NIEMAN REPORTS

Storytelling and Social Media

HANNA, one of the subjects in “Maidan: Portraits from the Black Square,” Kiev, February 2014 Nieman Online

From the Archives For some photojournalists, it’s the shots they didn’t take they remember best. In the Summer 1998 issue of Nieman Reports, Nieman Fellows Stan Grossfeld, David Turnley, Steve Northup, Stanley Forman, and Frank Van Riper reflect on the shots they missed, whether by mistake or by choice, in “The Best Picture I Never Took” series.

Digital Strategy at The New York Times In a lengthy memo, The New York Times revealed that it hopes to double its “Made in Boston: Stories of Invention and Innovation” brought together, from left, author digital revenue to $800 million by 2020. Ben Mezrich, Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray, author Steve Almond, WGBH’s “Innovation The paper plans to simplify subscriptions, Hub” host Kara Miller, NPR’s “On Point” host Tom Ashbrook, “Our Bodies, Ourselves” improve advertising and sponsorships, co-founder Judy Norsigian, journalist Laurie Penny, and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito optimize for different mediums, and nieman.harvard.edu, events extend its international reach.

No Comments An in-depth look at why seven major news organizations—Reuters, Mic, The Week, Popular Science, Recode, The Verge, and USA Today’s FTW—suspended user comments, the results of that decision, and Innovators “always said how these media outlets are using social no when other people media to encourage reader engagement. said yes and they always 5 Questions: Geraldine Brooks Former Wall Street Journal foreign said yes when other correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks talks with her old Columbia Journalism School classmate people said no. They saw Ricki Morell about her research and editing process and how journalism informs industries that didn’t her fiction. Annotation Tuesday exist and knew that they “The Things That Carried Him” by Chris Jones won a National Magazine Award in 2009. Jones details the reporting could exist.” and writing of the 17,000-word article —KARA MILLER he did for Esquire about Sergeant Joe HOST OF “INNOVATION HUB” ON WGBH RADIO Montgomery, who died in Iraq. In an effort to communicate the toll of war, Anastasia Taylor-Lind mailed 921 postcards, each bearing the name of one war victim in Ukraine Contents Fall 2015 / Vol. 69 / No. 4

Features Departments Building Better Ads 24 cover: storyboard Nieman News 3 Publishers are exploring ways to serve up storytelling and social media ads users actually want to see Live@Lippmann 4 By Celeste LeCompte Gathering the Shards 8 Vice content director Alex Miller Instagram as a storytelling tool for long- form writers who want to go short Listen Up 30 Niemans@Work 6 How involving news consumers in the By Neil Shea South Asia Check holds the media reporting process can improve stories accountable, a science writer’s diagnosis By Olivia Koski War Is Personal 16 changes his beat, the “Hidden Brain” Social media brings home news of podcast examines human behavior faraway conflicts By Anastasia Taylor-Lind nieman journalism lab Best of Times, Worst of Times 44 watchdog Will podcasting go the way of blogging? “In Mexico, They Kill You Twice” 36 By Joshua Benton Despite violence, journalists innovate and Vice Media’s Alex Miller says find new ways to get the story out Books 46 people watch By Monica Campbell “Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. Vice videos for White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age an average of 18 of The New Yorker” minutes page 4 By Thomas Vinciguerra

Nieman Notes 48

Sounding 50 Wonbo Woo, NF ’16

cover photo:

OPPOSITE PAGE: LISA ABITBOL; JONATHAN SEITZ ABITBOL; JONATHAN LISA OPPOSITE PAGE: By Anastasia Taylor-Lind Contributors The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University www.niemanreports.org

publisher Ann Marie Lipinski editor James Geary senior editor Anastasia Taylor-Lind (page 16), a 2016 Nieman Fellow, is an Jan Gardner English-Swedish photographer who often depicts women amidst conflict and war. A contributor to National Geographic, she is researcher/reporter Jonathan Seitz author of “Maidan: Portraits from the Black Square.” editorial assistants Eryn M. Carlson Tara W. Merrigan design Pentagram editorial offices One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098, 617-496-6308, [email protected]

Copyright 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Periodicals postage paid at Neil Shea (page 8) is a contributing editor at The American Boston, Massachusetts and Scholar and the Virginia Quarterly Review, and his work regularly additional entries appears in National Geographic. He teaches at Boston University and publishes picture stories on Instagram as @neilshea13. subscriptions/business 617-496-6299, [email protected]

Subscription $25 a year, Celeste LeCompte (page 24), a 2015 Nieman $40 for two years; Fellow, is director of business development at add $10 per year for foreign airmail. ProPublica. She is the former managing editor for Single copies $7.50. Gigaom Research, one of the first subscription Back copies are available from products offered by a major blog network. the Nieman office.

Please address all subscription Olivia Koski (page 30) is a multimedia journalist correspondence to: and director of the science public engagement One Francis Avenue, organization Guerilla Science. Her writing has Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 appeared in Popular Mechanics, Wired, and and change of address information to: Scientific American. P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Monica Campbell (page 36), a 2010 Nieman Postmaster: Send address changes to Fellow, is an editor and reporter at PRI’s “The Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, World,” where she focuses on immigration Manchester, NH 03108 coverage in the U.S. Prior to joining PRI, Campbell reported from Latin America and Afghanistan. Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published in March, June, Elisabeth Witchel (page 42) launched the September, and December by Committee to Protect Journalists’ Global the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, Campaign Against Impunity in 2007 and has One Francis Avenue, written four editions of its annual “Getting Away

Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 with Murder: Global Impunity Index” report. PRESS OPPOSITE: ANDREW SELSKY/ASSOCIATED

2 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Nieman News

“maintaining your independence, whatever the pressures”

investigative reporter Though I shared Stone’s out of my frustration with the Robert Parry, founder and editor view that journalists should be mainstream news media. At AP, of Consortiumnews.com, may the consummate outsiders, where I worked from 1974 to be best known for his breaking I came to the profession 1987, I was perhaps best known news reporting during the Iran- through a different route. for breaking many of the contra affair in the 1980s. He I spent the first part of my stories that we now know as received the 2015 I.F. Stone Medal career as a mainstream the Iran-contra scandal. These for Journalistic Independence. journalist. But I never forgot included the first article about Following is an edited excerpt his insistence on maintaining a little known Marine officer of remarks he prepared for the your independence, whatever named Oliver North and—with award ceremony in October: the pressures. To me, the core my AP colleague Brian Barger— responsibility of a journalist the first story about how some i admired i.f. stone’s is to have an open mind toward of the Nicaraguan contras independent journalism way information, to have no agenda, got themselves mixed up in the back in college. I even lobbied to have no preferred outcome. drug trade. Robert Parry the school library to subscribe That’s the deal you make with To say that these stories to his newsletter. Reading your readers, to follow the facts weren’t always popular would He said there were things called it weekly shaped how I came wherever they lead. be an understatement. But websites. I really knew next to view journalism—as a I consider this award they were well-reported and to nothing about these matters, profession that required a recognition of what borne out when the Iran-contra but I listened. Sam—though endless skepticism. we’ve accomplished at scandal exploded in late 1986. not a techie—figured out I had the privilege of Consortiumnews.com over the Sadly, I had burned many how to build a website. We meeting him in the early 1980s past two decades. This honor bridges at AP in the fights to launched our no-frills website when I was an investigative goes to the many talented push our stories to the wire. in November 1995 as the first reporter for the Associated reporters and analysts who I went on to work at investigative magazine based Press (AP) in Washington. I had have written for us. They have Newsweek and then I worked on the Internet. gotten hold of some classified made Consortiumnews.com on some documentaries for The original idea was to records about financial a place where you can find PBS Frontline. But it was provide a home for neglected misconduct in El Salvador. He thoughtful, well-researched, becoming increasingly clear investigative journalists and called and asked if he could well-reported stories well to me that the space for serious their work. I thought I could read the documents. I said sure, worth reading nearly every day investigative journalism raise significant amounts and he showed up at the AP of the year. was closing down. With the of money from a variety of office on K Street. Through For those of you who arrival of Bill Clinton, there sources, hence the clunky name his thick glasses, he spent don’t know much about was a market for silly, tawdry Consortiumnews. But I soon a couple hours poring through Consortiumnews.com, here’s a scandals. There was even learned that “independent the papers. brief history. The project began less interest in the unsolved journalism”—while popular in mysteries of the 1980s—old, the abstract—is not something complicated stuff without people really want to invest much sex. much in. They’d prefer to A key moment occurred know how the stories are likely in late 1994 when I got access to come out. So we always to the files of a congressional struggled with money, but we inquiry into an Iran-contra did build a loyal readership spinoff scandal. So I made that kept us going with small copies and snuck them out of donations. the Capitol. Next, I prepared To my pleasant surprise, a summary that I felt would I discovered that a number of ex- change the history of the 1980s. CIA analysts were also looking But I couldn’t find anyone for a place to publish their interested in publishing it. work. They shared our concern One day in 1995 when I was that the United States was grousing about this state of veering away from fact-based affairs, my oldest son Sam, who policies. They felt that this had just finished college, said decoupling from reality was that instead of complaining, careening the country toward why didn’t I publish my international catastrophes. And A Sandinista soldier looks for U.S.-backed contra rebels in Nicaragua information on the Internet. they were right. P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 3 Live@Lippmann

On revenue streams “What is it like to be there?” I think that one of the great benefits for us has been that—because we were origi- Alex Miller, Vice Media’s global head nally a free magazine—when the Internet of content, on the firm’s in-your-face started demanding everything for free, it didn’t shock us in quite the same way that reporting, its appeal to millennials, it shocked some other organizations. Frankly, we’re a brand for millennials, and and what legacy outlets like The New a lot of millennials don’t anticipate having to pay for their content. York Times and BBC do well Now, look at our deal with HBO, look at our deal with Rogers in Canada, our deal with Antenna across a lot of southern Europe. We’re in Greece, Serbia, Germany, Italy, France. We’ve got things coming in the U.K., and obviously the U.S. The bulk of our lex miller is global head go home, because quite clearly there’s something business model is about making and selling of content at Vice Media, over- important happening here.’” our content. seeing the media company’s Miller spoke at the Nieman Foundation in 10 digital channels, in addition October. Edited excerpts: On lessons for mainstream media to the monthly print magazine’s I wouldn’t tell any organization how to run websiteA Vice.com. Miller, who began his career On Vice’s style their business. I think it’s very easy to be at the British magazine New Musical Express For our video dispatches, you’ve got to re- very critical of grand old news organiza- (NME), has been with Vice since 2008, first as member the medium that they’re being tions when actually they do fantastic work. an online editor and later as editor in chief of the watched on. This is being put out through Who’s going to sit here and say the BBC or company’s U.K. content before transitioning to YouTube, so you’re surrounded by links go- The New York Times are bad at what they his new role earlier this year. ing back to previous articles written about do? They’re not. They’re fantastic at what Founded as a Canadian punk music mag- a subject, and films that may explain the sit- they do. The point is that we now live in a azine in 1994, Vice has since relocated to uation more in-depth. But one of the things digital era, and it is limitless in space. What Brooklyn and burgeoned into an international we are conscious about is this idea of, What we’re able to do is come over and offer a dif- multimedia empire with bureaus in more than is it like to be there? How do you relate to ferent voice. 30 countries. Along with digital channels cen- the people? Our conversational tone, the You probably read, if you’re interested, tered on everything from food (Munchies) to way that we report on stories, is a lot like 20 or 30 different news sources in a day. electronic music (Thump) to mixed martial we’re telling our friends about it. I think that We just want to be one of them, with a dif- arts (Fightland), the company’s properties in- is the key to our success, and I think that is ferent perspective. When I worked in the clude a record label, a book publishing division, also how we manage to stand out. U.K., people from the BBC would come in and a film and TV production studio, along I don’t think it’d be breaking news to and they’d say, “How can the BBC be more with an HBO documentary series produced by tell anyone that, for a long time, it felt like like Vice?” I’d say, “No! The BBC is awe- Bill Maher. Vice’s news division has an often news was the preserve of a certain type of some for you, for me, for the British pub- provocative approach to reporting and storytell- person. There was a certain lic.” Know what you are, and ing that some criticize as too reporter-focused, type of person, who looked a stick with it. Just look at The rather than news-focused. certain type of way, who spoke New Yorker. It hasn’t changed Miller became familiar with Vice around in a tone of voice that exists no- much, and it’s great. the time he was in college, watching its 2007 where beyond the news realm. At the same time, there are documentary “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” Guess what? That was exhaust- lessons to be learned. I often which tracks an Iraqi band during the end of ed a long time ago. We started to think that there’s been a real Saddam’s reign. Miller lauded its immersive ap- approach it in a new way, with a benefit for us being the outsid- proach geared toward young audiences as an new tone of voice. That doesn’t er. In 2011, there were horrible “incredibly cool way” to look at news and cul- necessarily mean swearing. That riots in London. I was there ture. “I saw it and I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s just means being normal, not with a Vice crew, and loads of the future. Everybody else has to pack up and acting like a drone. Alex Miller other cameramen were finding OF VICE COURTESY

4 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 I can’t get my head around the people who talk about millennials being disen- gaged. I’ve never come across a more en- gaged generation. People have this myth that millennials have a short attention span. That’s nonsense. They have a great bullshit detector. If they think that something’s rub- bish in the first 30 seconds, they’ll click off it. People stay and watch our videos for an average of 18 minutes.

On reporter safety There is absolutely nobody sent anywhere Alex Miller reported in Caracas, Venezuela during anti-government protests in 2014 by Vice who doesn’t have the training, who doesn’t have the support that they need. We it completely impossible to film out there. about prisoners, as well, and all this time we have rigorous practices. I know this because If you were BBC, ITV, or Channel 4 News, were doing stuff on Snapchat Discover, too. I helped to put them together. We do hos- the kids were coming and attacking the cam- It does make me very excited because tile environment training. Everything you eras. But we just fit in, not because we’re that’s TV, mobile, online, print, all focused would expect from every standard news clever but because it was a strange benefit on one idea. As we come to terms with the organization is covered. If you think our of being from the outside. For years, we fact that we’re one of the few organizations correspondents are inexperienced—they wouldn’t necessarily be getting interviews able to actually do that, your mind starts may be young, but they’re not inexperi- with the absolute top, with political behe- to boggle. enced, and they’re not untrained. We take moths. As such, we learned to talk to people this incredibly seriously. We’re not morons, to find out what’s going on in the streets. On criticism of millennials sending children into danger. This is real, Millennials voted Obama into office. They important work. On the multiplatform approach fueled the Arab Spring with social media. Frankly, the situation in Turkey [where In September, we aired “Fixing the System,” They pushed for gay rights. They encour- a Vice journalist has been imprisoned] a documentary on HBO with President aged new waves of feminism on campus. says a lot more about the Turkish regime Obama visiting a prison. We thought, over They put “Black Lives Matter” on the front than it does about our journalists who are the week leading up to it and the three pages of newspapers. Edward Snowden is still there. If anybody wants to write about weeks after it, let’s make sure that people a millennial. Kendrick Lamar is a millenni- Mohammed Rasool, our fixer who’s still in know that this isn’t us coming and going, al. They are a passionate, engaged group of a prison in Turkey, please do. Please write “Wham, bam. Look, here we are.” This is people. In 2020, one in three adults is going about it, please tweet about it, because something we care about and something to be a millennial. That’s why we want to we’ve got to keep the pressure on these peo- that we believe people should be focusing reach for them. That’s why we want to talk ple who imprisoned an innocent man under on, digging into, and paying attention to un- to them, because they’re more connected outrageous and false allegations. til things actually change. As such, we got than any generation before. When they’re our 10 digital channels to all write about so clearly unafraid of change, it’s important On the next five years prisons in America from different angles that somebody’s reaching out to them be- Obviously there will be technological in- in the subjects that they are relevant to. cause, right now, I think the only people who novations that are going to shape it. Who Munchies, our food channel, wrote about are doing a good job of that are bloody ISIS. knows? I guess whether it’s Facebook post- the state of prison food. Motherboard, our ing native articles or things like Apple News tech channel, wrote about the insanely ex- becoming the new front page of the Internet, pensive rate of whatever the prison version those will be important innovations. I still of Skype is. Broadly, our women’s channel, It’s a myth that millennials think it should be about the people who are wrote a lot about women’s issues in jail. have a short attention putting together the best stories. It doesn’t Even Thump, our electronic dance music span. If they find rubbish, matter what platform it is. It doesn’t mat- channel, managed to find angles to write ter if you’re reading a magazine or watching about it. Then the documentary aired on TV, they’ll quickly click off. a documentary. Ultimately, the only thing and we continued the series. A special edi- People watch our videos for that matters is a good story. Ultimately, tion of the magazine launched, which was an average of 18 minutes it has to be a good story, well told. P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 5 Niemans@Work

tion to Nepal and the surrounding region as If the media’s credibility founder of South Asia Check, a website of- is questioned, its role as ficially launched in September that focuses on political and media news. It is one of the a watchdog suffers first such sites in South Asia. The fact-checking website is a project of Panos South Asia, the non-governmental media development organization for which I’m buoyed by the fact that readers have I am executive director. Given the media jumped in, asking us to fact-check claims Just the Facts landscape in most South Asian countries, and verify the authenticity of photographs. Damakant where there’s too much reliance on anony- In response to one recent request concern- Jayshi, NF ’07, mous sources and the prejudices of reporters ing a sensitive subject, we examined how too often show up in stories, fact-checking well indigenous groups living on the plains brings political should have started here a long time ago. If bordering India are represented in the leg- and media the media’s credibility is questioned, its role islature. On South Asia Check, we also track factchecking as a watchdog suffers. Moreover, politicians the use of anonymous sources on the front in the region, like elsewhere, lie and make pages of some major daily newspapers in to Nepal unfounded claims. the region. There have been plenty of stories for Here’s what has made us immensely South Asia Check to take on. When there proud of our work: Now readers themselves was confusion, even among lawmakers, do fact-checking and draw our attention to about voting rules during the debate over it. We hope the spirit continues and more a new constitution for Nepal, South Asia media outlets follow suit. i have been fascinated with fact- Check researched the questions and clari- The website is still a work-in-progress, checking ever since I first read about it fied the matter. The new constitution was but signs are promising. I believe South Asia during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. approved in September, nine years after Check is strengthening transparency and ac- Now I’m proud to have brought this tradi- a Maoist insurgency ended. countability in politics, business, and media. P

