When he started climbing the corporate ladder, Gil Schwartz also needed an outlet for the opinions he couldn’t suppress. But as a self-described “peon,” he also didn’t want to take the risk of writing under his own name. In 1983, as Stanley Bing, he landed a column in Esquire magazine, taking shots at the laughable ways of the business world. Since then, he has also written for newspapers, a cigar magazine, Seventeen and, most recently Fortune, current home of Bing’s monthly business column. Bing has also authored numerous top-selling books. The latest, Rome, Inc. is a serious-minded sendup of “the first multinational corporation.”

Schwartz also has also risen to professional heights in his “real” life as a corporate henchman, becoming the top spokesman for CBS. His day of reckoning came in 1992, when he appeared without disguise as Bing on Good Morning America, then again in early 1996, when The New York Times wrote a story about him. “Can the person who must put the shine back on the Tiffany network continue to paint a mustache on the rest of corporate America?” reporter Mark Landler asked.

We got ahold of Schwartz, treated him to lunch at a choice table he procured, then made him and Bing sit down for an e-mail Q&A about what it’s like to be corporate cog by day, sharpshooting business humorist by night, weekends and every other spare moment.

Mediabistro: What does writing under a pen name do for you that writing under your own name doesn’t?

Schwartz/Bing: Well, for a long while I was hidden completely, and it was really terrific. When I was a kid, I always loved stuff about guys with secret identities. Zorro in particular. Big nerd by day. Guy in a silky black cape at night, flying through windows, saving people, being sort of dangerous and legendary. This was as close as I could get to that. I was younger, and didn’t understand at that time how splendid senior management generally is. I settled scores. I reported on people’s weirdness without endangering them or betraying them in any way. Nobody knew who I was. People used to send me my own column with a little note at the top saying, “I think you’ll enjoy this. It sounds like you.” I’d send it back to them with another buckslip on top that said, “Stop bothering me with this crap.”

Mediabistro: If you had to start over again, would you do it the same way? Would you recommend writers starting out who also may be in some other world professionally use a penname?

Schwartz/Bing: It depends on how you feel about getting credit for things. I used to be an actor. I’m comfortable playing a role and accepting recognition within that role. Outside that role, I’m as dull as toast. But when I put on the Bing skin, it feels a little different. Not totally. I don’t, like, drool and grow big bushy eyebrows like Andy Rooney or anything. I just tip about 18 percent to one side and see a bit differently, and write that way, too. I don’t know if I’d have gone this route if I hadn’t started out as a mole within the corporate government, but once Bing popped out he sort of had a life of his own that was a nice addition to my own. He does better at parties, for instance, and almost never disgraces himself with certain forms of outlandish behavior as I sometimes do.

Mediabistro: Even with a pen name, why did you want to take the risk? Why not keep your ideas about business to yourself, and not risk losing your job?

Schwartz/Bing: They say you’re supposed to write about what you know. I don’t know anything. So I write about business. Actually, I take that back. I don’t really write about business. I write about organizations and how they work on people. I write about festering, bleeding, suffering humanity, put to work in stultifying social structures that attempt to squeeze the life out of them and almost never succeed. I write about madness and struggle and triumph in a constricted, formalistic environment that brings both the best and worst out of people. My stuff is as much about business as Moby Dick was about whales. Okay, it was partly about whales. But there was other stuff in there too.

Mediabistro: You’re not just in the business world, you’re a spokesman for crying out loud. That must get a little dicey at times.

Schwartz/Bing: I really see no reason to comment on that at this time.

Mediabistro: Rome Inc.: How does it apply to your life as a writer? Have you had a lot of pokes in the eye with a stick? Are you the type to poke folks in the eye?

Schwartz/Bing: Look. We’re not Greece. We’re not the British Empire. But there’s a lot, if we look at Rome in a squinty way, that we can recognize about that particular corporate culture. They were very competitive. They liked to eat and drink and have kinky sex all over the place. They liked to dominate their opponents and competitors, and their world. They killed people without compunction when they had to. And in the end they over-extended the capabilities of their management and their empire. They lived in a much different time than we do, so we’re not really permitted, in a business meeting when somebody pisses us off, to reach out and pluck out their eyeball the way Augustus was said to have done on a bad day. We can, however, take away their expense account. And that’s almost as bad, you know, prices at Michael’s being what they are.

Mediabistro: You may separate Bing and Schwartz, but at this point can you expect other people to? When Bing writes in Rome Inc. about the Caligula-like behavior of the guys “on the 23rd floor,” for example, don’t you think some of the guys in Schwartz’ office building might wonder for just a moment if he’s talking about them?

Schwartz/Bing: I specifically chose the 23rd Floor because we don’t have anybody on it. So I don’t think anybody’s going to be worried.

Mediabistro: How do you manage to juggle a real career (as Gil) and a real career (as Bing)? Does it ever become difficult to juggle the two? Ever forget who’s talking, what event, etc?

Schwartz/Bing: Sometimes we get pretty tired of each other. Schwartz may want to go to sleep, but Bing has to write a column. Bing may want to work on a book that’s three months overdue, while Schwartz has to attend an industry event hosted by Henry Schleiff. So that’s not easy. Other than that, no, I’m not a complete madman yet. I can tell Bing from Schwartz for the most part, I think. Bing’s the one with the washboard stomach.

Mediabistro: How was it being “outed”? How did it feel? Didn’t you expect it? Are you glad for it now? Is it actually a relief?

Schwartz/Bing: I was outed because blabbermouth Randall Rothenberg, who likes to call himself “R2” and is now a consultant someplace, which is fitting, was gassing around at drinks with a reporter and felt it was appropriate for him to trade on inside poop he acquired while working a Esquire, where I used to write before I graduated to Fortune. So a piece was written in the Times on a Monday in January 1996 that blew my cover and inquired whether it was appropriate for me to be Bing and Bing to be me and all that censorious jazz.

My chairman at the time, Michael Jordan, had a satisfying reaction. He referred the call to his spokesman, which was me. John Huey (now Time Inc. editor-in-chief) had a hilarious comment for the record. When asked if I had violated the PR standard of ethics, he remarked that he didn’t know there was one. I’d been outed internally a while before, so very few insiders were shocked, maybe that made things easier. Since then, I find it kind of annoying. Like, every review, everything written about me has to mention Schwartz. When Tony Curtis appeared in Spartacus, did they reveal that it was really Bernie Schwartz in the little leather skirt? Did George Orwell get a lot of questions about Eric Blair and his career at the BBC? I took a pseudonym for a reason, for God’s sake.

Mediabistro: You said everyone’s being nice about your life as Bing. What about all the eye-pokers in the biz you told us about?

Schwartz/Bing: What. Are you trying to make trouble for me?

Mediabistro: Any advice for writers (or publicists, or ad execs) who might be pseudonymously writing on the side? Any words of warning, consolation or encouragement? Should they tell the boss?

Schawartz/Bing: Sure. Your pseudonym is a delicate, precious fellow. He’s hiding because he wants to. He’s Boo Radley, secreting himself in the basement of your ramshackle consciousness. Don’t haul him out into the light of day! He may die of exposure!

Mediabistro: Do you hear from folks asking for advice? Do you think there are many doing this?

Schwartz/Bing: I think there are a lot of people with plays, screenplays, novels in their desk drawers. I don’t want to give any of them any advice. I don’t need the competition.

Mediabistro: Is it even possible these days to remain anonymous?

Schwartz/Bing: Sure. Try writing literary fiction for a male demographic.

Dorian Benkoil is the editorial director of mediabistro.com

Nicholas Lemann, the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, came under fire recently for cutting funding to CJR Daily, the online arm of the Columbia Journalism Review, during which two editors quit in protest. The move, and Lemann’s thoughts on Internet journalism, even prompted some bloggers to dub Lemann the “Pope of MSM” (short for “mainstream media”). We recently spoke with Lemann (pronouced “like the fruit” lemon, he notes) about the story behind the cuts, News21 — a cornerstone of a three-year, $6 million initiative led by five universities, including Columbia, in which 44 journalism students dove into long-term investigative projects — and what it’s like being a J-school dean in the digital age.

mediabistro.com: What is your assessment of News21 so far?

Lemann: It has a lot of moving parts, so logistically it was big, big challenge. My hope is now that we’ve done it once, the next time it will be easier. The students really got a lot out of it, and all of the schools involved created something that’s not duplicative of what’s already out there. That’s a pretty big achievement.

mb: What was the biggest challenge?

Lemann: News21 is very expensive. It’s paid for by foundations. As long as the money’s available, we can execute new and valuable journalism. I would love to do it forever. My biggest concern is to come up with a financing model to keep this going.

mb: Does News21’s intensive deep focus imply there’s been a failure by the mainstream media to do to the same?

Lemann: No. I think the New York Times has 1,200 people in its newsroom. If you went to [Times executive editor] Bill Keller and said, ‘Bill, I’ve got a fabulous idea, but in order to pursue it, you need to free up 40 reporters and have those 40 reporters work as a team.’ He’s not going to do that. He can’t. No Times editor in the history of the paper has been able to do that, and they will never be able to. If we can go to a news organization and mount a small army of reporters for a summer, and can go after a very labor-intensive project, that’s a very powerful thing. No news organization can do that on their own. And we they didn’t have to [simply] trust us — we gave them the finished product, fully-documented.

mb: Is the “citizen journalism” movement valid? Does the so-called wisdom of crowds apply to journalism?

Lemann: Of course. The distinction I’m trying to hold up here is reporting. Citizen journalism does absolutely no harm and is a very helpful add-on. The only objection I have is [the perception that] it can replace full-time reporters, which you see out there a lot on the blogs. It’s additive. The Times-Picayune is possibly the greatest example of [citizen journalism utilized by newspapers]. You don’t have to make a zero sum decision. What I would caution against is defunding in news organizations because citizen journalism can do the same thing or fill the gap. It’s not about the Web. News21 was a project that was big on the Web, and we’re always increasing our commitment to it. What we were doing is Web reporting by full time reporters who know what they’re doing. But reporting shouldn’t get lost as we contemplate the wonderful potential of the Web. A person sitting at home performs a very different journalistic function than a person who is out traveling around with a notebook interviewing people.

This whole thing about gatekeepers in mainstream media — my nickname in the blogosphere is ‘The Pope of MSM’ — I don’t buy it. The important distinction is this: Do you or don’t you do good reporting? The whole perception that mainstream media and what is taught in journalism schools has something to do with this exclusion of the discourse — I just don’t buy that.

mb: Are you training people to be “real journalists” who can support themselves?

