Accepting the quiet, by Wendy Hoke
What an honor and a thrill to be asked to guest blog here at Deep Muck Big Rake. I’m a freelance journalist who also writes at Creative Ink and I’m happy to count Becky among my regular readers. I’ve not written there lately because I’m attempting a vacation.
Problem is, I’m a needy writer and so when things get quiet, I get nervous. Makes no sense, you see, because I’m working on several ongoing projects and have another story due next Friday and got an e-mail this morning about doing some editing on another book project. So I should really just learn to accept and enjoy the quiet.
This may not be true for every writer, but I need to unplug from time to time to recharge the creative batteries. For inspiration, I’ve turned this week to “The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits & Encounters.” Last March, I had the privilege of meeting him at a storytelling workshop in Anniston, Ala.
With the exception of “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” I hadn’t really read any of his work. I mean, I was familiar with all the titles, “The Kingdom and the Power,” “Honor Thy Father,” and his notable profiles of boxers and baseball players. But I hadn’t really read his work.
I still believe that the Frank Sinatra/Esquire piece has tremendous resonance and stands as a model for reporting. Not all of his pieces in this book struck me the same way. However, the piece about Floyd Patterson (“The Loser”) was heartrending in its simplicity.
As a nonfiction writer, I find his reporting astounding, asking myself what questions he asked to get certain information, or wondering where he was standing in a room when he observed certain things, or what he’s looking for when he scans a room or a place and what particular details of a person fill his notebooks.
He reveals some of his trade secrets in a piece called, “Origins of a Nonfiction Writer,” and some of the details written here about being a boy in his mother’s dress shop in New Jersey, he shared with journalists in Anniston last March.
“The shop was a kind of talk show that flowed around the engaging manner and well-timed questions of my mother; and as a boy not much taller than the counters behind which I used to pause and eavesdrop. I learned much that would be useful to me years later when I began interviewing people for articles and books.
“I learned to listen with patience and care, and never to interrupt even when people were having great difficulty in explaining themselves, for during such halting and imprecise moments (as the listening skills of my patient mother taught me) people often are very revealing—what they hesitate to talk about can tell much about them. Their pauses, their evasions, their sudden shifts in subject matter are likely indicators of what embarrasses them, or irritates them, or what they regard as too private or imprudent to be disclosed to another person at that particular time. However, I also overheard many people discussing candidly with my mother what they had earlier avoided—a reaction that I think had less to do with her inquiring nature or sensitively posed questions than with their gradual acceptance of her as a trustworthy individual in whom they could confide. My mother’s best customers were women less in need of new dresses than the need to communicate.”
Too often, Talese is credited with founding, “The New Journalism,” so labeled by Tom Wolfe. But Talese steadfastly rejects such labels, maintaining now—and then–that what he was doing didn’t involved any new style. It was simply storytelling as we all know it (using scenes, dialogue, description, etc.) in a nonfiction format.
What interests me most about Talese, and frankly when I find his work most moving, is not those celebrated profiles of notable personalities, but his portraits of the ordinary people. His “unnoticed things” of New York City, his decision to talk about the Selma riots with white members of a local country club, his decision to write about losers more often than winners.
I turned to Talese for quiet inspiration this week and did not fail to deliver.
Posted by Wendy @
12:37 pm |
Attack of the long-winded book review!
Hello! My name is Théa, and I will be your guest blogger today. Becky did me the tremendous honor of asking me to guest post here at Deep Muck Big Rake, which prompted me to perform an awkward happy dance in our living room. I say “awkward” because my living room is presently full of empty boxes and piles of stuff waiting to be sorted and stored in those boxes.
My husband and I are the sort of fools who consent to move to a new apartment one week after Christmas.
Becky compiled a list of topics to get us guest bloggers thinking, and, while all of them were interesting and several of them downright intriguing, I opted to go with what I know: books. For you, I will review a book that has been out for several years and has already been made into a movie (that I haven’t seen). I give you a book you’ve heard about, discussed and possibly even read, one whose statistics are horrifying when taken out of context and even more horrifying when given in context, but whose statistics demand to be quoted, one way or the other.
I present to you, dear faithful readers of Deep Muck Big Rake, a review of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation.
When Fast Food Nation was first released, I was in my first year of college. Friends who had recently turned vegetarian lobbed passages from Schlosser at me in misguided attempts to scandalize me into quitting meat completely; several of my classes featured excerpts from Nation on the recommended reading list; in one nonfiction writing workshop, we examined the opening paragraph to chapter 6, “On the Range,” stripped it down to its bare bones and used Schlosser’s sentence structure and scene-building techniques to write opening paragraphs of our own.