In September, protesters in Kathmandu objected to Nepal’s new constitution. Factchecking by South Asia Check clarified the voting rules OPPOSITE: LEIGH PRATHER PRESS; SHRESTHA/ASSOCIATED NIRANJAN

6 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Parkinson’s two “Nova” documentaries and a book on the subject. But to be frank, my journalistic famil- Is My Beat iarity with Parkinson’s disease did not initially Jon Palfreman, help me to cope with my diagnosis. I left the hospital in a state of shock. NF ’06, investigates It took me over a year to come to terms Parkinson’s disease with it. The only person I told during the first In Parkinson’s, a protein kills neurons as both an author three months after my diagnosis was my wife. I consulted other neurologists who confirmed neuroscience offers hope for developing new and a sufferer I had Parkinson’s disease. I didn’t reach out to treatments. Many scientists studying the hu- other Parkinson’s sufferers. The fragile, bent, man brain view Parkinson’s as a pathfinder trembling figures I observed in neurologists’ disease, one that may be key to understanding waiting rooms saddened and angered me. the organ’s complexity. Was this really who I would become? The bad actor causing Parkinson’s, many Gradually, I began to think more clearly. I researchers argue, is a common protein called my life changed on a cold, dark, read everything I could about Parkinson’s dis- alpha-synuclein, which goes rogue, forming rainy January morning in 2011. Worried ease and spoke to neuroscientists, clinicians, sticky toxic aggregates that jump from cell to about a modest tremor in my left hand, my and fellow patients. After all, as a longtime sci- cell inside the brain, killing neurons as they doctor had referred me to a neurologist. At ence journalist, I was better placed than most go. New anti-Parkinson’s therapies targeting the appointment, I was asked to perform var- to figure out the state of Parkinson’s research alpha-synuclein are about to enter clinical tri- ious motor tasks, such as rotating my hands and ascertain what kind of future I faced. In als and I will be volunteering to participate in back and forth. After 20 minutes of tests, the a profound sense, understanding Parkinson’s these crucial evaluations. neurologist told me I had Parkinson’s dis- disease and finding a cure are now my beat. My diagnosis has forced me to explore the ease. My symptoms were mild and confined Can Parkinson’s be slowed, stopped, or tension between my professional and per- to the left side of my body, but the malady even reversed? Can the disease be prevent- sonal lives. Journalists seek truths about the would inevitably progress, and, in time, ed before it starts, like polio and smallpox? current state of science. But patients thrive I would need treatment with drugs. Perhaps. As I write in my new book “Brain on hope about advances on the horizon. So, The irony was that this wasn’t my first Storms: The Race to Unlock the Mysteries whether or not this current round of trials brush with Parkinson’s. Decades before, of Parkinson’s Disease,” published by Farrar, turns out to benefit me, I remain convinced I had reported on the condition, generating Straus & Giroux in September, this age of that this disease will be vanquished one day. P

HOW WE THINK I was so inspired by her “The Hidden Brain,” the perceptions and behaviors, IN HIS NEW “HIDDEN research and so shaken by podcast seeks to link and that gives us some BRAIN” PODCAST, the findings that I changed psychology and sociology control over them. NPR SCIENCE the trajectory of my career. research with people’s Podcasts lend themselves CORRESPONDENT For the last several everyday lives. In the first to iteration and to learning. SHANKAR VEDANTAM, years, first at the Post and episode, I explored We have the opportunity NF ’10, EXPLORES now as an NPR science “switchtracking” with to experiment with THE FRONTIERS OF correspondent, I’ve been author Sheila Heen. ways to make science fun PSYCHOLOGY writing about the ways Switchtracking happens and engaging. We’re hidden factors shape our when two people are having integrating games, along perceptions and behavior. parallel conversations with storytelling and My goal is to connect with one another. The thing conversations, into each the rigor and insights of that’s great about episode. In a segment called academia to the public’s switchtracking as a subject “Mad Scientist,” I describe my npr podcast “hidden concerns and interests. is that, the moment people a social science experiment Brain” launched this fall, Audiences have gravitated hear about it, they’ll to my guests and ask them but it’s been more than a to my stories, telling me remember conversations to figure out what the decade in the making, one how meaningful they are to over the last week in experiment found. There’s that started mere blocks them. People have told me which it happened. And entertainment value in that, from Lippmann House. they’d like something more a discussion about and it allows listeners to While reporting for The in-depth than my four- switchtracking does what play along. Washington Post in 2004, minute radio stories, and social science does best: With “Hidden Brain,” I interviewed Harvard that’s where the idea for the it reveals us to ourselves. we want to entertain, but psychologist Mahzarin R. podcast came from. Once we slow down and we also want to provide Banaji about work she had Much like many of my observe what’s happening insights for people to apply done to uncover people’s print and radio stories, around us, we can see at work, at home, and unconscious prejudices. along with my 2010 book the factors shaping our throughout their lives. P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 7 Nieman Storyboard Setiel lived near Lake Turkana in Kenya when she became severely ill. Before her death, she sought help from a spiritual healer

Gathering The Shards Instagram as a storytelling tool for long-form writers who want to go short STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY NEIL SHEA

in late june, i was traveling with fast. There are a lot of cats. And selfies and photographer Lynsey Addario through shoes and lattes. The space given over to Sicily, working on a story about migrants words is fairly small, too—especially for arriving in Europe from Africa. During a those of us who’ve spent years in this busi- car trip across the island, we started talking ness fighting for the right to commit long- about writing—specifically, how I was going form. But soon after I began experimenting to approach the long feature we had joined within the app’s creative constraints, some- up to do. Lynsey, already an award-winning thing strange happened—I found I loved shooter, had just published an intimate writing short. memoir and knew well the joys and difficul- I came to understand that the Instagram ties of hauling ideas and images into words. experience, with its constant flow of imag- I joked that I’d really rather not write long es and text boxes, presented an alternative at all. Then I told her how the most fun and story geometry that demanded from me satisfying nonfiction I’d written lately was new things. Shorter stories, sure, but also radically short, and published on Instagram. a deeper consideration of photographs and Lynsey was stunned. “You can write on the rich, nuanced ways that words and pic- Instagram?” tures work together. Over time I realized She laughed, picked up one of her phones. that beneath the selfie surface, Instagram Swiped toward the retro-camera icon. provided a powerful, unexpected, and most- “I thought that was for, like, food and cats.” ly underutilized storytelling tool. IIt’s true that Instagram doesn’t seem like Consider it this way: Instagram has es- an obvious destination for writers. It moves sentially become one of the world’s most

8 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 9 Nieman Storyboard

successful general interest magazines. More vironmental issues, conflict, and cultural than 300 million people use it each month. Instagram has change. A year earlier his story would’ve An average of 70 million images are up- settled into my notebook like sediment. But loaded to it daily. And each one represents become a I wanted to tell it, and with Instagram, I sud- a page, a story, a sliver of light or percep- successful general denly had a way. tion bouncing in from somewhere around At the end of our interview I asked him the world. You’ve seen Instagram’s users: interest magazine to sit for an iPhone portrait outside the mud often young, highly engaged, head-down on hut where we’d been drinking hot Coke. subways, buses, and sidewalks, thumbing I took a few shots in harsh afternoon light, through streams of images that pour into decided black and white would work best, their phones. That absorption is not for given the bad contrast. That evening, I wrote nothing, and that global audience is built up the story, staying close to his personal around a simple premise: that every post tial. They were small moments, rich in de- narrative. I didn’t try to explain why I was contains a story. tail, and easy to read. They hinted at what telling it or veer off into statistics about croc So far, this territory has been left to pho- might be possible. Around the same time, attacks in East Africa. I had already estab- tographers. Since the app’s release in 2010, I had folded iPhone photography into my lished, in earlier posts, that I was in Kenya photojournalists have been using it to great basic reporting process: I made portraits working for National Geographic. Anyone effect, showcasing unpublished images, dig- of everyone I spoke to, just as I would re- who cared to could scroll back and find that ging into their archives, sharing ongoing cre- cord their phone numbers and the correct nod to the tired old nut graf. ative projects. Writers, though, have largely spellings of their names. That coincidence— I didn’t want to choke his story with fact- stayed away from Instagram as a storytell- Pete’s work, my new photography—con- lets. So I wrote for mood and tone, distilling ing platform. There are plenty of reasons for vinced me I could at least try making short the transformative event of the man’s life this—it’s not easy, after all, to write short. profile packages. I decided to treat it like an into 268 words. I used simple techniques But those who wade in will find that sto- experiment. I thought it wouldn’t last. of lede and arc and kicker that I’d learned rytelling on Instagram is an awesome hack: My earliest Instagram writing from Lake a long time ago, in the newsroom. I exam- a purpose for which the thing wasn’t intend- Turkana was hardly a story at all. For the ined each word to see if it deserved a place. ed, but at which it excels. The app is vibrant, most part, I posted pretty pictures, wrote Mostly I kept hitting delete. flexible, and unusually transcendent. In flat little captions. Not long into my field- To date, about 500 people have liked the mobile terms, it’s immediately more demo- work, though, in a remote village hundreds small story package I posted to Instagram cratic than filter-heavy Facebook, less terse of kilometers from the nearest paved road, (and more than 1,300 liked a later rewrite). than Twitter, less ephemeral than Snapchat. I met a fisherman who’d survived a croc- More than 70 people have commented on And, most important to me, is the platform’s odile attack, and his story shook me. He’d these pieces. Likes and comments are the reach: Instagram provides a creative space been ambushed while checking his nets, going measure of success on the app, at where voices and views that might other- waist-deep in the dark brown water. As once addictive and opaque, and the count wise be ignored, lost, or mangled during the beast carried him away, his mind went is comparatively small. It also doesn’t mean their brush with journalism can be shared, blank. Then white. He found himself drifting all those people read the pieces, though I’ll beautifully, with almost anyone. into another world, possibly into death. He bet most did. In the end the important thing, could feel teeth in his flesh, but in his ears what I’d been trained for years to do, was to he heard beautiful sounds. Somehow, before share that man’s story. After I posted it, as converted to instagram in the croc took him under, he snapped back to the comments began to plink in, like pen- April 2014, when I traveled to his senses and remembered a piece of folk nies, from people I’d never met, I saw that Kenya’s Lake Turkana for a National wisdom. With two fingers he stabbed at the in a small way I’d accomplished one of the Geographic story. My editor, Peter croc’s eyes. Stunned, it released him, and he things I came into journalism for—to give Gwin, had urged me to start using the fumbled bleeding back to shore. voice to the voiceless. It made me hungry Iapp to post dispatches from my fieldwork Later, at the local clinic, he endured aw- for more. and, at first, I was wary. I’m not a photogra- ful nightmares, reptile-induced PTSD. Over the course of my fieldwork and in pher. At the time I didn’t have an Instagram “I have seen it in my dreams,” he said. the few weeks following, I tried different account. And what I saw there, on the “Coming up the hallway to get me.” story structures and voices and designs. phones of friends, seemed like Facebook- He told me he had not yet returned to I began seeing the Instagram series as lite. I knew Instagram allowed only about the water. unique from—but complementary to—the 2,200 characters (roughly 360 words, in my I spent a couple of hours interviewing documentary work I was doing for the big experience) with each caption, and I doubt- him, drawing pictures of where the croc had magazine. To use a phrase of the moment, ed much meaning could be crammed into set its jaws across his thighs. From a story- it was “slow journalism,” or, the product such a small place. teller’s perspective, it was amazing, the kind of a lot of sitting around, listening, and But Peter kept after me, and he shared of experience you want to share. But I knew taking notes. a few pieces that he had posted to Instagram it was unlikely to make it into my final mag- In one pair of stories, I wrote about the from reporting trips to Rwanda and the azine piece. It was almost too narrow, and quiet tension within the Daasanach tribe Central African Republic. I was impressed. would probably be lost in the larger, more that was gathering around the practice of These were not selfies, or even self-referen- formal piece I’d have to file describing en- female circumcision. I contrasted the sto-

10 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 and here were more voices worth sharing. I took a straightforward writing approach, trying to preserve the tone of the debate as I had observed it—no screaming match, no finger-waving or moralizing. Rather, a par- allel discourse that would be settled, like many other controversies along the lake- shore, by the gradual death of elders and the collapse of their spiritual world. Did it explain everything? Does any story ever do that? What these pieces accomplished, quietly and perfectly, was all I expected of them—to shine a little light. Enough people read them to make it feel like I wasn’t talking to myself. In subsequent pieces I wrote in second person, or third. Once I posted a photograph of a spitting cobra, addressed the story as a letter to the snake, and used it to describe a common moment in the lives of the shep- herd boys with whom I’d been traveling— wherein they had fled screaming from the snake and then turned and run back after it, In Their Own Words: The Refugee’s Maid attacking like the knights in “Monty Python One morning you are wandering through the [Kakuma] refugee camp [in Kenya] and the Holy Grail.” In another piece, when a stranger calls from a doorway, saying, “Woman, do you want work?” It’s I chose paraphrased first-person narration, what you’ve been desperate for, though briefly you resist, fist on hip in the dusty and wrote in the voice of an old man who street. He can see you aren’t a refugee. The beads make it obvious—the heavy remembered the rhythms of a hippo hunt plastic hive wound round your neck and the straight spine that helps you carry it. That’s why he asks. You’re small but appear strong, and why else would a from an era long gone. Following that sto- Turkana woman wander here? There is no interview, no negotiation (With what, ry, I posted one that revealed my reporting Catherine Lometo, could you negotiate?) And so you become a housemaid for method in that moment—which was to a refugee who even in his stateless poverty is a degree or two less poor than hand over my notebook and pen and let the you. It’s one of the little riddles of this place, that the tribe to whom God gave the old hunters, the last of their kind, draw their land should become servants of those who by great misfortune landed here. own memories. There are hundreds like you. Your employer is a Muslim exiled from Ethiopia. He Two of the most successful word-picture has a wife, children, a touch of pious arrogance. When you arrive in the mornings to wash and sweep, the children without greeting withdraw like mist into other stories of the series included a severely ill rooms. You don’t even know their names. Details less relevant than money. But woman, named Setiel, who permitted us to your employer is not a bad man, and when his monthly ration comes he shares observe the intimate spiritual treatments she with you some food, which feeds your brothers and sisters. So forgive him, the received from a traditional healer. Several refugee, and return in the red evening to your village. There, younger sisters times Randy Olson, a National Geographic wait and beg like fledglings. It’s only beads they want, to coil blues and yellows photographer, and I traveled with her to around their slender necks, to become beautiful, too, strand by strand, and keep a secret for themselves. — See the series: #kakumaseries2014 the lake’s edge and watched as she and the healer, Galte, waded into the shallows and scooped handfuls of mud onto Setiel’s thin frame. Applied and rinsed away, the rich, dark sediment was believed to remove ill- ries of three women who performed the cut- I’d never intended to write about the ness and restore the patient’s health. ting, one old, and two very young. The old subject, had never thought women would When Setiel died a few weeks later, I was woman explained graphically what she cut speak to me so openly about it. But they did, deeply upset. We had tried to help her, with and why. To her, the practice was a matter food and medicine, and we had searched for of her tribe’s survival. The younger wom- help from the local clinic and with a local en told me how they were subtly trying to missionary. It was all too late for Setiel. We transform the practice, make it safer, maybe hadn’t known her well, but in that time and even work toward its end. place it didn’t matter. I wanted to write about “The old ways are sometimes good,” her again, and by then, about four weeks into one of them, named Kalle, told me. “And On Instagram, I the Instagram experiment, I had a growing sometimes they’re not. I saw what was be- write for mood and group of followers who had read the story ing done to women and I decided I could do of her treatment and who, I thought, might better myself.” tone, not for facts want to hear of her death. I wrote a small

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 11 Nieman Storyboard obituary for Setiel and posted with it one of erwise have known she existed. Probably ten handled in datelines or headlines. I also the last photos I’d taken of her. more than read the obituary of my grandfa- began using unique hashtags to organize “When there seemed no hope left she ther, who died just before I’d gone to Kenya. pieces, both within the enormous galaxy turned homeward,” I wrote, in part, “search- When I made that connection, I realized the of Instagram, and at a smaller level, where ing for healing in old rites and prayers, in numbers didn’t matter so much anymore. readers could find custom features made balms of the dark, rich mud that her people Slowly I came to enjoy the creative con- from collections of related posts. At the believe can swallow sickness away. She de- straint of Instagram, how it asked me to bottom of each post about Lake Turkana, fied the evil spirits she thought were haunt- strip things down, pay attention to basics. for example, a reader will find the tag ing her. She said she wasn’t afraid.” I began using hashtags to convey some static #jadeseaseries2014—a reference to the At least 700 people saw it. Not many. factual context—the name of a village, say, lake’s nickname, the Jade Sea. Instagram Probably more, though, than would oth- or a tribe’s name, an issue—stuff that’s of- automatically archives images by their post date, and clicking on that tag (I call them “series tags”) delivers you to a feed, or a page, containing more than three dozen of my Turkana stories. I wrote thousands of words from the lakeshore. To my surprise, my audience quickly grew. By the end of the experi- ment, I had accidentally created a record of our story-building process for National Geographic. More importantly, I record- ed lives and struggles in a place few peo- ple have ever heard of, and fewer will ever visit. I have no scientific way to gauge the effect of the series, no metrics on audience penetration or age-set or income. At worst, hundreds of people I do not know and have never met routinely checked in to see the stories. At best, several thousand people did. The long magazine feature I eventually wrote from this fieldwork appeared in the August 2015 issue of National Geographic, a magazine with millions of readers around the world. But I consider that initial Instagram series to be the better work in several ways. The job of a nonfiction writer is to gather as many shards of “truth” as possible and assemble them into a story. On Instagram, each post is a shard, and I collected far more In Their Own Words: Hunting Hippos there than I could ever do in a magazine. When we were young, the shore [of Lake Turkana in Kenya] was thick with grass Taken together, the magazine story and and that is where we hunted hippos. There were so many then, grazing in the the Instagram work comprise a lot of docu- deep green grass. Sometimes 20 of us would go, each man carrying a harpoon. mentary material. More than my employer We would tie long ropes to the harpoon points and wrap the ropes around our waists, like belts. Then we would stalk them. Quietly. Softly. Hippos are clever, and would have known what to do with. It isn’t very fierce. And the hair around their mouths! It can cut like a blade. The first man perfectly organized, but it’s been a valuable would creep forward and stab and sink the point home. Then he would unwrap test of the platform. And it has again fulfilled the rope from his waist and start pulling. This is very important. If you were slow, that desire to see more voices and faces and if you didn’t unwrap it fast enough, the hippo might drag you away when it tried stories raised into view. to escape. That was the most dangerous part. Once the first man landed his harpoon, others would step up and stab the hippo. Then we all pulled our ropes and slowly reeled the animal in. Later, everyone got some of the meat but the glory always fell upon that first man. He returned home carrying the ears and tail, ince that initial experiment, and women would sing their way down from the village to meet him. Back then I’ve done many more, finding in- our culture depended on hippos. It was like killing a lion, or an elephant. You spiration and literary precedent were a hero. Yes, I miss it. I liked it so much. Now you can’t even see hippos here. for short-form writing in fiction The last one I remember came in the 1990s, and someone shot it with an AK-47. and nonfiction, poetry, and art. But that’s not how we did it. We two are among the last who remember hunting At times I’ve thought about Instagram the old way. // #elmolo #laketurkana #hippo #hunting #natgeo #onassignment S through the lens of old Rick Bragg stories, with @randyolson + @natgeo // See the series: #jadeseaseries2014 slimming down toward emotional moments