Lemann: What I tell students is, ‘If you are truly committed, I can promise you can spend your life doing reporting.’ But, if you say, ‘What exact form am I going to be doing it in 10 years?,’ I don’t know. The industry is changing very quickly. When this school became a graduate school in 1934, the dean could get up and pretty confidently say, ‘Kids, you are going to be newspaper reporters, some of you promoted to editors, in New York City.’ I like to think of journalism as a more portable set of skills. Lots and lots of our grads are self-employed. We just teach you the skills. We don’t try to teach you in a way that restricts you to one thing.

mb: What about graduates who might do something like the reporter who raised his own money from readers to go to Iraq and report?

Lemann: I have no problem with that. Lots of our students do things like that when they first get out and don’t have the annoying things us middle-aged people have like mortgages and kids. They eventually gravitate toward traditional employment if they can get it.

mb: Do you teach students how to market themselves as freelancers? Business school trains people to be self-supporting entrepreneurs. Can you see J-school doing the same thing? Or is assumption that they’re still J-school people?

Lemann: We are starting an executive training program in a few months that will get into some of that stuff. But if you come here as a J-school student, you’re not going to get courses in marketing. It’s just not part of the curriculum at this point.

mb: You’ve had some very desirable journalism jobs, and been at what some would call the pinnacle of magazine journalism — Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, and at The New Yorker, among others. Today you’re an administrator, with all the challenges that implies. Do you miss being a full-time writer, getting the chance to be completely absorbed in a piece you’re doing and not have a million administrative distractions?

Lemann: I like to call myself an educator, and not an administrator. I’ve had a very lucky career. I was a full-time magazine writer when I was 17. I’m 52. Part of the genesis of all of this was when I was in my late 40s. I thought that if I want to do something different in my life, I should do it now. But I intend to go back. Ex-deans tend to go back to Columbia as faculty members who have very active publishing careers.

mb: What have you learned about yourself in doing this?

Lemann: The default position of journalists tends to underappreciate the difficulty of operating in institutional roles. When I started covering politics, I found myself thinking not ‘These people are all idiots,’ but rather, ‘This is really hard.’ I have a healthy respect for what they do. I’ve been budged off that attitude. I still think being a writer is harder, but this is hard too. As a writer you are more limited, leading a Unabomber-like life.

mb: What is the Columbia Journalism School’s main purpose?

Lemann: That’s easy. We take the 200-300 best people we can get in the world, teach them the richest, most powerful journalism and find them the best jobs we can, and have a powerful influence on journalism in the aggregate. We would never tell a student who says ‘I want to be self-employed’ they couldn’t do that. But as a matter of honesty, 95 percent of the students, maybe 85 percent, say ‘I want a job at the New York Times.’ And that’s partly because of the debt they undertake by coming here. And a lot of our students can’t get that position they desire on the coasts, so we often encourage them to go to the sticks. It’s a decision that comes up all the time.

mb: What is your daily media consumption like?

Lemann: Nothing super interesting. I read the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal as a sort of baseline experience. I read Slate faithfully. I’m addicted to Romenesko…

mb: And mediabistro, of course.

Lemann: And mediabistro, of course. I look at Gawker, Google News, some political sites. I’m in no way comprehensive with what I read, just because of the limited time I have.

mb: Are there any restrictions to students in terms of blogging?

Lemann: We started the Columbia Journalist, in response to students wanting it. And we said you have two options: you can start it on your room, go off campus, rent a room, whatever, with total editorial freedom. Or we can start a school site that the famous gatekeeper phenomenon applies. And they wanted that.

mb: Why?

Lemann: They wanted something that would maximize their chances at a traditional journalism job, which they thought a school-hosted site would be.

mb: You took a lot of criticism recently for cutting the budget of the CJR Daily. What do you say to that?

Lemann: I would love not to have done so. CJR Daily didn’t have a staffed Web site when I came in. I had the opportunity to start a Web site called the Campaign Desk to monitor press coverage of the campaign, which was staffed. My not-so-hidden agenda was to use that to start a permanent, staffed Web site. I sat down with [CJR Daily managing editor] Steve Lovelady and said I want to start this site, but I gotta be honest, I need to find the funding for it. Let’s do this for a year, I have a couple funding prospects, but if we can’t find the money we’re going to have to cut the budget. He understood that. We have five people producing content for CJR Daily — I believe that’s more people than the Washington Post has producing original copy for their web site. I think we’re still pretty committed, but we couldn’t stay committed at the level we were at. Steve had the argument to de-fund the print side, based on the sort of cosmic argument you hear from Web people that print is dying. But I just didn’t want to do that.

And it wasn’t that that I couldn’t keep a newsroom of 8 going and replace it with a newsroom of 5 — we’re having trouble keeping a newsroom of 5 going. We’re going to start running Web advertising soon, but the estimates I see are in the low six-figures. And the 8 person staff was up around $650,000 editorial cost. So if you give me the money I’ll bring the people back.

mb: Are you saying you might have to cut back further?

Lemann: Yes, absolutely yes. We have a funding stream that will last for about two years; after that, I can’t promise anything.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview contains excerpts, and has been edited for clarity.]

Candy Crowley began her career as a gopher at WASH-FM in Washington, and has risen all the way to senior political correspondent at CNN. Along the road, she’s worked everywhere from UPI and Mutual Broadcasting to the AP and NBC. Not bad for someone who’s a writer at heart and only got into the TV business because it “fulfilled the need to have a paycheck.” TVNewser’s Brian Stelter caught up with Crowley to ask about her career.

Name: Candy Crowley
Position: Senior political correspondent, CNN
Company: Turner
Education: Randolph-Macon Women’s College
Hometown: born in Michigan, raised in St. Louis

Did you always want to be a journalist?
I always wanted to be a writer. But the problem with being a writer is, unless you’ve written your first book, they don’t pay you a whole lot to sit at your house and write. So this fulfilled the need to have a paycheck. And since then I’ve grown to love journalism.

But the first motivation was the motivation to write.
Well I always liked history papers more than I liked English essays. I was always driven toward true things, as opposed to fiction.

How’d you get your foot in the door?
My first job was at WASH-FM when it was a MetroMedia station in Washington. I just worked this minimum wage split shift thing. Basic gopher work, calling around to find out what happened the night before.

I went from there to AP, but I had an interim with UPI for about six minutes. You work with the wires when you’re a local station. It’s easy to get to know those people. So I had accepted a job at UPI, and then I quickly got a job with AP.

Then I went from AP to Mutual Broadcasting. And then I went from Mutual back to AP. And I had children. Then I went from AP to NBC. And then to CNN.

Is there a lesson in that pattern?
You know how people tell you it’s ‘right place right time?’ It’s true. I think there are a lot of talented journalists out there who are probably far better than I am. I just happened to be sitting there when the opening came. There’s a lot of that to it. Of course, you have to take advantage of the openings.

When I think back, I think ‘wow – that was a stroke of luck.’

Your title is “senior political correspondent.” What’s your specialty, your niche?
Politics sounds so boring, and I think people roll their eyes when you say ‘I cover politics.’ So what do I cover? [She pauses and thinks for a moment.]

It’s great people-watching. And that’s the only way I can really describe it. Sometimes I’ll take the 20,000-foot view. Or look at how the ’08 people are reacting to the State of the Union. Or what’s at stake in a certain bill. I’m always looking at things with an eye to the next election.

Take me through a typical week, if one exists.
There’s really not a typical week, which is the best part of it. I love the travel. I love that the ’08 election has started so early, because it gets me out and gets me going.

In an election year, there’s a lot of being away from home. This is sort of an election year, even though this isn’t THE election year. So there’s travel several times a month. So in that week, it’s airports – Cleveland, Des Moines, Columbus, Nashua.

When I’m home for the week, sometimes there are things coming up that I know will be a story, so there are things I’ll work on. Like ahead of the State of the Union –- what’s the political dynamic as Bush gives his speech?

Other times the story will come to you – someone will literally run into your office and say something like ‘John Kerry’s not running in ’08.’

And then you try to pick up a little news. You make as many phone calls as you can in the morning to pick up what’s out there and generate a little news.

What kind of story do you find most satisfying?
The ones I got. The ones that didn’t come and drop in my lap, but that I got. That’s a high.

Can you think of an example?
The night of the 2000 election returns. I was standing in very cold, rainy Austin, Texas, and the phone rang for my producer. He said ‘What? What? I’m going to hand the phone to her.’ It’s a very good source in the Bush camp who says, ‘Al Gore just called to retract his concession.’

There was this JumboTron behind us, showing news coverage to the crowd. It’s just a really high moment, because as I reported the news, I could hear myself echoing in the background and the crowd gasping. It was a double whammy.

What is it about television that attracts you to the medium?
When the TV is done right – when the pictures and the words are working with each other – for impact there’s nothing like it. There really isn’t. It’s such a high when something works well in television, because it can be so powerful.

The beauty of working in print or working in radio is that it’s a solo endeavor. In TV it’s a team effort.

Would you consider going back to print?
Well we write stories for dot com and do podcasts, integrating our platforms as they say. In the last campaign I blogged for friends and family, which was really fun. I sent all my jokes and snide remarks to my family and friends without that showing up in public. It would be hard to go back, but I could see myself in print again at some point.

Why would it be hard?
Because the medium of TV is so endlessly fascinating to me. Now they’ve got CNN Pipeline, and it’s all coming together in this one big thing. It’s fascinating to me to watch this industry progress, and get into all these kind of things that I never would have dreamed of when I was at WASH-FM cleaning carts.

Who do you look up to?
One of my all-time favorites is Tom Brokaw. I think he is terrific. Peter Jennings, same thing. I just thought they were consummate reporters and anchors. In terms of reporters, Lord, I can’t start, because there are a lot of them out there that are really good, that are poets in their own light, and are really good reporters.

And you’re in that category now, too.
I’ve never tried to stand out or make a name for myself. I always just wanted to do the story. If you do stand out and make a name for yourself, that’s great. But I don’t know anybody – well, yeah, I do – most people I know are in this because they love to find things out. They love to report, they love to tell things, they love to relay things to people. I’m consistently startled when people come up to me.

Still?
Yeah, I still am. It’s just me walking through the airport. I don’t think ‘Wow, this is Candy Crowley walking through the airport.’ It’s hard to see yourself as anything other than the mom or the friend, because that’s who you really are.

