglios, we featured him in our foolish wonder that made young children melt with laughter. But print edition in an extensive and, not surprisingly, entertaining profile. It’s part of our as Weingarten artfully peels back the onion of Knaus’ adult life, he “Best of Mayborn” section in this year’s digital edition and we are linking to it here. It reveals The Great Zucchini to be a certifiable mess. Weingarten, was written by then-graduate student Noah Bunn and it’s aptly titled “Evolution of a never one to shy from confession, writes in the piece: “I’ve known Smartass.” Enjoy!

themayborn.com 2