12 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Instagram writers find inspiration in haiku, song lyrics, and comic books

and powerful details. And I’ve been influ- enced by classical Japanese forms, including haiga, in which haiku verse, often describing mood and nature, is paired with simple ink illustrations. I know other Instagram writers who find inspiration in comic books, graphic novels, and song lyrics. I’ve also been inspired by many pho- tojournalists who’ve demonstrated that there’s enormous opportunity to use Instagram to leverage good social documen- tary. A few include Matt Black, with his se- The Magic of Fiery Nights ries on the “Geography of Poverty,” posted The wooden canoes always seemed to hobble through the water, half-sunk and to MSNBC’s photography feed and his own fickle as a Sunday drunk. Barely more than flotsam. Once I asked who made them account; Radcliffe Roye, who pairs images and the fishermen pointed north to Ethiopia, to a fading kingdom of trees. Many things came from there, looping down through the delta—guns, fish, fertilizer, with very personal essays about identity; rumors of death or rebellion. Rafts of thick grass came, too, and every few days and David Guttenfelder, who created an a new flotilla drifted into [Lake Turkana in Kenya]. Most were green specks, Instagram account to share images from but now and then a large one appeared, an islet rustling with birds and frogs and inside North Korea. Another of my favor- other creatures. Occasionally the local priest, a German, would swim out to ites is a collaborative project affiliated with meet them and haul aboard as though he were a giant shouldering into Lilliput. the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism Imagine—this white guy rising from the opaque water, long-haired and pale called “Everyday Incarceration,” which ex- as dawn. He rode the islets south for a time and did not worry about crocodiles. In the middle of our stay something strange occurred. For several nights the plores the lives of inmates, their families, islets arrived on fire. One after another, glowing fierce as comets. Before I slept and communities. I would scan the darkness and note their positions in the void beneath Orion’s In most cases, I steer away from using belt. When I woke hours later, delirious with heat, I’d find them farther along, still journalistic conventions in my writing. aflame and somehow more familiar. Always by morning they had vanished. For I’ve mentioned the nut graf. Facts, too, a while I thought them a dream. I asked, but no one could say why they burned by which I mean bits of cold data, or what or what the Ethiopians might be doing upriver. Soon I thought better of it and stopped looking for answers. Mystery keeps better than fact, and I wanted those a student of mine once called “fact spam.” nights blazing. // #laketurkana #omoriver #daasanach #kenya #islet #canoe Attribution, experts, institutional voice— #natgeo #onassignment with @randyolson +@natgeo // See the series: all of these I was happy to dump. Instagram #jadeseaseries2014 is not a destination for news or heavy ex- planatory nonfiction. There are better plac- es for that. I don’t believe standard forms, developed for print and television, really fit onto Instagram. Let me be clear, though: This opinion Every writer, every editor or publication, refugee camp, also in northern Kenya, and does not mean I jettisoned more than a de- must make their own choices about what began writing an Instagram series about it cade of practice in the ethics of American- rules will guide their use of Instagram. My not long after a massive flood inundated style journalism. Everything I do is based advice is to let it run much looser, stylisti- the camp and a burst of tribal violence sent on reported fact and direct observation. cally, than at first feels comfortable. many refugees fleeing from it. I resisted the Ditching old methods was remarkably This has perhaps been easier for me to temptation to write about the news or its freeing, but I do not feel it relieved me of do because I’m a freelancer operating out- aftermath because I knew Instagram audi- journalistic responsibility. What I mean is side the umbrella of a larger publication, and ences—mine, at least—were not using the that I choose to remove or ignore things I’ve been able to totally ignore or employ the app that way. But later, in December, when that could slow a story down unnecessarily, news cycle. In September 2014, for example, President Obama announced his plan to or block it from entering the light stream. I traveled to the United Nations’ Kakuma normalize relations with Cuba, the news

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 13 Nieman Storyboard became a hook that allowed me to revisit our stories have been shared and reposted I mean, hey, go do whatever you want—but work I had done on the island in 2008. more than 1,000 times. What it shows is that like any social media app, Instagram reflects I searched my archives for photographs, our audience is time-agnostic. The age of the community that uses it, which in this then dug into notebooks to find stories to the stories isn’t an issue. It’s the voice of the case is about as large as the population of pair with them. Because the material was pieces, and the connections made between the United States. several years old, I acknowledged this in word and image, that matters. The writer Jeff Sharlet created an amaz- a dateline at the top of each post, and I wrote All of this is lots of fun, but it’s still work. ing profile, made just for Instagram, of them in the tradition of travel narratives. For now no one’s paying us to do it. National a woman left virtually alone in her struggle In one, I described driving through Cuba Geographic is happy to let us run our exper- with mental health problems. Jonathan D. in a rental car, picking up every hitchhiker iment, but it’s a labor of love. I’ve also been Fitzgerald, a Ph.D student at Northeastern I found, including one of the most beautiful asked recently if Instagram is cheap, trivial, University, is studying how Instagram narra- women I’d ever met, a former Cuban soldier not a venue for doing serious journalism. tives work and building an archive of them. with a long, dark scar on her face. I’m always a little puzzled by this one— Randy R. Potts uses the app to write about I also wrote about a poor farmer who quizzed me on the prices of cars, bicy- cles, and houses in America. And, using a first-person structure, written in para- phrase, I told the story of a veteran of Fidel Castro’s campaign in Angola during the 1980s, when he sent thousands of troops to fight for a Communist regime. It was a story that’s almost invisible in the United States. It’s also evergreen—a rough Cuban analog for America’s war in Vietnam—and while it enthralled me, I’d be hard-pressed to place it in a glossy magazine. More recently, news has been a pres- ence, but not a directive, in a series I wrote from Iraqi Kurdistan (including a piece about an ISIS fighter I met) while on assign- ment for National Geographic, and in a vi- gnette about a young migrant from Gambia who was trapped by bureaucratic goodwill in Sicily. Over the last two months, I’ve also completed a new kind of Instagram col- laboration with Randy Olson, my partner from the Kenya fieldwork. Ahead of the August release of our magazine story on Lake Turkana, we revisited previous work we did in 2009 just north of the lake and within the same watershed. In a flashback series, we paired my writing with Randy’s “Commanding the Spirits of Illness Away” photography, and we included bylines atop “I am a healer of last resort,” Galte Nyemeto said. “When nothing else has worked people come to me.” Even at rest her mouth shrinks into a tough pucker and each post. When the Lake Turkana story was the bridge of her nose collapses into a chevron of wrinkles. I met her as she published, we posted another series com- treated a patient short on hope. For two days, each morning and evening, Galte prised mostly of stories and images that did accompanied the gaunt young woman, Setiel, to [Lake Turkana in Kenya] for a not appear in the magazine. We ran these traditional cleansing. She washed her, then smeared mud along the X-ray angles series across several Instagram accounts, of her shoulders and arms. “Badab!” Galte said, again and again, commanding including National Geographic’s, offering the spirits of illness away. A first treatment had not restored Setiel so Galte was starting over when we accompanied them to the lake. Four treatments she would greater ecological and cultural context— give with the ancient mud, four being an auspicious number to the Daasanach or just lunchtime reading—to an audience people because it counts the teats of a cow, most valuable of animals. After the of millions. first morning’s treatment was complete, Galte helped Setiel up from the water This collaboration, designed for mobile and together they waded toward shore. “We won’t look back,” Galte said, her phones and tablets (though my dad is still shoulders set. “Because we have left the bad spirits behind.” I turned, though, using a laptop to view it), has been incredi- and found only heat and stillness. A pair of birds stood unmoving in the shallows, ble so far—at least on a personal level. The their bodies white and gleaming. // #daasanach #laketurkana #tradition #natgeo #onassignment with for @natgeo with @randyolson // See the series: response (likes and comments, maddening #jadeseaseries2014 and addicting) has been overwhelming, and

14 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 gay life in Texas. Journalist Blair Braverman and telling. Writers trained to observe and shares stories about dogsledding and cold, On Instagram, collect, test and analyze, have an awesome lonely landscapes. The TSA posts images of opportunity on the app to see how those things confiscated at airport security, reveal- what matters isn’t skills might be applied to mobile storytell- ing how many people try to bring grenades the age of stories ing. Later this year, I’m planning to begin an- onto airplanes. And I’ve been corresponding other experiment at the Virginia Quarterly with an Iraqi student who uses Instagram to but the voice that Review to see how far it might go. post poems, in English, about the everyday With my colleague Jeff Sharlet and our violence battering through his life and the is heard editor Paul Reyes, we’ll curate a project lives of his family. that will regularly feature writers on the Do these uses make Instagram—and magazine’s Instagram feed. Each will post related mobile platforms, like Facebook, between three and five short, true pieces on Snapchat, Vine, or Twitter—sound trivial, subjects from many corners of the United or not trivial? The answer, of course, is yes. States and, we hope, the world. They’ll be The more I use the app, the more Have editors at the paper considered using paid a modest amount, and their pieces will I see possibilities where it might be used Instagram for other kinds of word-picture be assembled into an essay, which will be non-trivially. In mid-June, I read a story in packages? The Assignment America series housed on VQR’s website. The best of this the L.A. Times entitled “San Bernardino: is young, and perhaps it won’t last, but it work will also be published in the print edi- Broken City,” with words by Joe Mozingo seems to hold great potential for social tion of the magazine. and photographs by Francine Orr. As media storytelling. A quick look reveals the This will be narrative at its simplest—the a newspaper package, it provides a fine, com- hashtag #assignmentamerica has been used writer as observer, correspondent, commu- pelling narrative, and the paper built a Web only a handful of times, and never by the nicating from a place our audience probably page to house the project, including space Times itself. hasn’t experienced. Far as we know, it’ll be for discussion and comments, but when There are, of course, legitimate editorial the first project of its kind. We’re not sure I searched the Times’s feed on Instagram, concerns surrounding Instagram, which is how it’ll turn out. To be sure, it’s far less I found only a few slim posts related to it. owned by Facebook. Though users main- about Instagram as a brand than it is about If Mozingo and Orr are anything like me, tain ownership of their content, control our desire to tell and share stories, partic- they came away from their reporting with over it is lost as their photos can be reused ularly from places and people who’ve been notebooks and hard drives full. I loved their and reposted by others. But at a time when missed in the mainstream. There are sever- work, and wanted more. Imagine how “ex- mobile presence is crucial and tight-fisted al apps we might have chosen. The pace of tra” interviews, characters, or scenes—stuff approaches to content are waning, what mobile innovation suggests there’ll be more that didn’t make it into the final cut—might does the L.A. Times lose by sharing more of coming. For now, though, Instagram is a tool be used on social media to enhance links to Mozingo’s and Orr’s work, especially when that can gather and distribute stories more the print piece or create a stand-alone series the main feature is accessible for free on- widely than many other kinds of social me- from San Bernardino. What other audiences line? What might The New York Times gain dia. And, we simply just like it. might the Times have reached? What other by opening up their series on America—with I was reminded of the particular pow- stories might they have told? all the chaos and democracy it suggests—to er of the app in February, during a visit to short, mobile storytelling? Instagram’s Silicon Valley headquarters, Perhaps institutional fear keeps this where I gave a workshop on writing short nother example of kind of work off Instagram. Or the simple true stories. On a cool afternoon I sat listen- opportunity appears in The busyness that swamps newsrooms. My own ing to David Guttenfelder describe his love New York Times, which editors at National Geographic—which has of Instagram, the billions of images, each re- earlier this year launched more than 30 million followers—support flecting a little square of light. Guttenfelder, a series called “Assignment my Instagram project but still don’t really a former AP chief photographer for Asia America.”A The header for the first two sto- know how to bring it under the brand. Lately who has more than 800,000 followers on ries, described them as “exploring changes there’s talk of changing that, but it’s not the app, was showing his photographs from in American politics, culture and technolo- clear how or when it’ll happen. Japan, Montana, Iowa, North Korea, and gy, drawing on the reporting and personal It would be a mistake to think that this elsewhere. He said Instagram has changed experiences of New York Times journalists kind of short-form writing can replace how he thought about sending his images around the country.” deeply reported, well-planned narrative into the world. Sounds excellent, the sort of project nonfiction. I’ve said before that Instagram “This is the biggest, most important plat- many writers would love to join. And the work shouldn’t be like newspaper writing, or form out there,” he said. “The reach of this simple use of the phrase “personal expe- even magazine writing. And I don’t suggest thing is incredible. More people see my work riences” seems to crack a door the Times writers junk their long-form dreams. We’re on Instagram than will ever see it in a mag- opens mostly hesitantly. The Times has talking, after all, about stories best read azine like National Geographic.” done more with Instagram than many pa- on phones. My first thought was to agree. My sec- pers and magazines, linking its feed to Writing for Instagram is different and ond was to wonder how to get more writers a dedicated Web page where viewers can should be approached with a distinct, pos- involved. Soon, at VQR, we’ll be looking for find stories that stand with the photos. sibly purer, purpose—the joy of finding answers. P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 15 Nieman Storyboard

War Is Personal

16 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 How social media brings home news of faraway conflicts STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANASTASIA TAYLOR-LIND Nieman Storyboard

Previous spread: Olen, holding her baby Ostap, and Serhiy are among the mourners and protesters in “Maidan: Portraits from the Black Square.” Taylor-Lind’s focus on individuals emphasizes the personal toll of the deadly unrest in Kiev, Ukraine in 2014

i ’ m standing halfway up published later that year. But knowing that consumers of images to interact with and Hrushevskoho Street on a frosty February it would be weeks until the film was pro- influence the creator. This is an enriching morning in Kiev. It’s -13 degrees Celsius, and cessed and scanned in London and weeks experience, for the audience, which feels I’m chain-smoking with my friend and fixer more until even I could see the images, an increased closeness to events without Emine. It makes us feel warmer while we I also mounted an iPhone over the viewfind- the middleman of a newspaper or media wait for the Euromaidan protesters, who in er of my medium-format Bronica camera, outlet, and for the photographer, who can 2014 occupied Kiev’s Independence Square, recording videos of my interactions with learn what moves people to engage with known simply as Maidan, demanding closer each subject as I made their portrait. These a given subject. This is direct and personal ties to the European Union and an end to videos omitted the portraits themselves; the storytelling. Most exciting for me, it can be government corruption, to pass my make- shutter firing obscured the actual moment a way to engage and include the people in shift portrait studio on the way to the front- the film was exposed. The videos show ev- the pictures and the communities from line barricade. erything except the photographs. which they come. A tall man in his mid-30s strides past in The moments that take place between My work in Ukraine looks at the domes- a camouflage jacket, his face blackened by photographs are usually not recorded, and tic landscape of war in the country. Media soot from burning tires. I cheerfully call out are easily forgotten by the photographer. coverage of the conflict, in which Russian- to him, “Hi, I’m Nastya from London. Can But I was able to share these moments di- backed rebels are fighting the Ukrainian I make your picture?” rectly from Maidan via Instagram, using army and various pro-Ukrainian militia His name is Oleg, and I photographed the same device on which the images were groups for the separation of the Donbass re- him twice, on this day and again after the made. gion, is hugely distorted. Most images depict worst day of violence on February 20, which Traditionally, what ends up in print- the Eastern, war-affected region of Donbass, became known as “Bloody Thursday,” when ed media was considered the “real work.” leaving the vast majority of the country un- Isnipers opened fire on protesters fighting Today, social media platforms like Instagram documented. As a result, one could be for- security forces loyal to the government, kill- give me the chance to broaden the scope given for thinking that the whole of Ukraine ing about 50 people in a few hours. and depth of my storytelling by including looks like Chechnya during the 1990s. But in The second time I photographed Oleg what goes on behind the camera, images most of the country life goes on as normal, was different. When we saw him again, he that otherwise would end up on the cutting and the war is not visually present. hugged each of us, tightly, unusual for ac- room floor or, like the videos of my subjects, I am interested in visualizing this unseen quaintances in this part of the world. Many would never be captured at all. I am also able war inside the home, the invisible concepts men changed like that, as if after all the to reflect on and respond to viewers’ reac- of normality, familiarity, and violence inhab- blood and death they had seen they needed tions to my images in real time, while still iting the domestic space. Here, the tentacles to touch the living and to feel touched and in the field. of war spread out across the entire country, alive themselves. We also felt the trauma of The changing landscape of journalism entering every home and every living room. the violence, and touch comforted us, too. has forced many of us to change the way we In most places, you can hear and feel the During the 2014 Ukrainian uprising in tell stories. I have no choice but to exper- war, but you cannot see it. I am working Kiev, I made a series of formal analog film iment with new tools that technology has with a combination of traditional analog portraits of male protesters like Oleg and gifted me. Social media broadens a journal- and modern digital storytelling techniques, female mourners in that makeshift portrait ist’s reach and scope. It allows profession- experimenting with the way social media studio. This work formed my first book, als to share experiences immediately and enables me to make war stories much more “Maidan: Portraits from the Black Square,” directly with their audiences. It also allows personal, immediate, and impactful.