Brian Stelter is the editor of TVNewser, mediabistro.com’s blog that brings readers the “news on the news.”

To call Steven Heller the most widely-published design writer and editor on the planet would still be selling the man short. True, he is a regular contributor to more than a dozen visual culture magazines like Eye and Print. Yes, he’s the editor of AIGA’s authoritative graphic design journal VOICE. And he has authored more than 100 books about design, illustration, and photography; he guesses his most recent, Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits, to be about #105. For nine years he has also had a rather important role at the School of Visual Arts, where he co-founded and is the co-chair of the highly influential MFA Designer as Author program. But all of this has been accomplished, mind you, while holding down a full-time job as art director at The New York Times for the past 33 years, currently as a Senior Art Director.

Heller has recently taken a sabbatical from the Times to work on a book on the history of Totalitarian graphics campaigns and a biography of the designer Alvin Lustig. He conducted a spirited email rally with UnBeige editor Alissa Walker about great interviews, celebrity designers, and why, honestly, he can’t wait to go back to work.

Name: Steven Heller
Position: Senior Art Director, New York Times; Co-chair, MFA Designer as Author Program, School of Visual Arts, New York; and editor, VOICE: AIGA Journal of Design
Publications: Writes for more than a dozen magazines on a regular basis, author of more than 100 books.
Favorite writing assignments: Designer and illustrator obituaries for the New York Times
Website: www.hellerbooks.com
Education: NYU (two years), SVA (six months)
Hometown: New York City
First job: New York Free Press (as young adult), Bergdorf Goodman ad dept (at 12 years old)
Last 3 jobs: New York Times for 33 years
Birthdate: 7-7-50
Marital status: married
Favorite TV show: The Twilight Zone and The Simpsons
Last book read: Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Power, by Lutz Koepnick, about Hitler as an artist and art patron.
Most interesting media story right now: Bush’s New Folly, otherwise known as strategy.
Guilty pleasure: Flea marketing

I’m so nervous about asking you questions that I feel like I’m gonna puke. Do you ever get nervous interviewing people anymore?
I don’t get nervous, unless I have no interest in the person I’m interviewing, and then I worry about sounding stupid out of malaise. You know, it’s like being a guest at friend’s son’s bar mitzvah and having to talk to someone’s boring uncle. Every so often, but not always, I’m stuck interviewing Uncle Mo.

Well, every time I’ve seen you interview someone, they always say, “Wow, that’s a really good question.” How does one ask good questions?
Well, it helps to ask questions that people want to answer. You always can tell when someone has been asked the question a million times before. Their eyes roll and they take deep, sighing breaths, and make it seem like you’re a know-nothing. So, the more insightful the question — which usually comes from your own basic interest in the subject — the better. Then there are the questions designed to unhinge the interviewee. I don’t do that a lot, but sometimes I want to get a “reaction” because that’s what will make for a good read or listen.

What about your interviewing techniques, if you can divulge them? Do you ever use an instrument to record and/or transcribe?
For years I would use my trusty cassette player — usually face to face, but sometimes over the phone with my trusty suction cup — until one day I did a great interview with the illustrator James McMullan and when I returned home, nada. Nothing recorded. Embarrassed, I had to ask him to do it all over again, and of course it wasn’t as spontaneous. This time I brought two machines and used them both. Good thing too, because one of them actually — believe it or not — didn’t work. After the interview, rather than listen to the recording, I sent the tapes to my trusty transcriber — a jazz geek, who was the fastest transcriber in the east. Now I use a digital recorder.

As for techniques, no big secret, when I talk to a subject I start with simple questions then work my way up to the biggies. Sometimes the subjects are effusive, other times they are not. The biggest pain, so to speak, is editing. If it is a long Q & A I always send the edited script back to the subject. Invariably, they try to rewrite it. I remember Maurice Sendak totally rewrote his one time. But the rule is they can fix grammar and punctuation; even rewrite a sentence or more to make the voice smoother, but no deep alterations to the content.

How many interviews do you think you’ve done in your career? Who was your favorite?
Geez, I have done many hundreds, maybe more. I don’t even remember how I started. I’ve enjoyed a lot of them for different reasons — I like getting the skinny on something I didn’t know, or finding I have surprisingly common interests with a subject, and we become kinda like friends. I’m not Barbara Walters so I can’t say I’ve interviewed Mel Gibson, Britney, A-Rod, K-Fed, or Henry K (although I wish, some day I could interview Mel Brooks).

My subjects are artists, designers, and writers — people who don’t have to do a PR thing for my benefit. My favorite, however, was a celeb: Hugh Hefner, simply because he was such a figure in my ill-begot youth. I also loved interviewing Bob Downey Sr., a great filmmaker, whose Putney Swope was such an influential picture when I was a teen. But I’ve enjoyed interviews — or rather talks — with scores of people from David Levine to Shepard Fairey.

Funny you mention celebrities, since this is something that’s come up of late — the question being if graphic designers could and should ever be considered celebrities. Should they be?
Frankly, the word celebrity is too charged. A celebrity suggests hype. Should graphic designers be hyped? No. Anything hyped outlives its usefulness pretty quick. Designers should be seen and maybe heard on occasion, but not elevated above their station unless they do more than what they do as mere graphic designers.

“Then there are the questions designed to unhinge the interviewee. I don’t do that a lot, but sometimes I want to get a ‘reaction’ because that’s what will make for a good read or listen.”

That said, there are some graphic designers who are more celebrated (which is a verb and not exactly the same as the noun celebrity) than others because they do great work, and that’s as it should be. If the fame comes from having a savvy PR person — like a couple I know — then, even if the designer’s work is great, I think ego has gotten the upper hand. So, you might ask, do I interview designers because they are celebrities? The answer is I try to interview those who I believe have something to impart beyond the artifacts they produce — those who think and speak well about craft or about the culture that influences their craft. Interviews certainly contribute to the cult of celebrity you’re asking about, but my intent is not to perpetuate it. Rather I think there are many people in our field who are worth “knowing,” either personally or through an interview.

Well, I think people get all riled up about it because they think having design celebrities is the only way design will ever be understood by an audience larger than those who practice it. Which is fed by this design awareness movement that we’re currently seeing, where design and designers are being featured in the mainstream media more than ever.
Celebrity certainly draws attention to the graphic designer, but not necessarily to design as a profession. However, designers who create consumables, as opposed to packages for consumables, are more well-publicized to the public at large. Arguably Michael Graves became more famous among the great mass for his teapot than his architecture, likewise Philippe Starck got high visibility for his products. Mainstream media — lifestyle and shelter magazines and supplements — usually focus on design that sells in the marketplace, not the esoteric stuff, unless the newly celebrated designer also does experimental stuff and is championed by some pundit.

If being known to others helps designers gain stature in business or government, that’s great. I know that Paula Scher is on the Art Commission of the City of New York and that’s wonderful because her position will have important ramifications on the way art and design is addressed on an official level in the city.

And you currently co-chair a new MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, called Designer As Author, which, to me, represents the future of this whole celebrity designer debate. Your students are encouraged to become design entrepreneurs, right?
We’re in our ninth year — and I run it with co-chair Lita Talarico. The Designer as Author program is about creating ideas that have some relevance to the culture and the market (I know that sounds like a pat response), but it’s much less about forging celebrity than about creating value. Some of our students have achieved a bit of positive buzz, but that’s not the goal. We train the students, if that’s the right word (maybe encourage is better) to think and do for themselves and create a narrative that underscores a product that builds upon their story. I guess more and more designers will become entrepreneurs simply because the tools are at their disposal — and speaking of disposal, this culture encourages disposability. So we encourage students to make products that have long-term results. Why shouldn’t designers invent and discover like all them other inventors and discoverers out there? We have ingenuity, too, don’t we?

So you do consider yourself a designer, then. That was actually one of my questions. I always thought of you as design’s biggest fan; more of a social commentator. You don’t have any formal design training, and as I recall, prior to getting your job as an art director at The New York Times your professional experience mostly consisted of art directing a few sex reviews — when you were 17! How in the world did you land that gig? Were you actually qualified?
I just finished writing a piece for Eye about how, because we are not a licensed profession, we can call ourselves anything we choose. You ask if I am a designer? I am! Am I a good designer? I was! What changed? I reached the end of my skill set as a designer and became an art director, which meant I collaborated with others to get (hopefully) fantastic results. Without schooling — learning on my own — I could not go further as a designer. Maybe even with an education I would not have gone much further either. Yet I have designed many things, from books and magazines to posters and leaflets — even a film title sequence. I used to love designing letterheads (which are in my prepubescent portfolio) and I even designed an entire typeface called Klaus Bubala Bold (because only the K U and B were interesting).

Before being hired at The New York Times Op-Ed page in 1974 I was designer/art director for various underground newspapers, publisher/art director of a couple of small underground sex papers, art director/designer for Screw, as well as Evergreen Review, the Irish Arts Center, and a bunch of other things. Was I qualified to be the art director of The New York Times Op-Ed page? Sure, or the great Louis Silverstein wouldn’t have hired me, and the stunning Ruth Ansel wouldn’t have recommended me. Am I a great typographer? Not really, and I got worse over time not better. But I know enough to critique great (and bad) typography, and I’ve written or edited a bunch of books on type. I’m not so much a fan as a wishful thinker. I always wished that by associating myself with great designers something would rub off. I still bask in the talents of designers like Louise Fili and illustrators like Christoph Neimann. I get charged every time designers like Seymour Chwast, James Victore, Hans Dieter Reichert, Helene Silverman, and Mirko Ilic, “interpret” what I do editorially, or when an illustrator like Henrik Drescher or Mark Sumers takes my brief and makes imagistic magic. Yeah, I guess I am a fan. Yahooooo.