Perhaps it was the sudden abundance of Fast Food Nation quotes at a point in my life when I was immersed in books of all shapes and persuasions that allowed me to think that I had, somehow, read the book in its entirety. Whatever my reasoning, five years passed before I caught on to the fact that I was boasting (as I often am) half-formed opinions based on half-earned knowledge. I finally picked up a copy of my own and dug in.
What I presumed to be a rant against the American diet turned out to be a study of the vast damage done by the fast food industry to nearly every aspect of American culture. From what I had read, I assumed that Schlosser’s book focused primarily on the effects of the fast food industry on the American diet, but I was startled to learn that Schlosser aims for a much higher mark: in illustrating not merely how fast food companies have changed our diet but also our lifestyle, Schlosser examines the roll of fast food in today’s car culture, marketing strategies, food production industries, corporations and attitude toward the rest of the world.
Schlosser is thorough in his research and approach, if not entirely unbiased. At points it became clear to me how the reader ought to feel about the information presented and certain people, when interviewed, were painted in shades that seem intended to sway the reader’s opinion. These brief moments where Schlosser’s opinions broke through made me slightly wary, but otherwise I couldn’t complain – the man puts up a solid argument and closes with a few chapters that sound (considering the context) downright optimistic.
If corporations can do this much damage in less than a century, Schlosser theorizes, surely we – the consumers, the ones with the true power – can go a long way in another, better direction, can’t we?
But of course, he says it better than I do. You really ought to hear it from him.
Posted by Thea @
9:47 am |
Canon ethics
I wrote a few days ago about Canon and the yuck factor of E&P’s magazine cover. It seems some professional photographers think Canon stepped over the ethical line in other cases.
Posted by Becky @
6:53 pm |
Working Mother works for … you?
What a teleconference! Oh, the things they plan to do! For you!
- Paid family leave?
- Paid sick leave?
- Paid vacation days?
- Portable, affordable health insurance?
- High-quality, affordable childcare and preschool?
:::Shh! Hear that? That’s the sound of corporate executives across the country having a collective heart attack.:::
Nah, not really. The teleconference was a platform for Working Mother to roll out its latest venture: to give “best of congress” awards every two years (starting in September 2008) to members of Congress “in recognition of their leadership in improving the quality of life for working families.”
But I’m jumping ahead. Here’s what happened.
Donna Klein, who earns $200,000 a year as founder and CEO of Corporate Voices, read her welcoming remarks and said we would hear from Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, Working Mother Media CEO Carol Evans and Jami Taylor, a mother and activist. Klein tossed out some statistics — that the American workforce was under increasing pressure to meet the goals of a global economy and that childcare-related absences cost business $3 billion a year. (The $3 billion a year is a statistic from 1991 by an organization, Child Care Action Campaign, that apparently no longer exists.)
She mentioned that more than 30 bills dealing with family issues — FMLA, childcare-subsidy increases, workplace flexibility, etc. — were before Congress. She gave statistics about breastfeeding and encouraged working mothers to “advocate for lactation space” because “many employers are open to suggestions.”
Evans also talked about breastfeeding and lactation rooms. Which made me wonder … why are they so focused on lactation rooms?
Then I found this.
A full-page advertisement in Working Mother’s October 2007 issue by Medela, a major breast-pump manufacturer, said that Working Mother “teamed up with” Medela “to gain a better understanding of what the Working Mother 100 Best Companies are doing to help support their employees who are breastfeeding.” Medela offers — for a price — services to corporate clients through its Healthy Babies, Happy Moms, Inc. (That’s one of their corporate lactation rooms in the picture.)
Business ears perked up with the news in 2005 that 73 percent of mothers were breastfeeding. Considering that the United States has a high percentage of working mothers yet offers no guaranteed paid maternity leave … well, you do the math. What did Medela hear? Ka-ching! If maternity leaves were kept at the bare minimum or non-existent, Medela got to sell more breast pumps. Eh?
According to a Jan. 10, 2007, Wall Street Journal article, “it is all about business plans, market share and product placement.”
In another lift to sales, nursing products are being reconceived as fashion accessories. Celebrities have discussed their nursing protocols with the news media. When U.S. pump company Medela Inc., a unit of Medela Holding AG of Switzerland, sought to put its products on TV shows three years ago, it found no takers. Last fall, its pumps were included in story lines on “ER,” “Weeds,” and “The Office.”
(Medela, based in McHenry, Ill., is affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce via its membership in the McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce.)
Back to the teleconference.