18 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Social media broadens a journalist’s reach. It allows professionals to share experiences directly with audiences. It also allows consumers of images to influence the creator

The Maidan videos were intended to be In May, I created an installation at Four and women in “Portraits from the Black Instagram vignettes of my experiences as a Corners Gallery in London, displaying the Square.” I found 10 subjects, visiting some photographer, an intimate look at how I see videos on iPhones, placed under the cam- at their homes to deliver gifts: prints of their the world. They show how I saw the men of era viewfinders, next to prints of the Maidan portraits. Of course, I documented this pro- Maidan: 6cm x 6cm, through the camera’s portraits—a marriage of the digital video ex- cess through social media, too. frosted ground glass, their reflections re- perience with the analog process of shooting I had tried to document the war in versed by the mirror, moving and speaking film. Bringing videos, created specifically for Donbass last summer, making pictures like to me, with the sounds of the revolution all dissemination via social media, into a tra- I usually do: pictures of the war that look around us. These images break the rules, ditional gallery context brought the project like the war, pictures where men and wom- showing what traditional photojournalism full circle. en become “victims,” the “war wounded,” does not have space for: the photographer’s Later that month I returned to Ukraine, or “collateral damage.” When I edited these voice and interaction with subjects. utilizing social media to relocate the men pictures afterward, they failed to move me because they looked like characters from a war story, a story set in a place that looked like a war zone, a place and a people that were unlike me. These images looked so foreign and exotic it was hard for me to imagine that this kind of violence could be visited on my hometown, on my family, and in my life. In Ukraine, people always tell me, “We never believed this could happen here.” I’ve heard it before in other places, too. War is always unexpected. It always arrives to the disbelief of the people whose lives it de- stroys. The photography critic Val Williams wrote in “Warworks,” “War photography has always been a parody of real war.” So, how can I tell a “real” war story? Welcome to Donetsk is my answer. Welcome to Donetsk is a series of post- cards of the capital of the Donbass region that depict peaceful scenes of the city be- fore the war, with the words “Welcome to Donetsk” written over the image. They are real tourist postcards, produced before the war arrived. In these cards Donetsk looks like an ordinary, peaceful European city, A contact sheet from Taylor-Lind’s series of photos of mourners in Kiev, Ukraine like anyone’s hometown, like my hometown.

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 19 Nieman Storyboard

When I look at them, I understand that war is something that happens to ordinary peo- ple just like me, before the media reduces them (or us) to refugees and civilians and combatants, the lead characters in media stories around the world. I came across these postcards in a post office in Slovyansk and was moved to buy them and photograph them for Instagram. The owner of the company that published them closed his business and moved abroad because of the war, but I arranged to buy his remaining stock, which was stored in his mother-in-law’s basement. I traveled to Donetsk to collect the postcards, a grueling, checkpoint-filled, 17-hour journey by train and taxi from Kiev across the frontline.

ack in kiev, with almost 1,000 postcards, I began mailing them all over the world, to peo- ple whose addresses I collected via social media outreach. My Brequest for participation stated only that I was sending postcards as part of my new project about the war in Ukraine, inviting people to send me their postal addresses if they would like to receive one. Like the Maidan work, this project also merges dig- ital and analog techniques by using mass communication social media tools to reach specific individuals with a unique and deep- A page from a notebook with Taylor-Lind’s research and reflections on her project in Ukraine ly personal story. By the time I finished, I had sent 921 postcards, sharing photo- is the name of one of the 7,962 people so far nalists, although they are never identified as graphs of some of the cards on Instagram killed in the conflict, the U.N.’s latest official such. On one side of the postcard is peace, using the hashtag #welcometodonetsk. count, and the date and the place where they on the other war—but in the same place. I wrote each card by hand. On the front died. I list the names of combatants from If news reports, statistics, and the soulless is an idyllic image of Donetsk. On the back both sides of the conflict, civilians and jour- linguistics of conflict cannot make war per-

20 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 In over a decade as a photojournalist, no one had ever before written to tell me that they placed one of my photographs in their living room and lit a candle for the person in the picture

When her postcard reached Cory Zapata in San Diego, her son brought it into class and she gave a short lesson using my pictures about the war in Ukraine and the situation of the country’s internally displaced persons (IDPs). On Instagram she told me, “The [number] of IDPs in Ukraine is equal to the population of our city of San Diego, CA. #warispersonal [The postcard] really brought it home for them because our victim was their age, 8 years old. Thank you.” Shirley Field received a postcard in Tiverton, my hometown in Devon, United Kingdom. She lit a candle on her sunlit win- dowsill to remember Olga Shudikina, who was killed near Volnovakha on Tuesday January 13, 2015. Shirley was the first to remember and mourn the person who died in this very personal way, but as the weeks passed and the postcards have arrived at the homes of people in more than 60 countries, recipi- ents have been lighting candles all over the world: Aislinn Delaney in Ireland, Alison Stieven-Taylor in Australia, Marco Franciosi in Italy, Gisele Cassol in Brazil, Muzzafar Suleymanov in New York. In more than a decade of being a photojournalist, no one had ever written to me to say that they cut out one of my photographs from a maga- zine, placed it in their living room, and lit Taylor-Lind used a black backdrop for her portraits, with Emine Ziyatdinova holding a reflector a candle for the person in the picture. David Niblock’s postcard, which com- sonal, maybe one name can, one name I will received his card, he shared a smartphone memorates Francesca Davison, who was write just for you. picture of it and wrote on Facebook: “It is killed near Grabovo on July 17, 2014, arrived “Valentina Shirokaya was killed in Donetsk one thing reading or listening to the news, on the first anniversary of her death. David, on Thursday the 22nd of January 2015” quite another when its personalization who lives in London, Googled Francesca’s When Robin Lacey in Totnes, England lands on your doormat.” name and found out that she died onboard

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 21 Nieman Storyboard

For Taylor-Lind’s Welcome to Donetsk project, she sent 921 postcards, each bearing the name of a person killed during the war in Ukraine

MH17, the plane shot down over Grabovo ceived the postcard, I was saddened by the These are juxtaposed with the quaint, in eastern Ukraine. “The card arrived news it delivered. Wanting to know more peaceful names of the towns to which the on the 17th of July, the anniversary of about the deceased, I turned to the closest cards were sent—Pleasantville, Richmond, Francesca’s death aboard flight MH17 research tool I had: Internet. In only a few Arlington, Stanton Drew, South Sea, when it was destroyed in Ukrainian skies,” clicks I found out that Nikita Rusov was a Annandale, Wetherby—sweet-sounding, he wrote on Facebook. “I am humbled hip-looking 12-year-old and a seventh-grad- idyllic names of places where the inhab- and saddened ... and taking a moment of er. I also came across a gruesome video of itants are sure war will never reach. And silent reflection.” the shelling’s aftermath. My thoughts are written below them, the street names that These postcards do not deliver the news, now with his family and friends.” represent the aspirations of the local com- nor do they provide much information at On the postcards, the names of once munities: Valley View, Apple Creek Lane, all; what they do is provide a catalyst for peaceful Ukrainian towns—Volnovakha, Edenmore Avenue, Rainbow Drive, Elmfield research, engagement, and conversation Gorlovka, Saur Mogila, Debaltseve, Terrace, Daffodil Way. within foreign homes. Laurence Butet-Roch Grabovo—became ugly words, loaded with As the postcards continue arriving at

in Canada e-mailed me to say, “When I re- knowledge of the recent violence there. people’s homes, recipients photograph them CHETTRI MONTELEONE, GISELE CASSOL, PRAVEEN DAVIDE FROM LEFT: SEAN SLAVIN,

22 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Though I am no longer working in Ukraine, I will continue collecting the names of those who die in the conflict. My aim is to create and translate into English a list of the dead from all sides

The postcard recipients, living in the U.S., India, and elsewhere, made their own memorials to the war dead and posted pictures on social media in their own domestic spaces and share on er met; the way they have used the post- a comprehensive list of the dead from all social media the names of the people killed. cards as a catalyst to spread the news of sides, something that does not yet exist. On Instagram many recipients also use the the Ukrainian war in a very personal way to A friend in Ukraine collected another 2,000 hashtag #warispersonal. One user, Carlos their family, friends, and social media com- postcards for me so that I can continue the Franco, wrote, “I received your postcard this munity. Unexpectedly, the project has also project. My hope: to keep writing postcards morning here in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Proud to reached many Ukrainians. I posted only 26 until the war ends and I have recorded the join this network to say to the world that cards inside Ukraine, a few times to IDPs name of every person to die in it. every war is personal, and stupid.” from Donbass and one to a soldier in the It is our challenge to find new ways to The response to this work has been over- Ukrainian army. Ukrainian media have also engage people with what is happening in whelming: so many emotional responses reported on the project. Ukraine. If people don’t care about the war, from recipients, sometimes reflecting on Though I am no longer working in it is our job as journalists to tell stories in their own experiences of bereavement; Ukraine, I will continue collecting the names ways that make them care, in ways that seeing them perform small intimate acts of those who die in the conflict. My aim move them and evoke empathy or connec- of remembrance for people they have nev- is to formulate and translate into English tion. This is one small attempt to do that. P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 23 24 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 the first time i installed an ad with their privacy, their patience, and their iOS 9 opened the door for mobile ad block- blocker on my browser was in 2006. I don’t mobile bandwidth. What they’re not paying ing and boosted the visibility of ad blockers, remember how I heard about Adblock Plus, with is the currency advertisers would most generally. It’s likely to accelerate the trend. but I do remember feeling a rush of satisfac- like them to spend: their attention. Instead, The growth of ad blocking is a risk for tion as the ads disappeared. they’re tuning out ads or turning them digital media, because it threatens to slash I clicked around the Internet, smugly off entirely. revenues publishers can ill afford to lose. appreciating the commercial-free space In June 2015, an estimated 198 million Shrinking revenues and tighter margins I’d created for myself. But it wasn’t long Internet users around the world were block- are pervasive across the industry, pinched before I landed on the website for my own ing ads, up from 39 million in January 2012. in part by the failure of growth in digital employer, the tiny independent magazine Those data points come from the most re- income to offset loses among tradition- Sustainable Industries. When I did, I felt cent annual trend report produced by anti– al channels. “This is not the time to take a guilty, sinking feeling. I wasn’t seeing ads ad blocking software maker PageFair. The money away from a publisher, not a single there, either, and I knew quite well those ads report estimates that 6 percent of global dollar,” says Adam Singolda, founder of con- helped pay my salary. Internet users, and 16 percent of those in tent-marketing ad network Taboola. “This is I uninstalled the plug-in. the U.S., were actively using ad blocking by not a good time to say, ‘Oh, it’s just 5 percent For years, publishers argued the same June 2015. of your revenue.’” message that convinced me to turn off my These aren’t big numbers—yet. But Publishers’ response to ad-blocking us- ad blocker: Free content isn’t free; it’s sub- PageFair estimates that global ad blocking ers has been almost entirely punitive. Some sidized by advertisers, who want to get their grew 41 percent in the past year, and even try to block ad-blocking users from seeing messages in front of users. But increasingly, faster in the U.S. and U.K. Apple’s recent ap- the content on their sites, while others en- users say, they’re the ones paying for the ads: proval of the sale of ad blockers for Safari on courage ad-blocking users to whitelist their

As the use of blocking technology accelerates, publishers are exploring ways to serve up ads users actually want to see BUILDINGBY CELESTE LECOMPTE BETTER ADS Illustration by Javier Jaén NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 25 sites with ad-blocking tools, or to contrib- the worst of the sites tested by the Times— One of the most annoying—and sim- ute funds directly, through subscriptions, loading the advertising on the homepage plest—examples of ad personalization is donations, or one-time payments. However, cost users 32 cents and took 30.8 seconds, retargeting. Those creepy ads that promote some publishers are saying “mea culpa.” about four times more than the editorial products you’ve browsed or bought on sites “Ad blocking is, in a way, our fault as content on the page. like Amazon? That’s retargeting. When you publishers,” says Joy Robins, senior vice visit a site, retargeting services load a cook- president of global revenue and strategy ie into your browser that remembers what at Quartz. “As opposed to coming up with any link these problems you looked at. When you leave the site and solutions to innovate around advertising, to the growth in ad blocking visit another, the cookie tells ad networks to we sacrificed user experience for a couple of use. PageFair’s customers may serve you up an ad for that same page. bucks on a CPM [cost per thousand]. When be on the leading edge of the This isn’t the only kind of tracking, only our users moved to mobile, we tried to do the trend, but several publishers the most evident. Most sites use multiple ad same thing, where it’s even more intrusive. interviewed for this story said networks, analytics tools, and social media [Whether] it’s the ad format or the data be- they’re already seeing dou- plug-ins that keep tabs on users’ behavior ing captured or the data use, it’s hard to love Mble-digit ad blocking rates—some over on that site—and across the Web. This data online advertising.” 20 percent—and that they’ve seen substan- lets the third-party services gather lots of Many across the industry echo Robins’ tial growth over the past year. data about an individual user, keeping track comments, including John Patteson, vice “The product experience has to be ev- of the kinds of sites they visit, services they president of business operations at Fusion. ery bit as good as the content,” says Jed use, and more. That data gets used to deliver “The tough thing is that we’ve brought this Hartman, chief revenue officer at The ads to those users and, in other cases, can be on ourselves,” he says. For a growth-stage Washington Post. For the Post, that’s meant used to customize the creative of those ads. company like Fusion, the implications are implementing a variety of tools and initia- The growth in third-party trackers in- serious. “The monetization tactic that we tives aimed at speeding up its websites spired the Do Not Track movement. Most intend to rely on—advertising—is certainly for all users, including those with slow or modern browsers have a “do not track” under siege, and we have the audience base limited mobile connections. Other digital setting that users can enable; if turned on, most likely to be using ad blockers. This is publishers have also recently stepped up websites and services are asked to disable something we really have to address.” their efforts on this front. Slate has targeted cross-site tracking (and perhaps all kinds of How to address it, however, is still up for a 75 percent improvement in page load tracking) of that user’s activity. In theory, debate, in part because there are two, very times by the end of the year. Vox Media de- it helps address many users’ concerns about different problems to solve: “problem ads” clared “performance bankruptcy” in May, data privacy. In reality, it is often ignored by and “the problem of ads.” announcing an effort to reduce its sites’ websites. The Federal Trade Commission A large part of the media industry has abysmally slow load times. Improving the recommends that sites participate, but do- treated ad blocking as a technical problem. technology used to deliver ads is one piece ing so is not mandatory. In discussing their response to ad block- of that effort, but given data like that collect- Some industry watchers argue that the ing, sources at several publishers and trade ed by The New York Times, it’s an important uptick in ad-blocking rates coincides neat- groups focused on the need for publishers to one. All of which raises the question: Why ly with the growth of ad personalization. address the “root cause” of the ad-blocking are the ads such a problem? That may not be just about data privacy, phenomenon: their on-site user experience. The online advertising ecosystem is though. The tools that let advertisers tar- In an effort to embrace new interactive vast and complicated. There are two pri- get specific users also require more code formats, capture growing user interest mary ways in which publishers accept in users’ browsers, bogging down page load in video and visual media, or to increase advertising: by making direct sales to times and opening the door for malicious revenue with more advertising per page a client or by adding third-party advertising ads that serve up viruses to unsuspecting or more precisely targeted advertising tools to their websites. Direct sales are just website visitors. tech, publishers have stuffed their sites that—direct. The publisher knows what Over the past decade, third-party ad- full of new, bandwidth-intensive compo- ads will appear on their website, when, and vertising has grown dramatically, and it’s nents, no matter what device you’re on. under what conditions. They’ll know who become increasingly sophisticated. There For other companies, such as the Chicago made the ad and who to talk to if there are now tens of thousands of ad networks, Sun-Times, the integration of new technol- are problems. all targeting particular groups of sites with ogies with legacy systems has also impeded But when publishers don’t sell ads them- particular audience demographics. Ad ex- site performance. selves, they use third-party services to fill changes emerged to help match ads from The problem is worse for mobile users. those remaining spots. Third-party services across multiple networks and agencies, ex- In October The New York Times reviewed use an automated bidding system to match ecuting complex bidding rules in real-time loading times on publishers’ mobile web- ads with websites, based on whom advertis- to serve up personally targeted ads within sites and estimated the cost of those pages ers want to reach, which audiences different milliseconds of a user loading the page. on typical mobile data plans. The results publishers serve, and what rates both parties In the interest of maximizing advertising showed that many mobile websites load very are willing to accept. Advertisers can target revenue on their sites, publishers often have slowly, and ad technology was the biggest, increasingly specific user profiles based relationships with dozens of networks and heaviest, slowest-loading content on many on information collected through cookies exchanges. The system, in some ways, has of those pages. In the case of Boston.com— placed on a user’s computer. been a victim of its own success.