Ha — you snuck the incredible Louise Fili in there as just another designer you’re basking in the talents of, but I bet some people don’t know she’s your wife. (No wonder you’re such a fan!) You recently collaborated with her on your most recent book, Stylepedia, which you guessed is about your 105th book. You’re certainly the most prolific voice for design and its environs, but it’s a pretty small space, and 105 books is a lot. Do you worry you’re too prolific, to the point where you might be dominating this niche market?
Certain friends (I think they’re friends) have cautioned me against being too prolific lest I devalue myself or make others resentful. I’ve heard it so many times I should have a prepared answer. But I must say I’m always dumbfounded. While I don’t think everything I do is as good as it might be (or as good as someone else might do), I believe that I have something useful to contribute to our “niche.” But more important, at least for me, I have this boundless curiosity that translates into books and articles. Have I over-saturated the “niche?” I don’t know. Probably no more than Rick Poynor, who is just as ubiquitous, or Ellen Lupton, who is just as prodigious. We each have our respective strengths (and weaknesses) that contribute to the design “discourse.” Michael Bierut is currently on a roll with his excellent writings for Design Observer and soon a couple of authored books will be out. I’m sure there are some people who might say I’m monopolizing the stage, but I’d counter that I’ve made a lot of stages for others. What’s more, by doing a book on, say, Paul Rand, I haven’t stopped others from doing so. And I wager that few people would have wanted to do the book I produced many years back called Not Tonight Dear, I Have a Haddock.

You’re right, probably not — but I’d definitely like to read that. You’re also right about how you’ve created stages for other design writers — you’ve helped bring design criticism, for example, into somewhat of a golden age. But my only question is when? You’ve managed this freelance career on top of a full time job for 30 years, you’re co-chair of this MFA program, you answer emails lightning-fast and I’m pretty sure you have a life, too…can you divulge for freelance writers some of your Steven Heller time management secrets?
I don’t think it’s a matter of superb time management as much as filling up time. Without getting Freudian or Jungian or Marxian (Groucho that is), I make up for my deficiencies by appearing to be prolific. Everyone works at their own rhythms, which, if we’re lucky, is in sync with our interests and curiosities. You at UnBeige post six items a day — and you probably do a lot of legwork to do that — for some that’s a tremendous amount of work. But it’s your job, and your passion. I simply do what turns me on (and turns off some of the demons and voices raging in my head). I also like being able to tally up accomplishments, and these come in waves. This year my wave is establishing new MFA programs at the School of Visual Arts, like the brand new MFA in Design Criticism (to be chaired by Alice Twemlow) and a few others that are top secret at the moment. Next year, maybe it will be knitting large scarves.

Well, you’ve just gone on sabbatical from The New York Times so what else are you going to do with all this free time?
I wish it were free, but I’m paying for it. The Times has been my family, and I’ve ostensibly left home (although I still write for the paper). I’m doing more at the School of Visual Arts, and working on my books, but I pulled up the anchor in my life. You know how they say the “holidays” are always a stressful and depressing time. Well, I never ever used to think so. I’ve loved New York at Christmas time since I was a wee lad. This year was my first “academic holiday.” The school was closed and I had no office to go to. I was adrift. Sure, I finished some articles, read, went to a lot of exhibits, visited a few landmarks, rendezvoused with some people, took a meeting or two, but felt disturbingly unproductive. A friend asked if I had a good vacation. My response was it felt more like a lock out (reminiscent of when the Times went on strike two decades ago, and I was literally “locked out” of the office). I apologize if I am sucking the air out of the room with self-pity, since there is no real reason to be pitiful. Yet to be productive (and therefore feel jolly) the conditions must be right.

“Steven Heller wanders the streets of New York, searching for missing jolly, adrift, making keen observations and sending me photos of brilliant scaffolding.” You know what? You need a blog!
Alissa, lest I be a curmudgeonly heretic I must say in jolly fashion, there are too many blogs. Too many opinions, observations, commentaries, drivel-ings (oops, my prejudices are showing). It’s not that I don’t drivel myself, but a blog would be an open invitation to unrestricted, unedited, and unwanted me. I’d much rather pass a few choice observations to you from time to time. The fact is, and forgive me for saying it, the design field should be about making great work (and smart thoughts, and at times insightful words); design first and foremost is about making functional (often beautiful) objects that make a difference to others’ lives — don’t you think?

You know, Steve, that’s a really good question.

Matt Welch has spent nearly two decades avoiding newsrooms of the so-called main stream media, only to position himself right in the middle of it, as Assistant Opinion Editor at the Los Angeles Times. He started his career by spending eight years in Central Europe, where he co-founded the region’s first post-communist English-language newspaper, worked as UPI’s Slovakia correspondent, and managed a business journal in Budapest. Back in the U.S., he’s freelanced for the Columbia Journalism Review, L.A. Daily News, Orange County Register, L.A. Weekly, ESPN.com, Salon, Wired News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Hardball Times, AlterNet, The Walrus, The Daily Star of Beirut, and dozens of other publications, on topics ranging from media to international affairs to all things California to baseball. From July 2002 to October 2004, he wrote a regular “Letter from California” column for the Review section of Canada’s National Post newspaper.

Welch joined Reason, the culture/politics magazine (and website) for “Free Minds, Free Markets.” He was Associate Editor (October 2004-January 2006), regular media columnist (April 2004-April 2006, according to the magic of magazine lead times); pinch-hitting writer/editor when other staffers were on book sabbaticals (stints in 2003 and 2004); freelance contributor since late 2001, and longtime contributor to the award-winning Hit & Run weblog.

At Reason, Welch was encouraged to freelance for other publications, and after writing a half-dozen columns for the LA Times, he met Andres Martinez. Martinez offered him a three-month “visiting fellowship” to sit on the editorial board. “Not long after, they described a new position that didn’t yet exist, where I’d sit on the board & write editorials, but also edit the things, and also write the occasional op-ed, and also solicit & edit op-eds,” Welch says.

Welch also maintains his personal blog, and was one of the first to write about blogging back in 1999 for the Online Journalism Review, entitled “What Do You Tell Your Boss?” Since his tenure at the LA Times, the paper has launched a number of blogs with more on the way.

Welch has avoided the labels of conservative, liberal, libertarian, commie-pinko, thus far in his career. As an editor in the Opinion section of one the country’s largest newspapers, he’ s well positioned to piss off all sides, equally. He emailed with FishbowlLA editor Kate Coe.

Name: Matt Welch
Position: Assitant Editor, Editorial Pages
Publication: The Los Angeles Times
Company: Tribune Co.
Education: Lack thereof hasn’t hurt me none.
Hometown: Born in Bellflower, raised in Long Beach, reside in Silver Lake (going on eight years).

How did you get into journalism?
By screwing up the courage to walk inside the offices of the country’s best college newspaper. (In the same year, incidentally, that the paper dug up enough dirt on Mickey Kaus’ uncle to eventually help get him convicted for embezzlement.)

What is your average media day like?
Wake up and kiss the hottest French journalist in California. It’s all downhill from there….

The clock radio is set to KCRW, so I have r-e-a-l-l-y boring news dreams, usually involving Daniel Schorr searching for a glass of water. Unseal my eyes with the hometown paper. Watch my wife giggle while devouring the New York Post. I don’t giggle.

Then I’ll check our section’s web landing pageand blog to make sure everything’s cool, and read the new comments. Followed by a three-minute tour of the local-news blogs —
L.A. Observed
Mayor Sam
Rough & Tumble

Martini Republic…
one or two among
LAist
Blogging.la
LAVoice
barky gal
etc.

If I wake up early (unlikely) I might also catch a glimpse of
Wonkette
Reason’s Hit & Run
Halos Heaven
6-4-2
Drudge.

Then it’s off to the bus, reading either Hoy or The New Yorker or Reason on the way. Grab the Daily News and whatever print weekly on the way to my desk.

At the office, the Internet is mostly a search tool, though when I have time I might zip through the permalinks listed on our blog. I usually turn the teevee on around noon, watch CNN or C-SPAN with the volume off until the sun goes down, then it’s baseball or basketball. Back home, I’m lucky if I arrive in time for The Colbert Report. The only other news program that occasionally interests me is the Hal Fishman Drama Hour.

Contrast and compare magazine vs. daily newspaper?
In my experience anyway, the biggest difference is between 940 editorial employees and 10 (even though my department, which is pretty well sealed, only has around 20). That is just a huge discrepancy, and affects everything. There’s also the (related) difference between working in an office and having 10 meetings a week, and working at home and maybe having 10 meetings a year. By phone.

You definitely get your calls back quicker here, and are roughly 800% more likely to be visited in your office by Mikhail Gorbachev, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or the head of the Coast Guard, or a leetle robot controlled by Eric Garcetti. But you’re also much more likely to begin interactions with readers by them screaming insults at you.

Work-wise, at Reason I blogged more (though that’s beginning to change here), and always wrote under my own name. Here I write most often in the Institutional Voice, which is a pretty big difference (and kind of theoretically weird, given my personal history, though I rarely think about it that way). But even though we had plenty of daily content at Reason, there is just no deadline as emotionally satisfying as that of a print daily newspaper. I love the things; cringe when we stumble, dance a jig when we stick a landing.

How does the media attention on the LA Times/Tribune story affect you?
Very little, truthfully. For a while I was following (and gently ribbing) the whole Manhappenin’ Beach Project over on our Opinion L.A. blog, but at the end of the day, I’m happy they’re trying to reimagine the paper; otherwise obsessing about future ownership is kind of pointless, ya know? It’s sort of like arguing passionately in December about which baseball team is going to win the division … amusing sometimes, sure, but there ain’t nothing you can do about it. Meanwhile there’s a paper to put out, and fun to be had. I figure our lives will not change much unless and until Eli Geffen-Burkle walks through that door and tells us we have to, I dunno, wear Dodgers jerseys or something.

Proudest moment in your career?

Probably the January 1994 issue of Prognosis, the paper I co-founded in Prague, coinciding with the visit of Bill Clinton and the ceremony that essentially kick-started what would eventually become the expansion of NATO. It was called “The Unbearable Largeness of Bill,” and that headline was by far the worst thing about it; the rest was just bloody terrific and fun — investigative pieces on the Czech family Clinton stayed with when bumming around the country as a college kid, a compare/contrast of Clinton/Havel’s philandering, pot-smoking and views on death; a handy playing card-style guide to the five biggest thugs in post-commie Europe; incredibly detailed & sober analyses of post-Cold War security issues, a handful of dynamite and diverse opinion columns, a “Hack’s Guide to Prague” for the visiting journalists, and on and on.

Our paper was on its last legs (even though it would somehow limp along for another 15 months); we were all pulling 23-hour days, lubricating the paste-up process with absinthe, coming up with genius off-the-cuff ideas at the last minute. And I had just emerged from a weeklong stay in the hospital with a ruined back, and was in the process of recording an album. We were totally exhausted, but the issue just soared, and was praised (among other places) on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.

Who’s the biggest influence on your work?
A three-way tie — Bill James, Hunter Thompson, and Vaclav Havel.