Pryce mentioned several initiatives before Congress (mortgage foreclosures, war on terror, health care, education, SCHIP) to illustrate “that Congress is always working on something that can affect you,” but she didn’t mention where she stood on any of the issues.
She also didn’t mention that she has been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which should offer an idea on where she stands on issues important to employees and working families. Here’s her voting record. Here’s who gives her money.
Next up was Evans, who was introduced as having “surprising” news. Evans went through the list of lists her magazine publishes (100 best, best small companies, best law firms, etc.). Then she talked about a survey of 500 women that revealed the No. 1 reason they work was for money. The No. 2 “surprising” answer was to use talents and training. No. 3 was to be great role models for their children. (She didn’t give specifics of the survey, so I don’t know when or by whom it was conducted.)
Why was the No. 2 answer a stop-the-presses! surprise? Got me. What did she expect the answer to be? Besides, it wasn’t clear what this “surprise” had to do with advocacy.
Here are her suggestions for callers to “get involved.”
- Ask your company to apply for our list.
- Express your voice through our MomBlog (at workingmother.com, natch).
Next up was Jami Leigh Taylor with “an amazing story of courage and triumph.” Taylor explained that she had been working for a few years on availability and accessibility of maternity insurance. They paid $22,000 out-of-pocket for a healthy pregnancy with no complications because her husband’s company dropped its maternity coverage just before she had a baby. Here are her tips.
- Start with congressional staff. Make friends with the chief of staff.
- Attend events they are already scheduled to attend.
- Bring the kids! (Whisk them out if they get too fussy.)
- Look at it as a way to get dressed up and go out on a date!
The results of her BFF-ships with staffers? Has she gotten anyone to write legislation or pass laws? Dunno. She didn’t say.
After a few questions, the teleconference ended.
So what did we learn?
- Working Mother and Corporate Voices will give “best of congress” awards.
- Evans was surprised! that women work to use their talents and training.
- Ask your boss for a lactation room.
- Take the kids to meet your senator or representative!
Posted by Becky @
9:04 pm |
You know it’s a slow news day in Iceland when …
… the front-page national news is about Icelandic men and Brazilian waxing. You know. For Icelandic men. Alda at The Iceland Weather Report writes more about it here. Hey, I guess the news can’t all be about weather and war. Sometimes it’s about waxing.
P.S. Happy birthday to my favorite 30-year-old in the whole world.
Posted by Becky @
9:29 am |
E&P photos of the year cover
The November 2007 issue of Editor & Publisher showcases its “Eighth Annual Photos of the Year.” The magazine (not the cover posted online)Â has a yellow sticker:
Also on the cover is a photograph of the grand-prize winner, camera in hand. Clearly a Canon. Yeah, yeah. He won a Canon camera as the grand-prize winner. But, well, yuck.
“Turn the camera a little to the right. We can’t see the logo.”
Yeah, yeah. It’s a magazine cover, not a news photo. But still. Yuck.
In other E&P news, “What Do Women Want?” [Scratching head.]
Newspapers are losing working mothers and time-pressed single women even faster than they are losing readers overall. Adult newspaper readership has dwindled from more than 80% of the total audience in 1964 to 49.9% last year, according to Scarborough Research and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). But in 1964, only about 2% fewer women read newspapers than men. That gap stood at nearly 5% in 2006, with readership among men being 52.3% and women 47.6%. This gender gap is not just a U.S. problem, but shows up in nearly every nation, the World Association of Newspapers reported last year.
While I would dearly love to pick apart the numbers (a 3 percent gender-gap increase in 42 years … stop the presses!), I just don’t have time. I skimmed the article because, well, apparently I’m a “habitual skimmer.”
Some of the most powerful themes for women are the health and wellness of their children. Women are “habitual skimmers,” so stories should be short to attract female readers, says Skoloda. Research shows they like brief and bulleted formats, but they also want personal stories. “USA Today certainly has a format that has been very appealing to women,” she adds. Another favorite: The Wall Street Journal’s “Weekend Journal.”
So keep the stories short, bub. Hey, here’s an idea. Why not make everything pink? I hear girls love pink.
Posted by Becky @
12:26 am |
What Working Mother magazine won’t tell you: Global gender gap
If things are going so well for American working mothers, why did the United States fall from 23rd place to 31st place on the Global Gender Report?
Posted by Becky @
10:26 am |
Extra sand in the glass … and cash in the pocket?
Have you been reading that changing clocks earlier in spring and later in fall is saving us energy and money? Maybe. If we turn the hourglass back to 1974.
Carl Bialik, The Numbers Guy at The Wall Street Journal, said that statistics used to promote the Energy Policy Act of 2005 are outdated and supposed savings are in doubt.
When Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, introduced the bill, they said the extension could save Americans the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day — an estimate repeated frequently in the media. But that statistic relied on figures from 1974, when President Nixon sprung clocks forward early, in January, during an energy crisis.
Never mind that our energy use is much, much different than it was three decades ago.
(I’m not sure when WSJ articles disappear behind the paywall, so here is another link to the article.)
Posted by Becky @
12:34 pm |
Freelance journalist killed in Iraq
Freelance journalist Dhi Abdul-Razak al-Dibo, 32, was shot dead near Kirkuk on Monday, less than 24 hours after a Washington Post correspondent was killed in Baghdad.
According to Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders): at least 54 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the start of the year; 10 worked for foreign news media (Radio Free Europe, Newsweek, ABC, APTN, Reuters, The New York Times and The Washington Post); and 203 media workers have been killed and 83 kidnapped (14 apparently still being held) in Iraq since 2003.
The Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial has a working list, Journalists in Peril.
Posted by Becky @
9:07 am |
What Working Mother magazine and WSJ’s Work & Family columnist won’t tell you
I mentioned that TIME published an article questioning the Working Mother magazine “100 best” list, but I didn’t get around to adding that WSJ.com questioned the list too. Sara Schaefer Muñoz of The Juggle posted “Do Family-Friendly Companies Live Up to Their Claim?” on Sept. 25, 2007.
Nine days later, The Wall Street Journal‘s Work & Family columnist Sue Shellenbarger wrote “What Makes a Company A Great Place to Work Today” (on the same page as the “soft” benefits article) on Oct. 4, 2007.
Shellenbarger (who was named one of America’s “25 Most Influential Working Mothers” by Working Mother magazine in 1997, according to a lecture bio) started with, “Tis the season for workplace rankings, with ‘best-workplace’ lists sprouting everywhere this fall,” and she mentioned Working Mother magazine’s list, as well as Business Week‘s “Best Places to Launch a Career” list. Then she broke it into “what’s hot” and “what’s not” categories.
Hot
Flexibility. She mentioned AstraZeneca, where “more than two-thirds of the 30 employees in a medical-resources group are regular users of alternative setups tailored to their needs.” (That’s 20 employees.) Which is odd because Working Mother said 90 percent of employees at the main office — almost 2,700 employees — worked some sort of flexible schedule. In any case, neither Working Mother nor Shellenbarger offered more details.
She wrote that in Abbott‘s office in Ohio, “75 percent of 108 employees are on flexible work setups and the rest have day-to-day flexibility.” That’s 81 employees.
Broader programs. She wrote that Pfizer and The Phoenix Cos. added paid paternity leave. Working Mother did not mention this about Phoenix on its list, but it did spell it out for Pfizer, which is actually impressive, relatively speaking, with 35 weeks of maternity leave (15 fully paid) for mothers and 26 weeks of paid leave for fathers and adoptive parents (six weeks fully paid). Even so, it’s still a far cry from what Pfizer employees in Norway and Sweden get.
Vacation time. She mentioned that at Xerox (not a Working Mother “100 best” company), employees can buy an extra vacation week.
Wait. That’s hot?
According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research‘s May 2007 “No-Vacation Nation” report, the United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid leave.
Here’s a chart from that report.
Xerox has employees in every country listed on the chart, meaning its employees in those countries get up to seven weeks paid leave (vacation and holidays) — guaranteed by law. Xerox employees in the United States buy vacation days.
Whew. Somebody open a window. That’s smokin’ hot.
…
This really deserves its own post, but since she mentioned Shellenbarger by name, I’ll put it here. Former Working Mother magazine editor Lisa Benenson gave publicity tips to corporate benefits managers at a Diversity Roundtable, called “A Journalist’s Perspective: Making the Grade Matters,” in 2002. (Benenson is now editor-in-chief of Hallmark Magazine, giving lessons on the TODAY show about “what flowers say.”)
What does it take to get a Sue Shellenbarger to laud your company in The Wall Street Journal … More importantly, why does it matter?
She referred to journalists who cover work/life issues as “some of your most important advocates.”
The end result of making any of the “Best Of” lists is a bountiful supply of positive news coverage that reflects well on the company, its leadership and employees. The companies that make a top 10 list get incredible publicity. There is nothing like it. There are thousands of media hits all across the country. You just get huge press coverage and recognition for the good work that you’re doing.
Benenson encouraged participants to “seriously consider subjecting their operations to the close scrutiny of journalistic investigation.”
Journalistic investigation? By whom?
Posted by Becky @
5:23 pm |