26 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 The ease and speed with which ads can Many in the industry agree, and there’s It also can’t be malicious. While people be added to a website has helped drive been a chorus of publishers, advertisers, and who follow the industry agree that mali- up the amount of advertising on the Web others who now argue that consumers don’t cious ads are probably only a small part of overall, driving down rates for individual hate all ads; they just hate bad ads. “There’s the market, they have an oversized impact publishers. Falling rates encouraged sites definitely this tragedy of the commons issue on the Internet as a whole because those to add more ads, and advertisers got in- where a few bad actors, a few really bad ex- few ads could appear anywhere among creasingly interested in reaching not just periences at scale, cause people to install ad billions of pageviews, thanks to the ubiq- large audiences, but the right audiences. blockers,” says Kint. uity of real-time ad exchanges and third- The PageFair report found that 41 percent But what are problem ads? party networks. of surveyed Internet users (and 57 percent One survey of ad-blocking users yields Addressing bad ads takes up an enor- of 18- to 34-year-olds) would consider us- a potential answer. According to Ben mous amount of time for most publishers. ing ad-blocking tools if the number of ads Williams, who heads up communica- Greg Franczyk, chief digital architect at The increased; a full 50 percent said they would tion for Adblock Plus (ABP), 71 percent Washington Post, says his team has built be tempted to use ad blocking because of of ABP’s customers told the company in dashboard and monitoring tools to track privacy concerns related to ad personaliza- a survey that they would be willing to see the performance of their sites, including tion. “Billions of dollars have poured into advertising if it wasn’t intrusive, by which the ads. They’re looking for ads that break ad tech in the last few years,” says Jason they meant: “It can’t pop up, pop under, or their in-house style rules, as well as those Kint, chief executive officer of Digital be deceptive,” says Williams. “It must be that are slowing down the site for users. Content Next, a trade group of digital pub- labeled correctly, and should not have at- When they find ads that cause problems, lishers. “I would argue that none of it went tention grabbing images, should not disrupt they have to work with the advertising team to consumer value.” your reading flow.” to get the ads removed. The Post keeps track

HOW PUBLISHERS SHOULD ADDRESS THE RISING USE OF AD-BLOCKING SOFTWARE IS STILL UP FOR DEBATE, IN PART BECAUSE THERE ARE TWO, VERY DIFFERENT PROBLEMS TO SOLVE: “PROBLEM ADS” AND “THE PROBLEM OF ADS”

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 27 of which networks consistently deliver ads ublishers are finding some us to the second issue that needs to be that cause problems and cuts ties with the support in one unlikely place: the solved: the problem of ads. worst offenders. ad blockers themselves. Adblock Study after study returns dismal find- IGN, a digital media company covering Plus launched the Acceptable Ads ings about the effectiveness of display video games and entertainment, is even Initiative, which allows some ad- advertising. There’s also a growing in- more fed up. “We’re just about at the point vertisers to bypass the ad-block- dustry-wide concern about fraudulent ad to forego a few million dollars in revenue ing filter with non-intrusive ads. practices, from bots that view and click to turn [third-party ads] off completely,” PAdBlock recently announced it would join ads to serving multiple overlapping ads in says Todd Northcutt, IGN’s vice president the program as well. a single spot or counting impressions for of product. Third-party advertising makes To get added to the whitelist, a publisher ads that display on the page but not on the up a relatively small share of the compa- or an advertiser can have their units reviewed user’s screen. ny’s total ad revenue, and Northcutt says for compliance with this Acceptable Ads pol- Other changes have crimped digital dis- eliminating it would be at least partially icy. For sites that want to unblock fewer than play advertising even further. Today, many offset by the costs associated with man- 10 million monthly ad impressions, joining publishers’ own websites—and the display aging bad ads. the whitelist is free. But for companies over advertisements that appear there—account Ad networks and exchanges are the gate- that threshold, it comes with a price tag. for a shrinking share of their total audience. keepers when it comes to ad quality and se- None of the company’s customers wanted “If you put a banner ad on the site, curity. Many sources say they’d like to see to share what percentage of the unblocked you’re reaching 30 to 40 percent of the peo- more action on the part of major ad net- revenue they’re paying to Adblock Plus, but ple who are reading the words we write,” works, like Google, to address the issue. it likely doesn’t come cheap. says Seth Weintraub, founder of the Apple Part of the reason the third-party ad Whitelisting decisions are shared in news site 9to5Mac. The vast majority of system grew so quickly is that the actual the company’s online forum, with exam- his audience follows the site using tools ad delivery system is almost entirely auto- ples of the unblocked ads. Among the like Flipboard, Pulse, Google Newsstand, mated. Advertisers and agencies can upload approved units are Google text ads and Instapaper, and Pocket, he says, “and we their creative to the various networks and “recommended articles” widgets provided get zero revenue.” exchanges, where computerized systems by content-marketing firm Taboola, along Just as journalists are tuning their con- check the ads for compliance with various with hundreds of other, smaller ad units tent strategies to reach users on social technical and creative guidelines. For the submitted by publishers around the world. platforms, in mobile apps, and on mobile most part, those systems work well enough PageFair, which has criticized the Acceptable devices, their business-side counterparts to catch ads that break the various stan- Ads Initiative, is also among the company’s have been trying to figure out how to dards set by the ad networks and publish- whitelisted customers. Its text-based ads reach users in these same venues. In most ers. But a small number of ads that don’t were added in January 2014. companies, the focus is on two strategies: meet that criteria slip through, and publish- Privacy Badger, a tool from the developing native advertising and expand- ers say there’s an even larger number of ads Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has ing distribution through social and mobile that meet only the letter, not the spirit, of a more narrow focus on addressing users’ platforms. the policies. privacy tracking concerns. Privacy Badger Ad blocking is simply accelerating these Craig Spiezle, executive director of the doesn’t block all third-party services run- trends. “As an industry, I hope we can see Online Trade Alliance, says improving that ning on websites; instead, it blocks ser- this as, ‘Don’t waste a good crisis,’” says review process would be a huge step for- vices that it notices tracking a user across Quartz’s Robins. She’s optimistic that the ward for the online ad industry. He’d like to multiple sites. In practice, most ads on rise of ad blocking will push publishers to see networks implement a system that he most sites disappear. But EFF is hoping “focus on quality rather than continuing compares to the TSA’s expedited security the tool encourages publishers to adopt to commoditize.” screening program for passengers consid- its recommended privacy policy. Sites When Quartz launched in 2012, the ered low-risk. Ads from new advertisers or that use that policy (which, among other team made the decision not to use any agencies would be reviewed closely before things, mandates full, transparent compli- industry-standard ad units on its page, being loaded onto the server; over time, ance with Do Not Track) won’t see their and it continues to sell 100 percent of its companies could earn positive reputations ads blocked. custom ads with an in-house team. The and gain faster, automated-review access City University of New York journalism campaigns are rarely standard static imag- to the system. Companies with bad repu- professor Jeff Jarvis has suggested a related es. For example, one recent campaign for tations would be automatically rejected or solution. But rather than allowing yet an- GE offered users the opportunity to spin flagged for manual review. other third-party group to come in and skim a globe and select colorful points from the Most sources said they think it is unlike- revenues from the advertising system, Jarvis map; each location pointed a different sto- ly that ad networks will take action to ad- says, publishers ought to launch or support ry about GE’s work. The Quartz ads are in- dress the issue. Systems with manual review their own system, with a custom whitelist tended to be as compelling for users as the processes would be vastly slower and more for ads and networks that meet strict stan- content produced by the editorial team. expensive, pinching ad networks’ profits dards. It’s been a successful model for Quartz, and driving up ad rates. “To put these cir- In the absence of action from the adver- but even the best-designed display ads ar- cuit breakers in place breaks their model,” tising industry, many publishers are taking en’t immune from ad blocking. If publish- Spiezle says. matters into their own hands, which brings ers use ad servers or analytics tools from

28 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 third parties, they’re just as likely to have premium publishers have launched major Distinguishing between editorial con- their ads blocked. in-house efforts to provide those things as tent, sponsored posts, and brand-affiliated One better bulwark against ad blocking a service to advertisers. content isn’t just a difficult technical prob- is native content. Different publishers have “Media companies are morphing into lem, though. It’s also a difficult problem for different definitions of native advertising, digital agencies,” says Gordon Borrell, a many humans. Many publishers say they’re but many kinds of native ads are delivered media business analyst. Many are launching focused on making native advertising as not through an ad server, but through the new divisions entirely focused on creating transparent as possible. Most emphasized same content management system or social branded content for customers. BuzzFeed, that they’re using clear labeling and brand- platform as the publisher’s editorial con- Vox Media (with its Vox Creative), Media ing signals to alert users to the fact that the tent. By focusing on developing content that General (with Advanced Digital Solutions), content they’re seeing isn’t editorial. is in the same format as the editorial content Hubbard (with 2060 Digital), Townsquare Whether it’s clear that they’re ads or not, and matches the tone and style of the publi- (with Townsquare Interactive), TEGNA the question remains: Will consumers want cation, publishers are promising advertisers (with G/O Digital), and even The Onion to see those ads? John Patteson says Fusion access to their audiences in new ways. (with Onion Labs) are among the compa- is planning for a future in which some of its From a technical perspective, native nies taking this route. audience will continue to say, “These ads content is harder—if not impossible—to According to Borrell, this re-thinking of are not valuable.” When they do, he says, distinguish from the articles, charts, and the relationship between brands and pub- it’s best to assume they’ll have the tools to social media posts among which it appears. lishers is just beginning: “We are at the end eliminate and ignore those ads. “We’re not Developing this kind of ad creative means of the golden age of advertising,” he says. interested in getting in an arms race,” he having a very clearly defined audience and “Marketing is becoming much more en- says. Instead, “How do we think about what a very clear brand identity and voice. Many twined with the medium.” can we give them that’s valuable?” P

“AS AN INDUSTRY, I HOPE WE CAN SEE THIS AS, ‘DON’T WASTE A GOOD CRISIS,’” SAYS QUARTZ’S JOY ROBINS. SHE’S OPTIMISTIC THAT THE RISE OF AD BLOCKING WILL PUSH PUBLISHERS TO “FOCUS ON QUALITY RATHER THAN CONTINUING TO COMMODITIZE”

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 29 LISTEN How involving news consumers in the reporting process can improve stories and enhance audience engagement UP BY OLIVIA KOSKI

Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez

ulia kumari drapkin, vincing legislators to act that she did as a fire in the snow in April, the earliest wild- a climate reporter, was living journalist in getting readers to care about fire on record. Drapkin connected him with in Washington, D.C. in 2011 climate change. In both cases, what was a researcher at California’s Sierra Nevada when she started noticing needed was to connect a global issue with Research Institute, who confirmed that oth- something odd about her individual stories, Florida’s freak frost with ers were seeing fires in snow, and that sci- lunch: Sandwich shops were the scarcity of tomatoes on your lunch. She entists were predicting that wildfire season being uncharacteristically wanted a space where citizens with climate- could become a year-round phenomenon. stingy with their tomatoes. or weather-related questions and stories One person wrote in with concerns about She wasn’t the only one to take note: “I could share their experiences and engage in drought, which the iSeeChange team report- kept hearing conversations around me; people conversation with experts about what was ed on weeks ahead of others. Another wrote were saying, ‘Is it just me? What is happening really going on. in to report a dandelion blooming almost a Jhere?’” Turns out a freak frost in Florida had So Drapkin moved from D.C. to a rural month earlier than usual, and iSeeChange wiped out most of the city’s supply of the fruit. town in western Colorado called Paonia to ended up reporting on the earliest spring in The weather had, in fact, been weird that launch iSeeChange, a news project that in- recorded U.S. history. year. Over dinner she complained to some volves ordinary people at every stage in the ISeeChange has since become a living friends who worked for the Obama admin- climate reporting process, at public radio farmer’s almanac online, expanding to in- istration about the slow pace at which the station KVNF. In April 2012, she set up a text clude stories from users all over the coun- government was responding to climate messaging service and went on air to ask lis- try. Drapkin plans to launch an iSeeChange change. “What’s the problem?” she remem- teners to submit their unusual observations app that will let users exchange information bers asking them. They shrugged, saying and questions about the local climate. with NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory, climate change was just too big an issue for Texts flooded in. Residents, many of which tracks carbon dioxide emissions. legislators to understand its direct costs. them farmers, had observed environmen- With the app she hopes to connect a sweep- Drapkin realized that her friends in tal changes taking place over decades. The ing scientific study to personal stories of

government faced the same challenge con- fire chief sent a text about fighting a wild- people on the ground to generate new in- SMITH/GETTY IMAGES PATRICK

32 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 terest in—and even insights into—climate audience involvement and even improving ideas contributor,” says Jennifer Brandel, change. “We know when things are right, the quality of stories reporters produce. the journalist behind WBEZ’s Curious City. and when they’re unusual,” Drapkin says. It’s a shift in the way newsrooms think The program, which invites Chicagoans to “If you give a space for that to live and ver- about “the people formerly known as the au- help decide which stories journalists pursue ify it with science and journalism, people’s dience,” as journalism professor Jay Rosen by letting them submit questions and vote intuition does pay off.” described those who recognized the indepen- on the ones they deem most newsworthy, Drapkin could not have reported on the dent publishing power of the Web starting in launched in 2012, and since then she’s seen earliest spring in U.S. history without the the 1990s. While all major news organiza- the idea of including audiences at the begin- residents of Paonia, and the residents of tions now see the importance of serving audi- ning of the reporting process go from being Paonia might not have realized that what ences who talk back through social media, it’s perceived as radical to logical. they were seeing was historic without taken longer to realize the potential of using Brandel suggests that inviting readers to Drapkin. ISeeChange points to the power news consumers early in the reporting pro- ask questions yields more journalistic ben- of an emerging form of journalism where cess. Audiences are typically only “engaged” efits than asking them to leave feedback in professionals work side by side with audi- once a story has been published, when social a comments section after an article is pub- ences to find new insights into the world at media teams push out links on Facebook and lished. “Questions are a more neutral for- large. It’s a departure from citizen journal- Twitter that they hope will go viral, or open mat where stories can start from,” she says. ism, which leaves reporting in the hands of up comments sections that often devolve They can also lead to more original content, well-intentioned amateurs, and user-gen- into virtual boxing arenas. These engagement pushing journalists to pursue story ideas erated content, which casts journalists as strategies do little to deepen the experience they wouldn’t have thought of on their own. curators over material of widely varying for audiences or reporters. Giving audiences a seat at the editorial ta- quality and reliability. This approach treats “I’ve been in newsrooms where they ble, as Brandel puts it, also makes them feel audiences as collaborators in a profession- look at the audience as a consumer, a nec- more invested and more likely to share sto- ally managed reporting process, deepening essary evil, as opposed to a highly valuable ries, increasing traffic and brand awareness

The Guardian asked online for help recording all U.S. police killings, not just high-profile deaths like Freddie Gray, memorialized in Baltimore

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 33 for news organizations. She calls it “pub- One listener, Dan Monaghan, wanted to lic-powered journalism.” With public-pow- know how often taxis are pulled over and AT CHICAGO’S WBEZ, ered journalism, professionals continue to for what. He felt that many drivers were do the good work they’ve always done—re- reckless, and assumed they must get a lot of ASKING AUDIENCES TO porting, verifying, and synthesizing complex speeding tickets. His question got selected information—but audiences are regarded thanks to his initiative rallying his friends to VOTE ON STORY IDEAS not only as recipients but as resources to help with voting, and a few months later he inspire and inform the work they do. joined WBEZ’s Odette Yousef in the field. IS NOW VIEWED AS Brandel’s Curious City started as an ex- The experience completely changed his periment—to test whether audiences had perspective on taxi drivers. After spending good story ideas, and what would happen hours interviewing several of them, he re- LOGICAL, NOT RADICAL if journalists gave them some editorial con- alized that the traffic system works against trol. “Some people think if you hand over drivers. It’s not speeding tickets, but parking power, your news will end up being all about tickets they face most often. They can also Kim Kardashian and cat videos,” Brandel get tickets for dropping people off in high- says. A search of the Curious City archives traffic zones, where police sometimes wait turns up no hits on Kim Kardashian, though around to issue tickets. Many of those tick- tive decision. So Pettitt-Schieber and her there was a question submitted about cats: ets aren’t even issued in person, but by mail girlfriend could continue their search for “What’s the deal with Chicago’s feral cats?” several weeks after the violation occurred. the perfect engagement ring. Since the story (The story didn’t get reported.) “That really upset me,” Monaghan says. He is built around a real person with a specif- Winning submissions range from “Does walked away from the experience with a new ic motivation, it’s more relatable. “You get the recycling REALLY get recycled?” respect for the challenges cab drivers face, to hear the discovery process unfold,” says (Answer: sort of) to “Who cleans up the and a new understanding of how the stories Keefe. “Audience members ask questions blood on sidewalks and playgrounds after he heard every day on the radio were cre- you don’t think to because you think you shootings?” (Answer: it depends) to “Can ated. “It was awesome to experience first- know the answer.” the new governor undo the approved same- hand,” he says. On another Curious City reporting sex marriage bill?” (Answer: probably not). In March 2014, Christie Pettitt-Schieber trip Keefe brought a frustrated Chicagoan The news team curates questions for vot- asked whether the governor of Illinois could named Andrea Lee in to interview an alder- ing rounds that benefit the widest possi- undo recent legislation making same-sex man named Walter Burnett. Lee wanted to ble audience, playing the same crucial role marriage legal in the state. Her curiosity was know what an alderman’s job responsibili- they’ve always played: making sure infor- personal: She wanted to marry her girlfriend, ties are. Her question was inspired by her mation is accurate, relevant, and complete. and the state was electing a new governor in experience calling about several issues (re- The audience plays a new role—bringing November. Reporter Alex Keefe brought her cycling bins, basement flooding) that her in fresh perspectives and a curiosity that into the recording studio for several hours alderman said he couldn’t help with. motivates the reporting. Curious City does as they called civics experts and eight can- As a political reporter in Chicago, Keefe more than solicit questions from audienc- didates to find the answer. They discovered was careful with and respectful of his sourc- es. It actually includes them in reporting that none of the candidates was willing to es, recognizing that he relies on them to do trips, too. challenge what is fundamentally a legisla- his job and may want to talk to them again for a future story. Lee, as an average Chicago citizen, had no such concerns. She went into the interview with no filter, telling Burnett exactly what she thought about his job and what she thought he could do better. “It was awkward, but fantastic,” says Keefe. Keefe, who now works at Vermont Public Radio, says that the Curious City stories he produced were the most fun he’s had as a reporter, but that it could be scary because as a journalist you relinquish a bit of control. Few newsrooms would consider going to the lengths WBEZ does to involve listeners in its reporting, as rewarding as it’s proven. For the majority of organizations, audience interaction happens exclusively online. It’s tempting to think that because of this the journalist’s role has changed drastically over the last decade or two. There are a slew of new positions in the modern newsroom re-

WBEZ listener Dan Monaghan rode with driver Al Smith for a story he suggested about taxis lated to this new landscape—community LOGAN JAFFE/WBEZ