What’s the coolest thing/person/ story you’ve worked on/with?

The technically accurate answer to your question is Mejla Hlavsa of the legendary Plastic People of the Universe, though I only saw him play with the terrific Pulnoc and the you-had-to-have-been-there Velvet Revival Band.

If you weren’t a journalist/writer, what would you do?
Try (and fail) to become a successful recording artist; then end up as some sad middle-aged busker playing covers in various foreign bars.

Work’s over, kitchen’s clean, no deadlines looming–how do you kick back? Music, book, DVD–what’s your relaxation preference? (And please don’t tell me you go for a nice 5 mile run.)

What is this science fiction you speak of?…. I enjoy a glass or three of wine, seeing a movie with ma belle femme, having a Malo dinner with pals, or immersing myself in the warm minutiae of obscure baseball statistics.

When last we interviewed Ken Auletta, he had just released Backstory, a collection of writings from his decade at The New Yorker.

He won’t tell us what he’s working on now (“Because I have such long lead times, you’ll have to torture me!”) but we can guess that whatever it is will be long, detailed and full of exclusive tidbits that could be a headline many other places. His recent profile of Lou Dobbs, for example, pegged the outspoken anchor’s yearly compensation at $6 million — a figure that has been the subject of guesswork for years — and Auletta says he triple-sourced it through means he won’t disclose.

Whether for books or magazine articles, Auletta writes with a grace, authority and detail born of hard work, scads of cross-referenced notes, multiple repeat interviews, and as much research as possible. Which is why, we guess, his wife calls him what she does (see below).

Auletta spoke, then emailed with mediabistro.com’s editorial director, Dorian Benkoil.

Name: Ken Auletta
Position: Author and Annals of Communications Media Writer
Publication: The New Yorker
Education: B.S., State University of New York at Oswego; M.A. in Political Science, the Maxwell School at Syracuse University
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
First job: Working Summers at Pat’s Sporting Goods store in Coney Island at age nine for my dad, Pat Auletta.
Previous three jobs: I have written for The New Yorker since 1977, and also written a weekly political column for the New York Daily News from 1977 to 1993, and have authored ten books. Before 1977 is a blur of stuff.
Birthdate: April 23, 1942
Marital status: Married
Favorite TV show Do I have to choose? I’m addicted to The Sopranos, 24, and Studio 60.
Last book read Two simultaneously: Richard Ford’s, The Lay of the Land, and Lawrence Wright’s, The Looming Tower.
Most interesting media story right now Pass.
First section of your Sunday paper: Sports.
Guilty pleasure Pasta.

You’ve covered the media for years, many of those years for The New Yorker. Do you ever get bored of it? (What makes it continue to hold your interest?)
I don’t get bored because the media is not one small planet but a galaxy of planets with an ever changing cast of characters. Once, media was pigeonholed as journalism. Now its software and cable and the Web and books and networks and satellite television and PDAs and cell phones and video games, among others. Myspace and YouTube are, in part, new distribution systems.

Change is a given, and it’s hard to get bored with something that is always new. One can argue that the invention of electricity in the 19th Century had a more profound impact on society than the Internet (which is powered by electricity). But what is different today is the velocity of change. Think how long it took the telegraph, or the telephone, or radio and television, to become mass mediums. And then think of the less than five years it took the i-Pod.

Does it ever feel a little incestuous, being both in the media as something of a celebrity and also writing about it?
If a journalist remembers that the audience is the reader, not the subject of the article, and aims to get as close to the truth as possible, not make a friend, then the trap is avoided. I’m not personal friends with the people I cover. But I like people and have reasonably good manners and know that people open up more freely if the interviewer’s style is not that of a dentist drilling teeth.

Do you have an assistant or researcher or do you do all the work yourself?
It’s a ma and pa operation without the ma.

How long does it take you to prepare for an interview you conduct? For a profile you do?
There’s no single answer to this question. Generally, I try and spend weeks reading about the subject. And if I am profiling someone, I seek more than one interview. In this case, the first interview is usually autobiographical. Then I try to interview associates, friends, competitors, analysts, etc., collecting information and questions that better prepare me for the second round.

What’s the trick to digging up all the details you use throughout your pieces? (For example, you peg Lou Dobbs’ compensation at $6 million per year, with no hedging. How do you get that so precisely.)
I’d be a schmuck to tell you how I got something that did not have a named source. I had three sources for the $6 million, and my editor and the factchecker who called the sources or listened to my digital recording were satisfied.

How do you take notes, stay organized? What’s your system for getting such detail in your pieces and keeping them all organized?
With some merit, my wife calls me anal. I create three digital files: a) what I call an index of all the materials I collect; b) a file of people I wish to interview or things I need to read; c) a file of questions to be asked of each person to be interviewed. Of these files, the most vital for me is the index. For a long piece, the index can run to fifty single-spaced pages, and consists of a cross-reference system of each interview or document.

I number each notebook and document, and make a headline in the index of what someone said that I might want to use, followed by, say (A, p.30), which to me means notebook A and page 30 of the pages I have numbered; documents get numbers (10, p.64); and books get Roman numerals (IV, p290). I break it into subjects — possible Leads, Chronology, Bio, Observations, Themes, etc. — and place each entry in these categories.

I try to index as I am reporting because it is so tedious, yet is so important that I don’t want to have it back up and then possibly race over this process out of boredom. As I’m indexing I see that people are mentioned I should interview, that anecdotes or facts are relayed that I should confirm with others. I skip to the questions to be asked document and type in questions, and to the people to see document and add names.

At the end of the reporting, I take several days to study the index, which I hope helps me climb above the trees. Then I move it around on my screen like a deck of cards and slowly organize a narrative. I write off the index and place a checkmark next to each headline, allowing me to see, when the first draft is finished, what left out and included.

What’s your favorite medium and outlet to produce? Magazine articles? Newspaper articles? Books? A mix? Do you like going on TV?
Having written a column and done TV, I have a strong bias for long form journalism. The New Yorker and books give me the most satisfaction, the space to convey complexity, the grey as well as black and white.

Many writers are, to put it bluntly, disheveled. You seem to take great care with your appearance and look very polished. Why is that important to you, and the image you wish to project?
I like nice clothes, and I’m fairly neat. I do, however, bite my nails.

Your story (well, in magazine terms, a tome) on Howell Raines became a bit of an irony when he resigned. In hindsight, would you change anything if you could? How about a follow up to it? Considering that?
Actually, I thought the Raines piece gave readers a sense of his hubris and arrogance, as well as his talent. When he was forced out a year later as Executive Editor of the Times, I felt that those who read my piece had a context to understand why.

How much influence do you think your stories have? Does the influence surprise you?
It’s really dangerous for a journalist to think about “influence.” Our job is to ask questions, and if we’re puffed up with our own self-importance we will want to answer questions, not ask them.

How many stories do you write a year? What’s your deal? Contract? Full employee? Are you well-compensated?
I’m supposed to write at least a certain number of words per year for The New Yorker.

You work from home. How’d you get to do that? Why do you?
I like to be close to my refrigerator.

How did you get where you are, at what could be considered the pinnacle of magazine writing? What was the path (for those who may wish to emulate it).
Life rarely follows a straight line. I was a jock in high school with a 64 average and an attitude. I got into the State University at Oswego because the baseball coach thought I had a promising fastball. I almost flunked out, then found a new me, which including editing the underground newspaper at college; then thought I’d like the Foreign Service; then government and politics; then I got bored in a Ph.D political science program and left to be a gofer and write speeches in politics; then on to serve in government; then to work for Bobby Kennedy before he was sadly killed; then to serve as campaign manager for a wonderful man running for Governor of New York who, with my help, lost; then a daily reporter for the New York Post, followed by writer for the Village Voice and New York magazine, where I wrote mostly about politics and government. Then books on disparate subjects like New York’s economy, poverty, Wall Street, the Microsoft anti-trust trial.

Go figure.

If you weren’t writing about media, what would you be doing?
Visiting some other planet as a journalist.

How do you choose your subjects?
I consult a Medium.

What kind of story do you find most satisfying?
Profiles of complex people through whom you can tell a larger story.

What story would you say you’re proudest of? How’d you get it?
One would be a story I reported in 1992 for the New Yorker about Barry Diller’s quest to figure out the future by taking six months to visit everyone from Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to the MIT lab and old media folks, all the while he was learning to use his new Apple Powerbook laptop to try and figure out the new world of digital connectivity. It was an early piece on the emerging digital future back when I thought @ was spelled “at” and .com was dot-com. I’ve never gotten a bigger response to any piece.

The idea came from one of the most valuable things I did when I started writing about the media for The New Yorker in 1992. Tina Brown was the new editor and she asked if I would write under the Annals of Entertainment rubric. Having just published a book about how the “old media” industry of the networks was challenged by new technologies — Three Blind Mice — I said Annals of Entertainment was too narrow to capture the convulsive change in the media. I suggested it should be written under a wider framework, Annals of Communication, and that I would want to write nothing for five months and instead go out and do what I later learned Barry Diller was doing. Tina quickly blessed the idea.

With the calling card of a respected magazine, having interviewed a fair number of the folks who were challenging the old media television networks for my Three Blind Mice book, and with assurances that I would treat this as a seminar and use information but not quote them, I wound up visiting about 60 individuals and institutions. We talked about things they wouldn’t talk about on-the-record, like: Where they felt their business was vulnerable? What kept them awake nights? I probably generated a dozen story ideas from these visits, and one grew out of my visit with Diller.

As coverage of media has increased tremendously, do you find it harder to stay ahead, find original angles, really new takes on things?
Sure.

What do you think of the Internet? Use it? Changes your life at all? Technology in general? We don’t see a blog you have. Any MySpace page? Why or why not?
The Internet allows journalists to do a fair amount of research — newspaper or magazine clips, SEC filings, campaign contributions, annual reports, correct spelling — without getting up from our desks; it also allows quick and efficient e-mail communication to set up interviews or clarify things. Among other innovations, digital technology allows me to shuck tapes and record interviews on a digital recorder, plug the recorder’s memory stick in a slot, make a back-up disc, split my screen and using a track ball to review the interview, and type in the quote I want.

I have a website, kenauletta.com, which contains all my pieces, links to my books, and other stuff. I prefer to read rather than compose blogs. And I don’t have a MySpace page (“transparency” has its limitations).

How does The New Yorker have to change in order to compete with today’s changing media landscape? How does it NOT have to change?
The New Yorker — like The New York Times, The Economist, or NPR — is in the enviable position of being rewarded for quality journalism. Each has, to borrow a phrase that is uttered more often than it is understood, a “brand” that stands for something. The New Yorker adds really good fiction, art, and writing to the mix.

All-time favorite New Yorker cover? Cartoon?
That’s like asking, What’s my favorite pasta?

Karen Grigsby Bates is the Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR’s news magazine Day to Day. Bates contributed commentaries to All Things Considered for about 10 years before she joined NPR as the first correspondent and alternate host for The Tavis Smiley Show. In addition to general reporting and substitute hosting, she increased the show’s coverage of international issues and its cultural coverage, especially in the field of literature and the arts.

In early 2002, Bates joined

Day to Day, and is one of the show’s original staff members. She has reported on politics, media, and breaking news. Before coming to NPR, Bates was a news reporter for People magazine and a contributing columnist to the Op Ed pages of the Los Angeles Times for ten years. She also writes mystery novels.

Hometown: New Haven, CT
Favorite TV show: “Used to be Gilmore Girls, but they’ve gone crazy since Amy Sherman-Palladino stopped driving that bus. Bo-ring. Now it’s a split between Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy.”
Last Book Read: The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation, by Gene Roberts and Hank Kilbanoff. “Highly recommended.”
Guilty pleasures: Chocolate. Good wine. Reading the tabloids while standing in line at the grocery store

How did you get into radio?
I sent NPR a commentary for consideration, they liked it, asked me into the studio to record it, and I ended up doing that for about 10 years. I didn’t know that route was highly unusual.

What is your average media day like?
I get to the office somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 am (yeah, I know!) and we’re involved with preproduction on the day’s show–maybe I’m being edited, then tracking (voicing) a piece, which would be put together for broadcast that day. If I’m not doing that, I’m looking for stories that might work for me or for someone else on the show.

Contrast and compare radio and print. [Grigsby-Bates used to write for People magazine.]
Print is more free, in some ways. It’s mostly just you and your editor working on your story. How you tell it and how you relay what’s happened, what you’re writing about, is of paramount importance. In radio, sound is the most important component–people are often doing other things when they’re listening to you (as opposed to sitting still to read a paper or magazine) so you have to create an intimate enough bond with them that they WANT to listen to what you’re telling them. It isn’t always the most scintillating story (I recently did one about how raccoons and Angelenos are coming into closer and closer contact–and not always happily) but the sound you use can make it or break it. (In the case of the raccoons, I had a gurgling fountain, part of a television newscast about coon attacks and some actual raccoon chatter. Those livened up the piece considerably.)

How do you carve out time to write?
I don’t always manage to do that. A couple weeks could go by before I’m able to sit down and write for myself–as opposed to NPR. Those are two different kinds of writing. But when I DO manage to sit down, I might not get up for hours. I used to try to keep a little notebook with me to jot down ideas–but I’m so disorganized, I’d lose the notebook, so I don’t do that anymore. I just figure if it’s meant to stay in my head, it will.

You write mysteries, huh? Is Alex Powell [the main character of a mystery series Grigsby Bates pens] your alter-ego?
NO! We do share some commonr characteristics–we’re both pretty opinionated and we have authority issues. but we’re very different people. For instance, I found Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle side-splittingly funny. Alex would have stalked out after the first 10 minutes.

No chick-lit in your future?
Some people would say that what I write IS chick-lit, but I don’t think all womens’ books are, and I don’t think the Alex Powell series is–although my publisher sometimes markets it that way. Which is something over which I have no control.

While radio journalists are invisible to their audience, somehow (and not just because I know who you are)–you’re African-American–I don’t know how but you communicate that, without an accent or vernacular, but you do. Design, chance or just who you are?
Hmmmm…that’s ironic. About a year into my first radio job I was told I wasn’t appropriate for that particular show because I “didn’t sound black enough.” Clearly somebody had an aural image of what black was supposed to sound like, but in my humble opinion, that image was pretty provincial.

Me, I have a more elastic, universal philosophy about what black voices are: I have one. Colin Powell has one. Leontyne Price, Oprah Winfrey, Julian Bond, Willie Brown, Desmond Tutu and Condoleeza Rice all have authentically black voices. You’ll notice that not one of them speaks in the vernacular (in public, anyway; I don’t know them in their private lives). If my audience perceives me as black (and not all of them do), it’s perhaps because I’m indicating my interest in people and issues to which the mainstream public has not been adequately exposed. I’d like to think that my passion of making these people, places, issues visible might be what makes them know I’m black.

How hard is it to stay who you are, working in national media? You might not be Barbara Walters, but you’re nationally known, have a reputation, success, etc.–how to stay grounded?
(Laughter) I’m not so successful that I get stopped on the street and asked to sign things, so I have no problem staying grounded whatsoever! The nice thing about radio is most people don’t know who you are–they could listen to you every day and have no idea at all what you look like. Which is a good way to separate your public and private lives. Although I did have an incident recently: I was walking down the aisle of a plane, chatting with some colleagues, and this guy looks up from his seat and points at me: “NPR, right?” “Uh, yes…” “You’re Karen Grigsby Bates, aren’t you?” “I am–how’d you know?” He gave me this “duh” look and said “I hear you on the radio all the time, so, like, your voice?….” I didn’t think it was that distinctive, but apparently he thought so.

Do you gravitate towards stories in and of the African-American community?
I gravitate towards stories that interest me. Some of them are about or in black communities around the country, but they’re not the only thing in which I have interest.

Is having a certain beat important or can it be a trap?
I don’t have a specific beat, so I can’t speak to that. I CAN say I think it’s bad–for the reporter and for the news outlet–to have the black reporter do all the black stories, or the female reporter report only on women.

If you weren’t a journalist/writer, what would you do?
At one point I thought I wanted to go to medical school, but I realized I’d be about a zillion years after I finished grad school, residencies and all the other apprentices one has to do, so I stopped being interested in that. I could see me as a litigator (maybe medical or criminal), but I’d get fined a lot of contempt of court (authority issues, remember?), so the law is out. Really, I can’t imagine not writing or reporting in some form or fashion. It’s who and what I am.

Okay, come clean–why don’t you have an NPR voice? Media training or church choir?
Most people think I DO have an NPR voice. I’ve sung in choirs off and on, and NPR has given me some help with projection, but really, for better or worse, this is what I sound like.

Work’s over, kitchen’s clean, kid is occupied–how do you kick back? Music, book, DVD–what’s your relaxation preference? (And please don’t tell me you go for a nice 5 mile run.)
I read. I spend a couple hours in the kitchen improvising (might be coq au vin, might be an ultimate brownie recipe). I like to open a good bottle of wine and chat with a friend. Unfortunately, with the hours my show demands, I don’t stay out or up very late, so (Harold and Kumar notwithstanding) I am SO behind on movies it’s pathetic.

Kate Coe is an editor at mediabistro.com’s FishbowlLA blog, which covers media in Los Angeles.

Most people know Jodi Applegate as co-host Good Day New York, or perhaps the “that’s not cool” newscaster who was the target of a YouTube-driven practical joke earlier this year. But she’s had a starry career — rising from Phoenix, Arizona morning personality to NBC’s Later Today and Weekend Today. Applegate also holds the distinction of being at the anchor desk for MSNBC’s debut broadcast in 1996. She recently spoke with mediabistro.com about her career.

mediabistro.com: Are you really 42?

Jodi Applegate: Yeah, well, I probably shouldn’t have admitted [my age] in interviews a long time ago, but it’s too late now. On morning TV, with the Internet, that [info] can be grandfathered in [to your next job] very easily.

What’s your media day like?

Hmm, let’s see. I haven’t seen the sun in years. I wake up at 3 a.m. I leave my clothes out the night before. I’ll have some leftover pasta and I’m out the door at 3:50, snarf down some coffee. A car picks me up at my door, and I get to the studio for our 4:00 a.m. story meeting. That’s with our executive producer and line producer and Ron Corning, my co-host. That usually goes until 5:15. Then I’m in makeup for 15 and hair for 20. Then we’re on the air for 3 hours. After that I’ll shoot promos and have a planning meeting with the producers. We might have a shoot, we’ll say ‘Is this a good topic for an interview?’ Then I usually go home. It’s pathetic, but I’ll watch the air-check of that day’s show— I’m never done critiquing.

A nap?

Then I’ll take a nap for a couple hours. I’ll get up in the early afternoon and take my dog for a walk around the reservoir in Central Park. A golden retriever, 5 and a half. Then I’ll come home, log on, check out what stories we’re doing. I have a call with the producers from 4-5PM. Then I’ll watch a little local news, and I’m in bed by 7-7:30, baby.

You were the first anchor of MSNBC for its debut. How was that?

I was working in Phoenix, Arizona for a local morning show. It was like Good Day New York. They ripped off the format. We started getting popular. Then NBC was in town for the 1996 Super Bowl and they saw me and asked if I would be interested in coming to New York. So I was hired.

I went on the air on July 15, 1996. It was like “Applegate, you’re up.” I was nervous, it was the network debut. I had (former GE chairman) Jack Welch standing right in the room there watching. I was probably too young and naïve to be really nervous.

How do you feel about competing with 3 national morning shows in NY?

Well, not to sound too trite, but they can’t do what we can do. They can’t give the local viewers in the metro area what we can— that is, specific local reporting. They have to be general enough to please someone in Ohio or Nebraska. We can cover both, and our ratings in New York prove that. So I don’t think we’re at a disadvantage.

Fox is starting a national morning show next year. You’re obviously not hosting. Did you feel passed over? How will it affect you?

It’s a national show. I did that. I’ve never been happier in my career, being at a local network. I just think it’s a better lifestyle. You’re part of a company. And being in New York, it’s a cliché, but you’re at the center of the universe. So I’ve never felt like that. We’re going to work with them, lead into them. From what I understand it’s going to have a lighter feel to it. A nice way to bridge the morning gap.

Do you have designs on becoming a national show host? Would you like to host the Today Show or GMA?

I never say never, but not at this point, no. I’m having too much fun.

Who do you look up to in terms of inspiration? Anyone you model yourself after?

Well, when I was growing up, it was wall-to-wall Johnny Carson. He was dorky, but in a great way. Everyone of my generation was influenced by him. He had such a deft touch. Then Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley, of course. They knew when to take a pause.

What about current anchors?