34 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 editor, social media editor, and director of every year. Most deaths never make nation- Journalists already use many of the tools engagement, to name a few. But these jobs al news like the deaths of Michael Brown of public-powered journalism—Twitter, aren’t actually that much different from that and Freddie Gray. The Guardian searched Facebook, e-mail, and Web surveys. “It of a beat reporter in the 1980s covering a lo- in vain for a reliable database that records doesn’t take new resources, but a different cal neighborhood. From the perspective of the number and nature of deaths that oc- deployment of resources,” says Brandel. public-powered journalism, every audience cur at the hands of U.S. police. The only When she started Curious City, Brandel member is a potential source in the next official government data comes from a vol- cobbled together a variety of tools such as breaking story, or a potential character in untary reporting program organized by the Google Forms and Polldaddy to realize her your next feature article, and Twitter and FBI. Only 224 of 18,000 law enforcement vision. But she wanted something better. Facebook are the street corners where they agencies made reports in 2014. Evidence As a result of being accepted into the San hang out. from academics and journalists who inde- Francisco-based Matter start-up incubator, “We have journalists who specialize in pendently track police shootings suggest she and her team were able to build tools de- mining the potential leads that come in there’s a major underrepresentation of the signed for reporting. The result is Hearken, from audiences,” says Amanda Zamora, se- number of “justifiable homicides” commit- a Web-based platform built with the needs nior engagement editor at ProPublica. The ted by police officers. of newsrooms in mind. She hopes it will organization, which launched in 2008, has So The Guardian launched The Counted, make it easier for media organizations a long history of involving audiences in its which tracks the number of killings with the around the country to connect with audi- reporting. The leads often come from call- help of a community it has built that con- ences in ways that enhance their work, and outs on the website, which invite users to nects reporters with people from regions of maybe even the bottom line. submit experiences that inform its inves- the U.S. to which they wouldn’t otherwise Brandel has tested Hearken with a dozen tigations into everything from the use of have access. Almost every day, a counter on public radio and news outlets with a com- Agent Orange in Vietnam to segregation in the website ticks up a notch or two, grim- munity focus. “We want it to be scalable, and schools to discrimination against pregnant ly tallying the number of people who have make sure it works,” she says. A company workers. “We don’t necessarily know which died. Below the counter is a chronological called Chalkbeat is using it for education re- question will gain traction,” Zamora says. list of the names (when known), ages, and porting, and local outlets like San Francisco’s faces (when pictures are available) of the KQED and Seattle’s KUOW have had suc- deceased. The number of deaths tracked so cess deepening engagement with Hearken- hrough callouts, propublica far in 2015 is on pace to top 1,100 by the end powered stories. Hearken stories at San can test the public’s interest in a of the year. Francisco’s KQED got 11 times the pageviews topic before putting a lot of work Each death is visualized on a calendar and of others, and average time on those pages into it, meaning journalists don’t is clickable to reveal further details, such as was nearly five times the industry average, waste resources on stories that whether the victim was armed, which police Brandel told Fast Company. Fifty-six percent won’t get a lot of traffic. Some in- department was involved in the death, and of e-mails collected by WBEZ Chicago as a vestigations take off, sparking the how it occurred. People submit from all over result of Curious City were new, meaning Tformation of a community that follows the the country, according to Mary Hamilton, Hearken can create new doorways through story as it evolves. “Patient Safety,” which U.S. audience director for The Guardian. which users can connect with an organization. explores medical malpractice in the U.S. She says there are people who submit mul- Hearken’s embeddable modules are healthcare system, has its own Facebook tiple incidents, helping journalists with the designed to engage audiences at a specific group with over 3,000 members and a data- legwork of scouring thousands of local news point in the reporting process, from pitch, base of 900 sources, people who have their sources for death reports that might not to assignment, reporting, publishing, and own stories to tell and a personal interest have made national headlines. “Readers are feedback. The Curiosity and Voting Modules in the reporting. “We have niche targeted one of the largest and most comprehensive mimic the user question and voting forms audiences that pop up around our investi- resources we have,” says Hamilton. used for Curious City. An Interactive gations,” Zamora says. Advertisers covet In addition to submitting tips through Reporter Notebook tool is set to launch in that type of engaged audience, hinting at the website, readers can join a Facebook the spring. Brandel hopes that media com- the business potential of the public-pow- group to get updates and share informa- panies will embrace this form of engage- ered model. tion. The group has almost 16,000 mem- ment so that it becomes one of many ways A lot of newsrooms pay lip service to bers. Reaching potential sources through organizations create stories. “audience engagement,” and if it’s an after- social media has been important for the Newsrooms recognize that audience en- thought or feels like an obligation, the effort project because many people who might gagement is key to business survival, and to engage will most likely fail. Journalists have knowledge of an incident in the U.S. public-powered journalism provides a mod- that instead recognize the audience as may have never heard of The Guardian, el for engagement that is good for business a resource, and engagement as a way to tap which is based in the U.K. “We wanted to and for journalism. Involving audiences in that resource, can use it to pursue otherwise reach people who care about police killings, the reporting process can help generate impossible-to-report stories. The process not people who care about The Guardian,” leads, test a story’s traffic potential, enhance begins in the same way lots of journalism says Hamilton. As a result, The Counted the reporting process, and lead to growth. begins: with a question. is also building new audiences for the pa- But the greatest benefit has nothing to do Reporters at The Guardian wondered per, another example of a fringe benefit of with money. “Our readers make our journal- how many police killings occur in the U.S. this approach. ism better,” says Hamilton. P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 35 Nieman Watchdog

“IN MEXICO, THEY KILL YOU TWICE” Despite violence, journalists innovate to get the story out BY MONICA CAMPBELL XALAPA, VERACRUZ Demonstrators in Mexico City on September 26 mark the first anniversary of the disappearance of 43 college students from a town in southern Mexico Nieman Watchdog

n noé zavaleta’s bedroom, have been murdered in Veracruz or killed wave of journalists who are more indepen- there’s a framed picture on the shortly after fleeing the state. dent, digital, and collaborative. wall of the February 15, 2014 cov- In July, Espinosa, the photographer, be- The risks have escalated, though, espe- er of Proceso, a leading news- came number 14. cially since 2006, when President Felipe magazine in Mexico. It features He was found dead, executed along with Calderón launched a military-led attack on a photo of Javier Duarte, the gov- four women, in a Mexico City apartment. organized crime. That effort failed, and vi- ernor of Veracruz, the Mexican All were shot in the head with a 9-mm pis- olence skyrocketed, as did threats against state on the Gulf Coast. Duarte tol and showed signs of torture. The other journalists. The 2006 murder of Brad Will, wears a blue police cap and his belly fills victims included Nadia Vera, a student ac- a New York-based independent journalist a white button-down shirt. The headline: tivist in Veracruz who also left the state be- killed in the southern state of Oaxaca while “Veracruz: Lawless State.” cause of threats. “I still can’t believe it,” says covering anti-government protests, is em- IFor Zavaleta, it was a big deal to have a jittery Zavaleta, sitting on the edge of his blematic. Will inadvertently videotaped his a cover story in Proceso, known to be crit- bed, near the desk that’s his home office. own death, as his camera captured pro-gov- ical of the government. He lives in Xalapa, “I haven’t stopped working since Rubén ernment men firing at the protesters and in the colonial capital of Veracruz, and knows died. I’m just going, going, going. I want to his direction. Yet those men were not con- the state well. The cover meant national believe this hasn’t happened, and that it’s all victed of the crime. Instead, Juan Manuel exposure—and exposure to great risk—for just been a nightmare and that tomorrow I’ll Martínez, a baker who lived near the crime Zavaleta and Rubén Espinosa, the freelance wake up and see Rubén.” scene, was arrested, although officials could photojournalist who shot the cover. Journalists have faced danger in Mexico never produce a witness putting him at the Duarte had long decried reporters who for years, with their work putting them in site. After 16 months in prison, Martínez was criticized his office, and Zavaleta’s story did the crosshairs of organized criminal groups. cleared of murder and released. He told me just that. He pointed to corruption scandals, Community leaders, lawyers, and human it was “easier to implicate somebody like me rising cartel-related violence, and the death rights advocates who question and investi- than the real killers.” Nine years on, Will’s of journalist Gregorio Jiménez, who was gate crime in Mexico become victims, too. murderers remain free. abducted after taking his kids to school and In addition, journalists face less visible As the violence increased, in-depth re- found in a hidden grave days later. Although barriers—namely, the government’s deep porting at mainstream papers in much of Jiménez reported on crime in Veracruz, ties to the media. Radio and newspapers Mexico’s north vanished. In 2008, in Ciudad state officials dismissed that as a motive. increasingly rely on the state, especially for Juárez, across from El Paso, cartels fought Zavaleta’s article criticized the investigation lucrative advertising contracts. Yet some for control, and Armando Rodríguez, a top and stressed this alarming fact: Since Duarte investigative reporters keep on reporting, crime reporter for the city’s El Diario, was

took office in December 2010, 13 journalists defying the obstacles, and are part of a new shot in his driveway in front of his young PREVIOUS SPREAD: EDGARD GARRIDO/REUTERS; OPPOSITE: RUBÉN ESPINOSA/PROCESO

38 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Rubén Espinosa took this photograph of a 2012 protest in honor of slain Proceso colleague Regina Martínez. Three years later, he was slain daughter. I met Rodríguez shortly before he Afghanistan and Pakistan. And with four want to test the U.S. government or risk any died. He was known for keeping a daily tally journalists killed so far this year, Mexico has disruption of their businesses. of the city’s homicides, something local of- already doubled its 2014 death tally. Local reporters like Espinosa face the ficials didn’t track. That year, in a city of 1.3 Espinosa’s murder also marks a turning greatest threats. His difficulties started in million, the death toll topped 1,500, nearly point. It is rare for a journalist to be killed in 2012, when a government official told him 5 murders a day. He looked worn and said, the capital. It shattered the city’s safe haven to stop covering a student protest or he “I feel like a war reporter, but there are no image where, for the most part, journalists would “end up like Regina,” a reference to battle lines.” under threat could feel anonymous in a 20 Regina Martínez, a Proceso reporter stran- In 2012, Calderón’s term ended. During million-plus metropolis. “We all felt the gled to death at her home in Xalapa that his six-year administration, more than chill,” says Alfredo Corchado, the Mexico year. Officials tied her death to a robbery, 100,000 people were killed or disappeared, bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News, but Espinosa and other journalists were according to the government’s own reports. though he makes clear that foreign journal- convinced that her crime reporting led to Under current President Enrique Peña ists do not face the same threats as their her death. Nieto, homicide rates are moving up again Mexican colleagues. “I have a U.S. passport In May, Espinosa placed a small plaque in after a brief decline as cartels fracture and and can jump on a plane at any time,” he Xalapa’s main plaza, outside the state gov- fight for drug routes. says. Organized criminal networks do not ernment’s offices. It read: “Regina Martínez In all, since 2000, 88 journalists have Plaza,” and was meant to pay homage and been killed in Mexico, according to Article protest the investigation. A picture of the 19, a U.K.-based press freedom group. ceremony shows Espinosa, with short Crimes are very rarely solved. Investigations black hair and wearing a photographer’s tend to drag on, with prosecutors overload- vest, carefully affixing the plaque while col- ed and operating in an antiquated system. leagues look on. “Espinosa called for jus- Sometimes murder probes simply stop cold THE MURDER IN JULY tice in Regina’s case again and again,” says when they might implicate government Norma Trujillo, who reports from Xalapa for officials. “Politics can get in the way,” says OF RUBÉN ESPINOSA La Jornada, a left-leaning daily. “He was a Carlos Lauría, the senior Americas program leader, but I was afraid for him.” Soon after, coordinator for the Committee to Protect SHATTERED THE Governor Duarte told journalists to “be- Journalists (CPJ). “You’ll see cases with have” and called them “rotten apples” that strong evidence, but you won’t see results.” IMAGE OF MEXICO would soon fall. This year, Mexico took the eighth spot on In June, Espinosa finally left Veracruz for the CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, in between CITY AS A SAFE HAVEN Mexico City. He had photographed a student

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 39 Nieman Watchdog protest at which men attacked demonstrators for Human Rights has joined other groups and tapping protocols still out of reach for with machetes. After that, he told friends that calling for a new investigation. Duarte said most Mexican journalists. While reporting armed individuals were outside his home. “He the killings were “aberrant” and that he was a recent story on children harvesting opium got really scared,” Zavaleta says. confident the cases would be cleared up “as in Mexico’s poppy fields, Azam Ahmed, The So far, the Espinosa investigation is stick- fast as possible.” New York Times Mexico bureau chief who ing to a worn script. It looks like a robbery, Journalists do what they can to protect moved from Kabul to Mexico City in July, say officials. But a photograph of one of the themselves. Newspapers omit bylines and regularly sent out his GPS coordinates to arrested men shows his face with a fresh photo credits from certain crime stories. the Times’s security chief, just like he did black eye, possible signs of a forced con- There is self-censorship, with reporters ex- in Afghanistan. “It’s not a war zone, but fession in a country where the practice is cluding names of cartels from their articles, I didn’t want to be cavalier or complacent,” common. Televisa, the country’s dominant especially in small regional publications. he says. “I want people to know where I broadcaster, known for its pro-govern- Swaths of the country are simply written was last.” ment stance, said toxicology reports found off as no-go zones. And for many reporters, Mexican field producers working with Espinosa tested positive for marijuana and gone are the days of pursuing an “exclusive.” foreign journalists who parachute in are cocaine. Many saw it as a way to publicly Today, more journalists team up and join also on alert to protect each other—and discredit Espinosa. “In Mexico, they kill you tight-knit WhatsApp groups to stay updated their sources. Ulises Escamilla, a Mexico twice. The first time with a bullet and then on risks and their whereabouts. City-based reporter who has helped produce by character assassination,” says Corchado. Some of these rules apply for foreign stories for Al Jazeera, The New York Times

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner journalists, too, with some going further Magazine, and the BBC, packs ski masks PRESS FÉLIX MÁRQUEZ/ASSOCIATED

In April, protesters demanding justice for the 2012 killing of journalist Regina Martínez gathered in Xalapa, Veracruz

40 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 in his kit in case a source’s identity must Espinosa steered clear of the program, be protected. “I’ll look at someone who is and many others do, too. “Why would you “ IN MEXICO, THEY KILL about to go on camera and think, ‘No, no, ask the government to protect you if the no, we have to protect them.’ We get to leave threats you face are linked to the state it- YOU TWICE. THE FIRST this town, but they’ll stay behind,” he says. self?” says Sandra Rodríguez Nieto, who “There’s a lot of paranoia, but that’s part of reported on Espinosa’s murder for the on- TIME WITH A BULLET, our defense.” line magazine SinEmbargo. “You know what There has been some response at the fed- would make me feel safe? Don’t offer me a AND THEN BY CHARACTER eral level to the danger. Laws now federalize damn panic button. Solve the case of one press crimes so that the same local authori- dead journalist. Just one! That would show ties accused of threatening journalists don’t us that you can’t get away with murder.” ASSASSINATION” also lead the investigations. There is also a Yet some journalists have signed up, —Alfredo Corchado, U.S. journalist special federal prosecutor’s office. But on- like Norma Trujillo in Xalapa. After her col- going skepticism about investigations mar league Regina Martínez was killed in 2012, these efforts and damage the latest one—a Trujillo started shoving a chair against her new law and agency to provide threatened front door every night. “If I heard a noise, journalists and human rights workers with I’d jump,” she says. “That fear hasn’t left official protection in the form of security me.” She insists that the protection program The alternative outlets are breaking cameras, panic buttons, and safe houses. “doesn’t guarantee anything,” but says she that hold. At a recent editorial meeting at won’t deny herself any safety measure. Animal Político, editors and reporters hud- dled over how to cover a massive march in Mexico City to mark one year since 43 eanwhile, others have college students disappeared in Guerrero, given up being in Mexico alto- the Pacific Coast state. The story of the gether. Félix Márquez, a photo­ missing students rocked the country. The journalist from Veracruz who planned march also coincided with an Inter- has worked with the Associated American Commission on Human Rights Press and Proceso, left for report that pointed to numerous holes in Chile not long after Espinosa’s the government’s official version of what Mmurder. “I couldn’t do my work without happened. For Animal Político, the commis- a guarantee of safety,” he says. “It was best sion’s report offered a rare chance to show to stop for a while and take a break from their audience a side-by-side comparison of Mexico.” findings by an independent group of experts Despite the fear and violence, a strength- and the government’s. ening group of newer publications is tak- It was a stark contrast to the coverage ing hold. They include Animal Político, (and nearly identical headlines) offered by SinEmbargo, Diario19, Emeequis, La Silla Mexico’s biggest papers, which framed the Rota, and Más por Más, a free paper. Many government’s conclusions as fact and dis- are found exclusively online, testing new credited the independent report’s findings. ways to stay afloat by tapping foundations, Coverage of the Mexico City march was also angel investors, and readers’ donations. buried. “We don’t have much money,” says They also attract top reporters, who are Dulce Ramos, editor of Animal Político. “But breaking away from Mexico’s traditional to a certain point we prefer it that way, so large papers and broadcasters, restrained we can do the coverage we want and keep by their ties to the state. “There is a big part our independence. There’s an information of the press that operates under the gov- vacuum, and we’re trying to fill it.” ernment’s shadow,” says Darío Ramírez, New alliances among journalists are also Mexico director of Article 19. bringing out investigative work that might That shadow is growing, too. The amount not otherwise appear. In November 2014, a Peña Nieto’s government spends on publici- reporting team led by Carmen Aristegui, one ty has increased by 80 percent compared to of Mexico’s most famous journalists, un- previous presidents. “If you took away that covered how Peña Nieto’s wife had bought spending, you’d see newspapers across the a white, Miami-style mansion from govern- country vanish,” says Ramírez. He calls this ment contractors. Instead of breaking the flow of non-regulated public money into story on her popular radio show, Aristegui news outlets the “bone cancer” of journal- and her team published the story on her ism. The grip keeps a pro-government nar- own website, Aristegui Noticias, and worked rative intact and investigations that uncover with local and foreign outlets to carry it, too. corruption buried. “That alliance made the story bigger,” says