Shep Smith. He’s just effortless.

Last song you listened to on your iPod?

Applegate: It’s whatever my husband has on there. Jackson Browne and the Eagles?

The YouTube bike lock thing. Reactions were mixed as to how you handled it. What’s the fallout been like? Has anything changed? Have you banned YouTube guests on the show?

The “That’s not cool” incident. There hasn’t been much in the way of fallout, believe it or not. I think people had the impression that these guys were trying to hoax us. They had fake blood and stuff. We’re ultimately a news program, and these guys were staging the accidental fake cutting of a guy’s jugular.

What’s your favorite thing about NY? Least favorite?

This is kind of a cliché answer: the expense. There’s not much of a middle class. You open the Times and there’s a $10,000 pair of shoes. Who buys those?

Network anchors, maybe?

No. It just feels like a different planet. I guess it is, in some ways.

Favorite part?

Again, a cliché: the people. It’s like traveling around a parade of humanity. You know those cruise retirees, who never have to live anywhere, they just float around between islands? Living in New York is like that.

Who would be your dream interview at the moment?

Oh, gosh. I don’t know. Donald Rumsfeld? I would like to talk to him.

[Dylan Stableford is mediabistro.com’s managing editor for news. He can be reached at dylan AT mediabistro DOT com.]

For Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, what should have been a professional high — the publication of her first book Random Family — coincided with personal tragedy. Her father, who had been paralyzed during an operation, was diagnosed with lung cancer. LeBlanc first grappled with the emotions of being both a journalist and a loving daughter.

She and radio producer Sarah Kramer then collaborated for two years to distill 40 hours of audio footage and 70 pages of text into “The Ground We Lived On,” a 12-minute tribute to LeBlanc‘s profound connection with her father.

Did you find yourself trying to insert any distance into how you were experiencing your time with your dad, to cope?
It felt like some weird violation at the time, to tape-record it. For the last section of the audio, when he’s actually leaving, I thought that that conversation was a conversation that I had created in my head, to soothe me. I literally thought I had made up this story that somehow, was a profound comfort to me. And when Sarah played that section of the tape, I literally felt like I could have fallen out of the chair. I’d had no recollection a) that I was taping that or b) that he had actually said that. His literal language, when he says, “You are gentle”– all those things I thought were phrases that were writing phrases, that were coming out for a project I would write. That it was true stunned me. I had no recollection of having the tape on those last days. It amazes me, still, that I could have, but that’s what I’m saying about how I am a journalist — who am I kidding? Somebody put the tape on.

Working on this project over a long period of time — did it feel like it was extending the grieving process in a way that made it more difficult, than if you weren’t working on this?
I think if I wasn’t working on this, yes. In some ways, it’s allowed me to mine the grieving process as opposed to just experiencing it, which is always my preference — to both have the experience and nose around in it, and try to understand it. It’s an intellectual interest, but it’s probably also a survival strategy, for when things feel overwhelming to me, painful to me, or enraging to me.

But it absolutely extends it — think of if somebody sat you down , and every three days had you listen to [a loved one] in their last hour, because you had to figure out how many minutes of tape you could use. It was like structured triggers, scheduled triggers. I was getting really screwed up, saying, “I’m back to where I was after he died.” I felt like everything I felt then had just gotten re-stirred up again.

Sarah Kramer [LeBlanc’s StoryCorps editor] is someone I have to recognize in this. This was a piece that totally stresses the necessity of good editors. [‘Ground’] would not exist without her and it really put her through hell, as well. Because, as much as I had to live with it, Sarah was listening to these tapes for two years. Plus, she had to push me and pull me, and respect me and protect me, and still get me to do what she needed. She cared about every word when I couldn’t care, or carry it anymore.

“If someone asked, ‘Was this cathartic for you?’ I’d say, ‘I probably won’t know that for a decade.'”

She got to know my father. When I was saying to her, “I have to end this, Sarah, I have to get out of this,” she was saying, “I do,too, Adrian. I’ve been living with your family in my head for two years.” Which of course, is like when I was doing [Random Family]. And, she had her professional responsibilities — to her boss, to her co-workers who were picking up the slack for her at work while she was dealing with me, and it was so protracted. It absolutely extended it. It made it happen again, except from a distance and yet, because of the distance, it was also part of the grieving process. If someone said, “Was this cathartic for you?” I’d say, I probably won’t know that for a decade. Part of this was, I had to make something of this experience.

How many hours of tape were there?
40, probably a little bit more than that.

And you edited it down to…
12 minutes. With Sarah, it was absolutely a collaboration — she did all these cuts, and I was just writing. She’d say, “Write about what you remember. ” At one point, we had at least 70 pages of text — she was refining down chunks of text, and then we had certain scenes we could work with. The structuring of a radio piece is very interesting. It was really hard because literally, we took pages and pages and we had one sentence like, ‘Language is the ground we walked on, and we were speaking even as he was leaving me.’ There were all these haphazard thoughts, and it took forever to get down to that sentence.

It’s like poetry.
I think it has a process akin to that, because for me, I had never been refined to that point– down to a few sentences, that’s all that radio can take. It can’t have any extraneous reference so, for example, there’s a sentence: “The house my father built with his own hands.” I first had the sentence as: “The house my father and my uncles built with their own hands,” but [Sarah] was like, “You can’t really bring them in.” We’d have these conversations because I felt I needed to include my uncles, but then the narrative gets distracting, because you’re listening and you’re asking, “Who are the uncles?” My siblings are invisible in this, and that was a huge ongoing issue because, if you mention their names, then you have to characterize them, and then you’re waiting for them to come back in.

How do they feel about this project?
I worry about it. It’s their dad, too, but then again it’s like how I say: I have to reckon with the fact that I am a journalist, because I am telling the story of my story. If they want to tell their stories, they can. It’s a hard thing, though, when your story is also — it is their father. And he is dying on tape, and that’s a pretty heavy thing to ask somebody to have out there in the world, if they don’t want to have it out there.

How long could the program have been?
They can only be six, 12 or 22 minutes.

Why didn’t you go with 22? [‘Ground’ is a 12-minute segment]
I would’ve loved to have, but I think it was too heart-wrenching, I think there wasn’t enough levity, over time, to hold it. We had earlier tape, as he was becomng bed-ridden, but we had sound quality problems so we couldn’t carry it past a point, and there was this big leap, so it was a mix of those things.

So you had to make these editorial decisions to shape the piece.
Yes, they were very editorial, in terms of what [material] you have, what you don’t have, what you missed, and who will talk to you. We couldn’t go back to do anything. With a lot of radio, you can go back and re-record it, but with this it was either there or it wasn’t.

Would you embark on a project like this again?
Definitely. I would really like to write about the elderly. I really enjoyed the time that I spent in the hospital with other older people. My dad I never thought of as elderly, but I would love to do more writing about elderly people. It’s interesting narratively, and interesting because it’s always considered a little bit of a surprise — [covering the elderly] is usually cast as “elderly people doing water aerobics,” or “elderly people dating and having sex.” How about just writing about elderly people like you write about teenagers?

You were recently awarded a Macarthur “genius” grant — congratulations. How does that affect your work? Does it grease the wheels for other projects you want to embark on, does it change things financially? How does it affect your life?
I think there are people, in general, who would persist in doing whatever they’re doing, but who are doing it against many obstacles — that’s a pretty similar trait with [the Macarthur recipients]. They’re going to do their music the way they do it, whatever. So in that way, I don’t feel that it’s changed the course of my work, but it has made me determined to protect the freedom of this time, which is what I was saying with the calendar [LeBlanc had showed us a datebook filled with current engagements that gave way to blank pages — upcoming time off from professional obligations.] All these anonymous people said, “What you’re doing matters to us.” For whatever reason, the external acknowledgement makes me say, “Respect what they’re respecting in you.”

I don’t have to worry about finding the best outlet for minidiscs anymore. It’s just the little things, like taking a taxi versus the subway. The other night, I was out all day reporting. It was raining, I was feeling sick, I’m coming back from a comedy club, it’s 11 at night. I got on the train and took the train. Then I thought, “Oh, I could take a cab tonight.” It was just the feeling like, “Wow, I could’ve.”

What’s your advice or recommendation to journalists interested in taking on subjects like this — personal, family-related, or ones to do with death and loss?
I hate to give this answer, but it really depends on the person and the story. For example, my friend Ann Patchett who’s a novelist, wrote a book about this friend of ours who died, Lucy Grealy, in the white heat of her grief. I think it was immediately, or very quickly after — it just had to come out of her. For me, [‘Ground’] could never have happened without two years, at least, of separating. I can never process it quickly. It takes me a long time.

In terms of the subject matter, I think it’s just a matter of very practical things. If you have an inkling that you want to [write about someone who’s dying] and you can’t right then, timewise, you need to just get information: from your uncle’s address to the name of the nurse. And ask if you can have phone numbers, because people move around a lot. Also, copies of medical records, and descriptions of rooms, the pajamas people wear — things like that can sort of be soothing. There are all the practical things you need.

In a case like this, because perspective is everything in the piece, I really think the editor is crucial — especially the closer you get to your own experience. I think any really good reporting brings you very close to your own experience in one way or another, and a good editor is able to keep combing through that, and help you not compromise your authority, get yourself out of the way, be more vulnerable than you want to be.

How did you and Sarah work together?
I think she got assigned to the piece because Dave sensed that we would be a good team, and I bet he had very clear reasons for that. So, we got assigned and I think she, sadly, has a long email history of these attempts, where she’d say “Are you ready to do this,” and I’d say ‘Yes, yes,” but then I was constantly postponing — really thinking I was ready to do it and now, in retrospect, I see I was nowhere near it. She was in a very sticky situation.

We moved along, she dealt with my resistance, and was incredibly graceful about the frustrations it had to have been causing her, that I can only see now. Because, I was so self-absorbed and narcissistic: This was my father, my family. Then we had this moment, where I was at the precipice of having to really accept what I was doing, and I wasn’t ready to and there was some kind of rupture, for a mix of reasons. From that moment on, it made the whole process completely toxic for me. Very destructive, very negative, very painful, and I realized that the bridge of that trust with her was everything, because I’m not telling the story to some anonymous public. I was telling Sarah the story and I was entrusting her to help me tell it.