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 41 states of fear hacked to death, The 14 countries that lead the world for their online in violence against the media writing on these issues. Culture by elisabeth witchel is also a common beat among journalists who when the committee The discouraging truth have been targeted to Protect Journalists (CPJ) behind Mexico’s change and killed in launched its 2015 Global in ranking is that other Somalia, which is Impunity Index—a survey countries are sustaining number one on the of countries with the worst and/or increasing their high index this year for the records for solving the rates of impunity and new first time. “We Will Not Be Silenced” reads murders of journalists—it countries have joined the Worldwide, more than a front page in Mexico City after was no surprise that Mexico list. The entrée this year 360 journalists have been a journalist’s murder in July held a spot among the top of South Sudan to the index targeted and killed for their 10, as it has almost every at number five, following work over the last decade journalist murders year since the annual survey an ambush that killed five and the perpetrators worldwide during the last was first published in 2008. journalists in January, get away with it in nine 10 years. Nine of these What may appear more pushed Mexico and other out of 10 cases. Anti-press countries have, like Mexico, surprising was that this year countries down a notch. violence and impunity cut appeared on the index every Mexico registered a slight Underscoring the across all regions but the year since the first edition improvement, moving from increasing dangers of phenomenon is surprisingly in 2008. seventh to eighth on the writing about religion and concentrated in a relatively There are some global ranking despite the other sensitive cultural small number of countries. encouraging signs in the fact that journalists have issues, five bloggers in The 14 countries on this data. The number of been murdered in Mexico Bangladesh have been year’s index account convictions of suspects nearly every single year of murdered, four of them for 83 percent of unsolved behind journalist murders, the last decade and in only though still few and far one case has a suspect been between, has been higher prosecuted. Moreover, getting away with murder over the last few years than the pace of killing The CPJ calculates the number of unsolved journalist a decade ago. This year journalists is showing no murders as a percentage of a country’s population. there have been five sign of slowing down. So It includes only nations with five or more unsolved cases. convictions in journalist far, 2015 has recorded the Number of unsolved Number of murders compared with highest number of murders journalist murders/ unsolved murders one in 2005. Colombia fell in Mexico since CPJ began million inhabitants 09/01/05 – 08/31/15 off the index after holding tracking data on journalist a place for seven years. casualties in 1992. 1. Somalia 2.857 30 Though its improvement A closer analysis of 2. Iraq 2.414 84 can be largely attributed Mexico’s movement to a general decrease in down the list, however, is 3. Syria 0.496 11 political violence and the telling not of a significant 4. Philippines 0.444 44 government’s protection improvement in Mexico’s program for journalists, climate or successful 5. South Sudan 0.420 5 some cases have been prosecutions, but of a spread resolved, including 6. Sri Lanka 0.242 5 of impunity and violence the prosecution of the against the media. 7. Afghanistan 0.158 5 mastermind behind the CPJ’s Global Impunity murder of editor and Index ranks countries 8. Mexico 0.152 19 columnist Orlando Sierra. according to the proportion 9. Pakistan 0.119 22 Meanwhile, the fight of unsolved journalist against impunity has been murders per million 10. Russia 0.076 11 shored up by recent interest inhabitants over a 10-year 11. Brazil 0.053 11 at the United Nations. It period (September 1, 2005 – has called for states to August 31, 2015). It includes 12. Bangladesh 0.044 7 address impunity by all states with five or more mobilizing governments, 13. Nigeria 0.028 5 unsolved murders—that the media, and civil society is, when no suspects have 14. India 0.008 11 and U.N. agencies. Now been convicted or killed in journalists and advocates source: committee to protect journalists apprehension. must monitor progress. P ROMERO/REUTERS HENRY OPPOSITE AND ABOVE:

42 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 journalist Rafael Cabrera, who works with realized that wasn’t so and that journalism Aristegui. “Looking back, if we had just “ WHO IS GOING TO PASS was the only way for me to know what was published it on our own, it might have been happening in my own country. That’s what buried. I think that tethering these alliances, ALONG INFORMATION motivates me.” and pushing back together, is the best model But away from Mexico City, the atmo- for getting our work out there.” IF IT COULD GET THEM sphere toughens. It’s a four-hour drive to Not long after Aristegui’s team ran the Xalapa in Veracruz. As you near the city, story on Aristegui Noticias, her radio station KILLED?” vast cornfields give way to modest, one-sto- fired her and her reporters, saying its deci- ry homes. Two new buildings stick out: the sion was based on the journalists’ unautho- —Eduard Martín-Borregón, Spanish journalist state courthouses. They are towering and rized partnership with Méxicoleaks, a new gray concrete, and seem disproportional information-sharing platform. Méxicoleaks is in a place where justice is scarce. Farther the first partnership among news outlets like along, there’s Xalapa’s colonial downtown, Proceso, Animal Político, and, now, Aristegui narrow cobblestone streets lined with the Noticias, to share information about govern- typical mix of stores, offices, and cafes like ment and corporate malfeasance. group, Periodistas de a Pie, unites freelance La Parroquía, where Veracruz-grown cof- One recent tip led to a report showing reporters in parts of the country where inde- fee is served and hot milk is poured from how Peña Nieto and his staff overspent on pendent journalism is rare and can be risky. an aluminum kettle. “I’m from here, this five-star hotels during a European trip. “The Over the years, the network has grown to is home,” says Noé Zavaleta. “On the sur- idea is to give people a way to share informa- more than 70 collaborators, who also use se- face, things seem fine. We all try to live tion without a trace,” says Eduard MartÍn- cure messaging apps to notify one another normal lives.” BorregÓn, a Spanish journalist who works of threats. There are also regular meet-ups But Espinosa’s murder changed his life. for the Project on Organizing, Development, in state capitals or in Mexico City to attend “I loved going out dancing, meeting up Education and Research (PODER), a non- workshops on everything from investigative with friends at a bar, going to late-night profit corporate watchdog in Mexico City techniques to mental health counseling. movies,” he says. No more. He’s stopped and a member of Méxicoleaks. “I mean, Daniela Pastrana helps lead the network drinking, too. “I need to stay alert. Instead who is going to pass along information if it from a modest building in Mexico City. Like of looking outside in the morning to see if I could get them killed?” But the whistleblow- many human rights and watchdog groups need a coat, now I see if there are any strang- er concept is still new in Mexico, hampered in Mexico, her offices are unmarked for se- ers outside.” by fear and few examples of leaked informa- curity reasons. Working alongside Pastrana Why stick with journalism at all then? tion triggering change. “You see stories like is Ximena Natera, fresh out of journalism “I’ve thought about doing something differ- Aristegui’s explode, but there’s no change, school. She grew up watching the news on ent,” he says. “But I’m staying put for now.” no legislative response,” says Ben Cokelet, Mexican television and, after starting uni- And he continues to gather what documents who runs PODER. “Mexico doesn’t have versity, realized, “I had no idea what was he can on the cases of killed colleagues. He a Watergate.” going on in Mexico. I’d bought the narrative keeps count of their absence. “Today is day The alliances are also building support that all of the people who died in the war 73 without Rubén,” he says. “It feels cathar- networks where none existed. One national on drugs were criminals killing each other. I tic to do that somehow.” Journalist Norma Trujillo, also in Xalapa, is less sure about her future. She cov- ers crime, prison conditions, and clashes between international corporations and local indigenous groups, and is often removed from government press lists. “My kids say, ‘Just stop reporting, mom. Enough!’ And my husband, he sees that I’m tired,” she says. “Sometimes, I think, ‘Okay, I’m done.’ I can do something else, something that pays more and doesn’t mean risking my life. But I’m not quite there yet. This is my calling.” Later that day, in Xalapa’s main plaza, Trujillo shows me the stone step where, in May, not long before fleeing Veracruz him- self, Rubén Espinosa led a group of other journalists to install the small plaque to honor Regina Martínez. The spot is empty, except for some smudged white paint. The plaque was stolen again. There are no plans Newsweekly Proceso took aim at Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte, calling the state lawless to replace it. P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 43 Nieman Journalism Lab

The players are different with audio, but Best of Times, a lot of the pressure points are the same. Worst of Times Will we someday soon look back on 2015 Will podcasting go as the golden age of podcasting, before the market had its way? the way of blogging— Let’s look at those three trendlines one professionalized at a time. If you were somehow sentenced into big digital outlets to listen to all the podcasts in iTunes, you’d find a lot of amateurish stuff. and platformized With so much dross, quality stands out. into proprietary The most downloaded shows are a mix of public radio’s weekend magazine shows, systems that control smart comedy and storytelling, and well-pro- distribution and duced talk. take a cut of revenue? So one move is in the direction of qual- ity. Alex Blumberg, the public radio report- BY JOSHUA BENTON er who left to start Gimlet Media in 2014, describes what he’s trying to build as the “HBO of podcasting.” “We take more time, we spend more money, and we try to hone and craft more than 95 percent of the pod- casts out there,” he said earlier this year in President Obama’s appearance on Marc Maron’s podcast “WTF with Marc Maron” raised the profile of the comedian’s show odcasting is giving me an interview with the Nieman Lab’s Shan a case of déjà vu. Wang. “I think podcasting still has an as- and ’N Sync back in the day. Once they’re The state of podcasting in sociation with something that two dudes downloaded, MP3s are opaque from a pub- 2015 feels a lot like the state of make in their basement. There’s a ‘Wayne’s lisher’s perspective: There’s no way to tell if blogging circa 2004. The variety World’ connotation to it. But I think of them they’ve been played once, a hundred times, Pand quality of work being done is thrilling; as shows: sleek, produced, where you have or never. Tracking individual listeners’ hab- outside attention is growing; new formats people who are good at it doing it.” its—seeing what other podcasts they listen are evolving. We’re seeing the same unlock- Gimlet has built up an acclaimed line- to, which ads they skip, or which episodes ing of creative potential we saw with blog- up of podcasts that now regularly land on they bail out of early—is impossible for ging, and there’s far more good work being most-downloaded lists and which have a podcast producer. produced than anyone has time to take in. smart integration of advertising. Other One possible reaction to that: Great! The question now is whether podcast- companies like Panoply (from the people at I don’t want some rando podcast bro track- ing’s future will play out as the last decade Slate) and Midroll (now owned by Scripps) ing my activity! But the Web has taught us of blogging has. There may be some lessons are doing something similar, building up that many people—especially advertisers— to be drawn—positive and negative—from podcast networks that can both profession- want that sort of data, and we can be sure how the beautifully fractured world of blog- alize and make more efficient the produc- that there will be attempts to harness it. ging evolved into what we have today. tion of on-demand audio. Gimlet may want Doing so would probably require a new And what is that, exactly? One part of to be another HBO, but to my mind, they’re format for podcasts—something beyond the that old blogging world was professional- more of a new Vox Media—marrying con- MP3. The Swedish start-up Acast promises ized, spawning smart digital outlets like tent smarts, production skill, and an agile an enhanced podcast experience by inte- The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and Vice. business strategy. grating images and video at points within Another, bigger part was taken over by When it comes to platforms, podcasting an audio podcast—if you listen to certain platforms like Facebook and Twitter that has been a remarkably open one. All you podcasts within their app. Of course, that promised technical ease. And the incum- need is access to a server and you can pub- complexity can also be used to push more bent outlets that blogging threatened— lish to the world. sophisticated advertising; Acast tells com- print newspapers and magazines—ended I suspect we’re going to see that open- panies it can provide “dynamic targeting” of up stuck in the middle: not savvy enough to ness come under pressure soon. Nearly all podcast advertising within a given episode. compete with the new digital pros, not big audio podcasts are MP3 files—the same The optimist’s view of Acast (and other enough to compete with the platforms. format that filled up your iPod with Nelly companies entering the space) is that the PETER SOUZA/OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO

44 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 of slot available on Saturday afternoons. They’re produced by an expensive infra- structure that’s tied to broadcast. They’re limited in their flexibility because adding a new radio show usually means removing an existing one. There are public radio podcast success stories: “Serial” most obviously, but also NPR shows like “Invisibilia” and “Hidden Brain.” And several of the largest local sta- tions are betting big on podcast production. (In October, WNYC announced a $15 mil- lion project called WNYC Studios devoted to developing new podcast programming.) But it’s not hard to forecast the impact a shift from broadcast to podcast will have on public radio stations. There are over 900 public radio stations in the United States, and most of them are nothing like WNYC— they survive in large part as the best avail- able delivery mechanism for national NPR President Obama’s appearance on Marc Maron’s podcast “WTF with Marc Maron” raised the profile of the comedian’s show content. In most markets, public radio sta- tions face little to no real news competition empty-headed MP3 is limiting what pod- reducing technical complexity by handing on the dial. If “Morning Edition” becomes casts can do, and that we need to move past over the backend to a company like Google. just one among many high-quality options it for the field to flourish. The pessimist Fast forward to today and the vast majority for newsy audio during drivetime, what would note that whatever promising new of what would have been considered “blog- happens to the rest of their work—and their technology comes along is unlikely to be as ging” 10 years ago now happens on social business model? open as the RSS-plus-MP3 tech at the core platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In newspapers, a few giants like The New of podcasting. And that could mean private Podcasting is open, but it’s also compli- York Times could respond to the challenge platforms taking over. cated and limited by its technology. Some by building up top-notch digital teams and Marco Arment, who makes the popular middleman will come along to improve competing toe-to-toe with the newcomers. Overcast podcast app for iOS, argues on his that—and grab a piece of the business. But there are nearly 1,400 daily newspapers blog that this coming wave of companies So where does this all leave public ra- in America, and most are being crushed by aims to “lock down this open medium into dio—the part of the business most import- online competition. For all its successes, proprietary ‘technology,’ and build empires ant to those of us who care about journalism? podcasting has offered no solution to the of middlemen to control distribution and NPR and its member stations have survived crisis of local news. I expect we’ll contin- take a cut of everyone’s revenue. That’s how the digital transition better than most news ue to see the gap between the WNYCs and you make Big Money. And it usually works.” outlets, but its broadcast audience has pla- their smaller public radio peers expand. Look to blogging again. In the mid- teaued and there are troubling signs that The future history I’m outlining isn’t all 1990s, if you had a blog, you probably wrote it’s losing younger listeners. Podcasts are bad. For the listener, there’ll be more great the code for it by hand. By the early 2000s, part of that erosion, as commuters use their shows than you know what to do with. But you likely used a Web host like Blogspot— phones and connected cars to tune into the same trends we saw 10 years ago—pro- “WTF with Marc Maron” instead of their fessionalization on one hand, platformiza- local FM morning zoo, or “Reply All” instead tion on the other—sure seem to be playing of “All Things Considered.” out again. And that promises to disrupt yet Newsy podcasts could Of course, many of the top-rated pod- another part of the journalism business— casts are produced by public radio out- for all the good and bad that implies. P pose a big challenge fits. But they’re mostly still driven by the to NPR shows like demands of terrestrial radio. Shows are Joshua Benton, a 2008 Nieman Fellow, is the “Morning Edition” an hour long because that’s the only kind foun­ding director of the Nieman Journalism Lab

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 45 Books

same could be said about its cartoons. The simple and charming “Little King” illustra- tions of Otto Soglow had as little in com- mon with the stuffy clubmen and devilish rakes of Peter Arno as the abstract musings of Saul Steinberg had with the affected suburbanites of Whitney Darrow, Jr. True, some of the magazine’s staple subjects and situations proved more durable than oth- The Best Magazine for ers. Today The New Yorker’s illustrated spoofing of cocktail parties, breakfast table A Person Who Cannot Read conversations, precocious children, psychi- In “Cast of Characters,” Thomas atrists’ offices, corporate boardrooms, and middle-class neuroses is taken for granted. Vinciguerra, a founding editor It shouldn’t be. What Ross had in mind for the magazine, and what he accom- of The Week, examines the early plished, marked a radical departure from what had been appearing in Life, Judge, and cartoonists who put their similar titles, as Thomas Craven noted in his stamp on The New Yorker 1943 volume “Cartoon Cavalcade”: BY THOMAS VINCIGUERRA Conceived in the spirit of the boule- vards, The New Yorker departed from the old tradition of American humor, the tall tales and outlandish fables, which survive in the comic strips, and developed the funny idea with a the new yorker’s cartoons and covers New Yorker art set so lasting a standard that witty, one-line caption to clinch the have been well-loved since its founding in 1925. the magazine is now the only general-inter- joke. The one-line caption had been It was Rea Irvin, the first employee (his title est periodical left in the nation that still fills used before, but sparingly and never was “art editor”), who is responsible for the its pages with the sight gags that were once with such originality and intelligence. magazine’s visual character. Irvin created a staple of the industry. hundreds of New Yorker covers, including the Such durability and quality were evi- The most pointed drawings of The New very first and most famous—Eustace Tilley dent almost from the beginning. As early as Yorker present an idea or predicament peering through a monocle at a butterfly. October 1925, when the magazine was still that screams for clarification. The drawing scrambling to find its audience, Ross noted, alone, more often than not, is enigmatical, he new yorker expects to “Everybody talks of The New Yorker’s art, but in conjunction with the surprising title be distinguished for its illustra- that is its illustrations, and it has been de- beneath it becomes explosively funny. And “ tions,” Harold Ross wrote in scribed as the best magazine in the world the fun is clean. his original prospectus for the for a person who can not [sic] read.” Philip Even the manner in which New Yorker magazine, “which will include Wylie, one of Ross’s first permanent hires, cartoons were conceived and executed was Tcaricatures, sketches, cartoons and humor- recalled, “The one thing Ross had demanded different, Ross told the artist Alice Harvey: ous and satirical drawings in keeping with till all heads rang with it—from early 1925 its purpose.” until it began to become fact, a year or so lat- [B]efore The New Yorker came into Considering that Ross was a prose man, er, was this: ‘Get the prose in the magazine existence, the humorous magazines he succeeded beyond his expectations. like the art!’ ” Ross eventually had plenty of of the country weren’t very funny, or Ninety years after he put down those words, worthy art to work with; before its tenth an- meritorious in any way. The reason it is still received wisdom that the first thing niversary, the magazine was getting as many was that the editors bought jokes, a casual reader of The New Yorker will do as a thousand drawings every week. or gags, or whatever you want to call is flip through and have a chuckle over the Following World War II, the figure was them, for five dollars or ten dollars, cartoons. The graphic legacy that Ross left is up to 2,500. mailed these out to artists, the artists as significant as its journalistic counterpart: Part of the reason for this avalanche was the magazine’s ability to accommo- Excerpted from “Cast of Characters: Wolcott date wildly different voices and styles. For Gibbs, E.B. White, James Thurber, and the many years at The New Yorker, its editors The New Yorker’s Golden Age of The New Yorker” by Thomas insisted that there was no such thing as a Vinciguerra. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. “typical New Yorker short story.” Assuming graphic legacy is Copyright © 2016 Thomas Vinciguerra the assertion was true—and there are still as significant as its

many critics who would dispute it—the journalistic counterpart CARTOON BANK COLLECTION/THE PETER ARNO/THE NEW YORKER

46 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Thurber agreed. “The invaluable Irvin, artist, ex-actor, wit, and sophisticate about town and country, did more to develop the style and excellence of New Yorker draw- ings and covers than anyone else, and was the main and shining reason that the mag- azine’s comic art in the first two years was far superior to its humorous prose,” he said. The process gelled in The New Yorker’s art meetings that took place at two p.m. on Tuesday, the only day of the week that Irvin, who had other irons in his various fires, would actually appear in the office. In the beginning, the routine was simple: “Wylie would hold up the drawings and covers, and Irvin would explain to Ross what was good about them, or wrong, or old, or promising.” But as The New Yorker caught on, and Ross began bringing to these meetings the same eagle eye he brought to bear on the magazine’s written material, things be- came more complicated, with the proceed- ings dragging on for three hours or more. Hundreds of specimens had to be examined, discussed, criticized, accepted, and rejected. Ross would pounce at faulty draftsmanship, missing details, insufficient clarity, and oth- drew them up, mailed them back and In The New Yorker’s early, parlous days, er shortcomings, literally pointing out the were paid. The result was completely Irvin provided necessary graphic gravitas. problems with a knitting needle and ask- wooden art. The artists’ attitude to- It was he who drew Eustace Tilley for the ing, “Where am I in this picture?” “Who’s ward a joke was exactly that of a short cover of the very first issue, modeling him on talking?” and even “Is it funny?” Frequently story illustrator’s toward a short sto- a caricature of the Count D’Orsay striking a he didn’t get that far. When he would snort, ry. They illustrated the joke and got pose with a walking stick. The caricature dat- as he often did, “Goddam awful,” “Get it out their money for the drawing. Now this ed from the December 1834 issue of Fraser’s of here!” or “Cut your throat!” that would be practice led to all humorous drawings Magazine and was hardly representative of the signal for whoever was displaying the art being “illustrations.” It also resulted the smart, jazzy image that Ross wanted to to quickly bring up the next specimen. in their being wooden, run of the mill project for his new magazine. But by adding Always he was consumed with believabil- products. The artists never thought the touch of having the fop look disinterest- ity. Once, after scrutinizing for two minutes for themselves and never learned to edly through a monocle at a butterfly, Irvin a possible cover of a Model T wending its think. They weren’t humorous artists; conveyed the essence of The New Yorker— way along a dusty back road, he insisted that they were dull-witted illustrators. A a slightly condescending but consum- the artist draw “better dust.” During World humorous artist is a creative person, mately tasteful arbiter of the War II he was so concerned about an illustrator isn’t. larger world. the details of the torpedo tubes “At the very beginning, of in a drawing of a PT boat that he Much of the credit for this revolution course, Ross was fussing with insisted that the manufacturers in attitude goes to Rea Irvin, the maga- the format of the magazine and approve of the rendering. zine’s first de facto art editor. Large and here Rea Irvin was endlessly His attention to detail extend- good living, eleven years older than Ross, helpful. He drew all the small ed across issues. Upon being in- he was a worldly and charismatic figure. department headings and the formed that from 1936 to 1947 A one-time actor and member of the big ones,” recalled Katharine the magazine had published 20 Players, the private theatrical and literary White. “Rea was especially good cartoons on the theme of count- club on Gramercy Park, Irvin wore a fedo- on covers and on color, and was ing sheep—including five in 1947 ra with a brim so wide that it resembled himself one of the great cover alone—Ross wrote to copy chief a ten-gallon hat. At his affluent peak, he artists. The Eustace Tilley anni- “Cast of Characters: Hobart Weekes, “Drawings of stocked his home in Newtown, Connecticut, versary cover is one of the least Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. sheep jumping fences are not to White, James Thurber, with an assortment of animals, including beautiful of those that he did. and the Golden Age of be run oftener than once in six some horses that he called his “models.” He had studied Chinese art and The New Yorker” months. (We had two in succes- But behind his genial eccentricities lay many of his covers had a kind of By Thomas Vinciguerra sive issues recently, which was the sure eye of a former art editor of Life. Chinese look to them.” W.W. Norton certainly very bad.)” P

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 47 Nieman Notes

“Fighting to Honor a Father’s Association’s Al Neuharth at The Washington Post, is the 1962 Last Wish: To Die at Home.” Innovation in Investigative author of “Becoming Nicole: John Hughes retired in Journalism Award. A The Transformation of an September from Brigham Young correspondent for NPR, Berkes American Family,” published University, where he was a 1993 co-wrote “The Demolition of by Random House in October. professor of international Dori Maynard was Workers’ Comp,” a story that Wayne and Kelly Maines communications. In 1967, posthumously awarded the was part of the award-winning adopted identical twin sons but during his tenure as a foreign 2015 Rich Jaroslovsky Founder “Insult to Injury,” a series, by the time one of them correspondent for The Award by the Online News produced by ProPublica and was 4 he made it known that he Christian Science Monitor, Association for her work NPR, about the country’s identified as a female. he received a Pulitzer Prize for promoting diversity in the vanishing worker protections. International Reporting. media. Maynard, who died in February, was the president Julia Keller’s “Last Ragged 2008 of the Robert C. Maynard Breath,” the fourth in her Bell Dean Miller is now senior 1984 Institute for Journalism Elkins mystery series, was vice president of content Nina Bernstein won a Front Education. published by Minotaur. at the Connecticut Public Page Award for feature writing, Broadcasting Network (CPBN). from the Newswomen’s Club of Prior to joining CPBN, Miller New York. Bernstein, a reporter 1998 2005 was the director of the Center for The New York Times, Howard Berkes is a Amy Ellis Nutt, a Pulitzer- for News Literacy at Stony was recognized for her story, recipient of the Online News Prize winning science writer Brook University’s School of Journalism.

taking on the military- Raúl Peñaranda is a recipient industrial complex of a 2015 Cabot Prize for Molly Sinclair McCartney, NF ’78, finished the book about outstanding reporting on Latin America’s national security policy and defense spending America and the Caribbean. An author, editor, analyst, and that her late husband, James McCartney, NF ’64, started founder of three independent In January 1961, James McCartney, NF ’64, covered President Dwight news outlets in Bolivia, D. Eisenhower’s final White House speech in which he issued his now Peñaranda was recognized for famous warning about the military-industrial complex. being “a voice of cool reason” A Washington-based reporter for the Chicago Daily News, in Bolivia’s polarized political James months later put together a five-part series on the military- environment. The Cabot prizes industrial complex. In the years afterward, as the national security are administered by Columbia correspondent for the Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) newspapers, University’s Graduate School Jim continued to report on this issue and its impact on American of Journalism. foreign policy and defense spending. After my own Nieman fellowship year ended in 1978, I spent 2009 three months traveling around the world before moving to D.C. to Margie Mason is the recipient take a job with The Washington Post. I met Jim when I was living in of a Barlett & Steele Award D.C. and we married in 1984. for Investigative Business After he retired from daily journalism in 1990, he taught courses Journalism, which is bestowed in foreign policy and politics at Georgetown University, wrote a regular newspaper column, and by the Donald W. Reynolds made speeches. It was his speeches questioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq that led some listeners National Center for Business to urge him to write a book explaining the vested interests that have led to endless conflicts in the Journalism at Arizona State years since World War II. He was working on that book when he died in May 2011. University. Mason and At his memorial service in Florida the following month, a friend from the local library where her Associated Press colleagues Jim was a regular speaker asked what was going to happen to Jim’s book. I said I wasn’t sure. received the top award for She urged me to finish it. In 2012 I worked on the book as a public policy scholar at the Wilson their work on “Fish Slavery,” Center. With the help of colleagues, who provided important background information and which exposed labor abuses by encouragement, I completed the manuscript and found an agent who promptly sold it to the Thai fishing industry. St. Martin’s Press. Hundreds of Burmese slaves In October, “America’s War Machine: Vested Interests, Endless Conflicts”—with both of our were freed as a direct result of names on the cover—was published. It raises questions about the billions of dollars the United their reporting. States spends on national security, the use of our military in wars and interventions around the world over the past half-century, and the way the nation responds to terror threats. Tommy Tomlinson is It has been a long hard struggle, but worth all the sweat and all the tears. featured in the 2015 anthology “The Best American Sports

48 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 Finbarr O’Reilly has been sometimes the mind named a 2015 Yale World “ Fellow as part of the borrows from the hand” university’s four-month global How Joe Rodriguez, NF ’98, talked himself into a Harvard leadership development sculpture class and ended up a better reporter initiative. O’Reilly, an author and photojournalist, is one of Back in 1997 I was sailing through my interview when Nieman 16 fellows. Foundation curator Bill Kovach body-slammed me with this question: “Mr. Rodriguez, how do I justify to the directors of the Harvard Corporation giving a Nieman fellowship to someone who wants to 2014 come to Harvard to make sculpture?” Sandra Rodríguez Nieto Actually, sculpture was a secondary part of my study plan. In my is the author of a new book, application, I had written that the psychiatrist Carl Jung sculpted to “The Story of Vicente, Who overcome confusion and broaden his thinking. When I told Kovach, Murdered His Mother, “Sometimes the mind borrows from the hand,” he smiled. (Some His Father, and His Sister: of you may know that Kovach is a pen and ink artist.) Life and Death in Juarez,” I talked my way into a sculpture class at Harvard’s Carpenter which was published by Verso Center for the Visual Arts with this pitch: Sculpture would help me in November. The book, become a better reporter. translated from Spanish into I started badly with rather stunted, tabletop sculptures. One day I was presented with some English, reconstructs in a 4-by-8-foot sheets of cardboard. Keep it simple and make it big, I thought, and look for a metaphor, Capote-like manner a triple not a political statement. Then it came to me—turn flat rectangles into a three-dimensional murder in Mexico. interpretation of dance and sound waves. I cut two curving lines down the length of the cardboard. I stood the panels up, turned one upside down, and glued the three pieces together to share a common spine. I named the 3-foot-high steel sculpture I welded “Contratiempo.” I eventually built 2015 a 450-pound version (above) that now stands in my backyard in San Jose, California. Johanna van Eeden became Back at the San Jose Mercury News after my fellowship, I was given a new job—metro editor in chief of Media24, columnist—which I approached with fresh eyes and feeling for the growing city. The best example which controls the newspaper I can offer of the impact my sculpture class had on me is “San Jose on Foot,” a series of 17 opinion and magazine publishing of columns based on my walks with readers around our unwalkable city. City Hall kept building South African media company expensive palaces downtown, but what residents and workers really wanted was to get outside Naspers, in September. and enjoy the sunshine, playing fields, and parks. Their Internet connections had already rendered the traditional downtown irrelevant. Studying sculpture at Harvard inspired me to keep Farnaz Fassihi, a reporter asking what ordinary people want and need from their city. for The Wall Street Journal, is the recipient of a 2015 Front Page Award presented Writing,” which was published covering human rights and 2012 to female journalists by the in October by Mariner. freedom of the press, Raquel Rutledge is a member Newswomen’s Club of New Tomlinson’s ESPN article Samarasinghe worked with her of the Milwaukee Journal York. Fassihi received the “Precious Memories,” about late husband, editor in chief Sentinel team that received the Marie Colvin Award for Foreign the toll dementia has taken on of Sri Lanka’s Sunday Leader University of Florida Award in Correspondence. former North Carolina Lasantha Wickrematunge, for Investigative Data Journalism basketball coach Dean Smith, more than a decade before at the annual conference of Melody Kramer, a 2015 is one of 21 pieces included in fleeing the country shortly after the Online News Association. Nieman Knight Visiting Fellow, the anthology. he was killed. Their story, “Trouble with is among the 22 recipients of Taxes,” explores the uneven a Knight Foundation $35,000 property assessments across Prototype Fund grant. Kramer, 2010 2011 Wisconsin. a former digital strategist for Sonali Samarasinghe has Helen Branswell has joined NPR, is examining ways to been appointed minister Stat, a new national life broaden the meaning of public counselor at Sri Lanka’s sciences publication from media membership. permanent mission to the Boston Globe Media Partners, 2013 United Nations in New York. as a senior writer covering Chong-ae Lee is now Celeste LeCompte is now She is overseeing committees infectious diseases and public overseeing the Seoul ProPublica’s director of addressing human rights, health. Previously, Branswell Broadcasting System’s Future business development, a new gender issues, and climate was a medical reporter for and Vision Division desk position. Based in New York, change. A lawyer and The Canadian Press, where she and is the team leader for the she reports to president investigative journalist worked for about 30 years. Seoul Digital Forum. Richard Tofel.

NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 49 Sounding

Shepherding dose, even though it was illegal for her to saw the pain they were going through, and have it. She’s sent her sons to rehab and tried to claim it. There’s a real temptation The Message tried to help as best she can. Yet her older to think that we own the stories we tell; Telling small stories son, Ryan, was still using when we met him. that we see the bigger picture as journal- He showed up high at one of our shoots, ists; that we write the endings. But in re- with big impacts slumping in his seat, his eyes glazing over, ality, we’re just connecting dots. And just and we understood why she was so afraid. as we have an obligation to report out the “Your kids are everything to you,” she told facts of a story, I believe we have a respon- us through tears, “and my goal every day is to sibility to be true to our subjects and rep- keep them alive. And so far I’ve succeeded.” resent them fairly. We made multiple trips to Moore, That was never clearer to me than on hen i started out Oklahoma, a town that had twice been the last big story I worked on before leaving in network news, ripped apart by tornadoes. The last time, our NBC to start my Nieman fellowship. I was all about the big, story focused on Plaza Towers Elementary, Five-year-old Jacob Lemay is like all the lead story. There’s the school where seven children had died. other kids in his class—gregarious, fun-lov- a sense in most news- We examined the impact an F5 tornado had ing, and well-spoken. But Jacob is transgen- roomsW that those are the ones that are the on the community a year after it hit. der. His parents, Mimi and Joe, let us into most important, the most meaningful. We don’t usually get a lot of time on the their home, introduced us to Jacob and I’m not a political junkie, but I’ve covered evening news: the Plaza Towers story was his sisters, and helped us get access to his the primaries and conventions in each of two and a half minutes long and 368 words school so that we could see Jacob interact the election cycles I’ve worked as a produc- —that’s including the quotes. We managed with other children. er for ABC and NBC News. I’ve produced to fit in sound from the school’s principal, “Nightly News” and “Today” each gave interviews with Barack Obama and his op- two teachers, the family of a surviving stu- us nearly five minutes for the story. The ponents and with presidents Bill Clinton dent, and the parents of a victim. version we posted online reached 35 mil- and George W. Bush. I went to Haiti to cov- They all had a part in the story, but on the lion people on Facebook—16 million video er the 2010 earthquake, to Egypt to cover day the piece aired, we were told the show views, 200,000 likes and shares, 20,000 the revolution, and to Canada’s Oil Sands was tight on time and asked to make cuts. comments. These are the kind of numbers to cover the story behind the Keystone XL I said no. many of us hate to think about as journal- pipeline controversy. My job has taken me The thing I realized then was: This ists, but they are a testament to the endur- to Madagascar and the Galápagos Islands. wasn’t our story. We walked into their town, ing interest in strong, character-driven, I loved those assignments, but I’ve come narrative features. to realize I love the small stories more, sto- Wonbo Woo During our interview, we asked Jacob’s ries like Hunter Gandee’s. My on-air col- parents why they’d decided to share their league Kate Snow and I met Hunter last year, story so publicly. “If I speak up now and my when the middle-school wrestler decided to voice joins the voices of other people who carry his brother Braden on his back from are telling their stories,” said Mimi, “then their home near Toledo to the University maybe this can change. But if I stay private of Michigan in Ann Arbor, 40 miles away. and quiet as I am tempted to do, by my natu- Braden has cerebral palsy, and Hunter want- ral instinct to protect, then how can I expect ed to raise awareness about the disorder. It the world to change for Jacob?” took them two days, and the walk was tough And in many ways, I think that’s why at times, especially when Braden’s legs start- I do what I do now. I believe that there are ed chafing in the sling his physical therapist people out there who are doing incredible had gotten him to try to help keep him com- things to make a difference in the world. fortable. But the boys made it, supported by And if I can help shepherd their message— friends and family—and taught us all a les- give a platform to their voices, bring light son in strength and resilience. Journalists might be to what they are doing—then I think that’s We also met Denise, a mom in Missouri, the best contribution that I can make. P whose sons—both heroin addicts—lived tempted to think that we with her. She kept a vial of Narcan by her own the stories we tell, Wonbo Woo, a 2016 Nieman Fellow, is a veteran bed, a drug that can reverse an opioid over- but in reality we don’t television news producer SEITZ OPPOSITE: JONATHAN

50 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2015 What’s your great idea to advance journalism? apply for a nieman fellowship at harvard university

A Nieman Fellowship is a transformative learning deadlines: experience open to journalists working in all media • 2016–2017 International Nieman Fellowships: in every country. Fellows study with some of the Dec. 1, 2015 world’s foremost scholars, participate in Nieman seminars with leading thinkers, and collaborate with • 2016–2017 U.S. Nieman Fellowships: peers on projects designed to enhance journalism. Jan. 31, 2016

Each year, the Nieman Foundation awards paid Learn more: nieman.harvard.edu/fellowships fellowships to 24 journalists who spend two semesters at Harvard. A Nieman lasts a year A Nieman lasts a lifetime Journalists and other professionals working in positions that support journalism are also welcome to apply for one of the foundation’s short-term Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowships during the next application period in 2016. FALL 2015 VOL. 69 NO. 4 The Nİeman Foundatİon for Journalİsm TO PROMOTE AND Harvard Unİversİty ELEVATE THE STANDARDS One Francİs Avenue OF JOURNALISM Cambrİdge, Massachusetts 02138