That’s when I realized as a journalist, it actually really does matter when you’re covering these kinds of subjects, you really have to be involved in a way that’s decent, because you are the link to someone being able to do this. You literally are. When they have anxiety, and when they have fear and anger, that communication has to be open because if you retreat into some purely professional distance, it doesn’t always work in these circumstances. Sarah was really remarkable in her willingness to stay in there with me. I think you have to see it through.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview contains excerpts, and has been edited for clarity.]

Rebecca L. Fox is mediabistro.com’s features editor.

For Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, what should have been a professional high in early 2003 coincided with personal tragedy. Her first book, Random Family — now considered a triumph of “immersion journalism” that helped her win a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2006 — was being released. At the same time, LeBlanc was grappling with her 85-year-old father Adrian Leon LeBlanc’s deterioration from late-stage lung cancer. Shuttling between her Manhattan residence and her childhood home in Leominister, Massachusetts, LeBlanc strove to spend as much time as possible with her dying father. With the intention of writing about him someday, she began tape-recording their talks, so she’d be sure to remember him exactly as he sounded and in his own words.

Those conversations have been distilled into “The Ground We Lived On,” an arresting radio documentary that peers into the intimate relationship between LeBlanc and her father. Even as they prepare one another for the inevitable, their conversations — “the ground they lived on,” as LeBlanc describes them in the piece — continue with humor and insight up until his death. In the first installment of a two-part interview, LeBlanc lays bare her ambivalence about documenting her dad’s last days. In Part II, she describes how she and StoryCorps producer Sarah Kramer (interviewed here) distilled 40 hours of audio footage and 70 pages of text into a 12-minute tribute to LeBlanc and her father’s profound connection.

What was it like for you when your father was diagnosed with lung cancer?
He had a sequence of events happen: He had an aortic aneurysm that was longstanding, for years. It finally got to the point where it had to be operated on. During that surgery, he was paralyzed in the torso, and during the neurological testing for that — which now brings us easily six months into this odyssey — that’s when he finds out he has lung cancer. So, we were dealing with his paralysis, which was a stunning kind of devastation, and the lung cancer was just sort of in the background.

It’s not to say we didn’t recognize [the lung cancer] was devastating, but he was trying to deal with becoming paralyzed. So then, this doctor said to us, “Look, you don’t have time on this.” So, the lung cancer diagnosis really collapsed into just a pure crisis feeling in my life. I was incredibly close with him — I went into high alarm. I was very stricken, and anxious, and terrified.

How did it occur to you to do this project?
Dave Isay, who’s the head of Sound Portraits and StoryCorps, was an acquaintance of mine, not a close friend, and we met for lunch, I think — we’d sort of crossed paths in journalism, prior to this. I was in the throes of this grieving and [Random Family] was coming out. I was just really devastated, and a friend of his had just lost a parent to lung cancer, so Dave said “Tape your dad. Just tape him, Adrian.” I said, “No, why?” He said, “Just tape him. Get down the info about his life. You think you’ll remember all these details but you really won’t.” Which I know from journalism — you think you will [remember every detail], but you never do. So he gave me a tape recorder and said, “Just do it.”

I brought it home and did one interview with my dad. It was very stiff, like” “Where were you born? Blah, blah blah.” The taping got screwed up, so I got some consultation from StoryCorps, and then that’s how it happened. It was never with a plan to do anything with [the material] except have it. It was this idea that I would get [my dad’s] bio down, because I knew I would forget the name of his high school, that stuff. And I know I will write about my dad someday, but [I was] definitely not thinking it was for a project.

In “The Ground We Lived On,” you say of your father: “His keen joy in observing people and the world is the reason I became a journalist.” Can you elaborate on that?
We thought a lot about the use of the word ‘keen,’ because it wasn’t just this sort of vague thing — he really was a bird watcher, he’d always called himself a bird watcher, and he was the kind of person that would watch people very carefully. He was a very loveable guy, a gentle nice guy — he wasn’t a person you’d feel uncomfortable with, but he was absorbing people and would often have a very astute take on them. Not a critical one, but, kind of like these characterizations. He would think about it, and he would enjoy it. I guess it was observing, then characterizing.

And, he also was a person who was incredibly curious about people and the world. He would always ask questions like, “What’s your day like?” It’s the question he always asked people: “What do you do during the day?” I think partly because of his union stuff [LeBlanc’s father had been a labor activist], he was always trying to place that — things that were good, or things that were working and things that weren’t. And in [‘Ground’] it says he would call us to the window. He was always pointing things out — my mom did it, too. It was a way of looking at the world.

What was your dad’s take on being taped during all this? Did you have to convince him?
No, no, no. I think he always secretly wanted me to devote myself to writing about him at some point. We always thought we’d get around to it — it was never spoken, but we both sort of knew it. He was totally game. I think he would’ve done anything for me, in general — he was supportive. When we started, he never even said, “Why?” I think he understood that I needed to do it, I wanted to do it — he sort of wanted to do it. I think he liked to think about his life in our conversations. When I used to go home and visit, we would always get up really early and go out to breakfast. I would always ask questions, and he would talk.

My mother didn’t want it to happen — she was like, “Adrian Nicole, if you have to do this, [do it], but I don’t want to be in it.” Of course, the great irony is, she’s the only one [besides LeBlanc and her father] really in it, because of both the way the documentary went and the quality of the recording — only certain recordings have useable quality. So, my father was trying to say, “Respect that your mom doesn’t want to be in it.” So, sometimes, I’d shut it off when she’d come in the room. And sometimes I wouldn’t, because I just forgot that it was running.

How does your mom feel about it now?
Well, she just listened — I was just calling her [LeBlanc was finishing a cell phone call when we arrived for the interview]. She seemed to think it was very beautiful. She was nervous about listening, but I think she sees it as something very separate from her. I think she just hopes it will help me process this a little bit better than I’ve been able to. But, it is pretty intimate in terms of them, and I feel respectful of the fact that I still made the decision to do it despite what she wanted, and despite that, in fact, it was a very private moment between them. Which is sort of sobering, but I still have to face that I did do it. I don’t think that she has a problem with it, but she had no way of knowing what was on it. I didn’t share it earlier because I wasn’t going to let anybody change it, and I didn’t really want to know if she hated it, because then I never would have had the guts to do it.

In what way did your father’s illness impact your relationship? You say you’d always been close, but did you feel that was ratcheted up while he was sick?
[While he was sick], we were still talking, and then he was talking less, then he was not talking at all. So, it didn’t change our relationship at all — [‘Ground’] is really representative of our relationship. I just spent every minute I could with him. I mean, the sad thing was that [Random Family] was coming out, and he was like, “Get out there, honey — you jumped in the water, now you’re gonna swim. You don’t just let this thing die.” So, I was doing readings and it was horrible. I was so dissociated from that. I have no recollection of most of those events; I could’ve cared less, really — not because I didn’t respect what I had done and the fact that people cared. I just wanted to be [with him] all the time, and I was scared I would get a cell phone call… I hated being away from him. Any available minute, I gave to him.

He was being cared for at home — that must’ve been a huge thing for you, your mom…
And my siblings. He was in a hospital a lot, prior to that because he’d had major surgery, so getting him home was great. Then, hospice was amazing. Hospice allowed us to take care of him the way we needed to, and we were lucky that we had the comfort level, financially, to not have to worry about sustaining that. I’m in a career that, even though money was never the thing it generated, I could just be home that much. It’s one of the things that makes us most happy and proud.

“I don’t think you should ever shelve your introspection about your own motivation. I think it’s really crucial.”

As a journalist, the impulse to chronicle or document what’s going on — even if you’re not thinking of it as anything official — how did you negotiate that?
I have to credit Dave Isay with that. Even had I had the impulse, I would’ve repressed it because I would’ve been very uncomfortable about it — reckoning with that impulse we have as journalists. I think it’s good to reckon with it, because I don’t think you should ever shelve your introspection about your own motivation. I think it’s really crucial.

It helped me feel much more at peace and confident about what I do. It’s not about preserving my dad. It’s not even about the death: There’s just 12 minutes [of the program] where people, friends — maybe strangers — just get to know my dad. I do really believe that about writing about people: You get to know them and you get to see things, and it’s really valuable. I think it sort of matters that you get to know the way someone else is living. Dave Isay really does believe that regular people need to be known and I think it’s true.

“Immersion journalism” is a term that’s been used to describe your work. Does this project fit into that category?
I understand what people mean by that. I guess part of it is the luxury of time, because [journalism] is really a hard business to make any kind of time in. I think of it as time, where the immersion comes in, the willingness to let your [work] dominate, or be a very, very large part of what you’re doing. [‘Ground’] was implicitly immersed, because obviously it is my family life.

My other projects are my life, but this made me aware of the journalism. When I was doing Random Family, my reporting was my life. Whereas [with ‘Ground’], I was aware that there was a footbridge between my life and the reporting. I thought, “Oh, I am reporting.” Not to say that I don’t intellectually know that I’m reporting…

But you were more conscious of it?
Yes, of my own agency and intention. Because, no matter what, even if I didn’t know this was going to be a documentary — I mean, come on! I set up a tape recorder on the hospital bed.

You say in ‘Ground’ that there are moments when caring for your dad feels “spiritual,” and you describe the reverence you feel toward his flesh, even as he’s physically deteriorating. Those sentiments may sound familiar to those who’ve experienced loss like this, but in the media you don’t tend to find them outside the purview of self-help books, or articles specifically about grief. So, how would you place this project in the larger journalistic landscape?
I never thought of that part of it. I wonder, how would one cover that stuff journalistically, as opposed to more personally — like self-help. It’s a really good question: I don’t know how you would cover it journalistically. I don’t know how people would report about this. It’s clear that since I don’t know, and you’re clearly wondering, we need to cover it. Personal essays get the closest, I think.

In the piece, you say: “Serious loss brings you into one of the world’s silent fraternities.” And sooner or later, if one lives long enough, we’ll all go through an experience like this. So, why is that fraternity silent?
A total inability to deal with mortality, a refusal to deal with aging: I think that’s thoroughly American. I was in Eastern Europe this summer, and it’s really different there. We don’t know how to deal with it and we willfully don’t deal with it. Just the very fact that when some loved one gets sick or is dying, it’s like everyone else’s life is continuing — if you bring it up, people don’t really want to hear about it.

In the second half of this interview, Editing Through Loss — Part II, LeBlanc describes the grueling editing process that had her reliving her father’s final moments to create “The Ground We Lived On.”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview contains excerpts, and has been edited for clarity.]

Rebecca L. Fox is mediabistro.com’s features editor.