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i almost never post threads, but will today. about two years ago, @nytimes hired two relatively new reporters who are veterans of recent american wars: @johnismay (a former @USNavy explosive ordnance disposal tech) & @Tmgneff (a former @usmc rifleman and sniper team leader.) /1
hiring john and tm was not coincidence. it was purposeful. editors at the paper, after considerable discussion, had decided they wanted many of the attributes that people with john's and tm's experience can offer to newsrooms and readers. /2
these attributes include a baked-in understanding of the armed forces & of service, deep technical knowledge, personal knowledge & experience of war, & an earned skepticism of authority & official narratives that many vets pick up, having lived military life inside. /3
the attributes also include a rich stable of military sources, and the potential for credibility with future sources and subjects, which can open doors on fast-moving news stories or earn them access in complicated investigations over time. /4
(i could add that many veterans also have impressive work habits and a sense of purpose that newsrooms welcome, but these attributes abound among reporters and editors generally, so they do not make veterans unique. don't @ me with your vets work harder than civilians shit.) /5
hiring john & tm was part of a larger plan, offered by @jakesilverstein of @NYTmag & blessed by @deanbaquet & underwritten with @nytimes dollars, to resuscitate @NYTimesAtWar, an idled, once free-form war-related blog that encouraged war coverage from the bottom, not the top. /6
we don't call @NYTimesAtWar a blog anymore. it's a full-on channel that welcomes (& pays for) freelance submissions & mentors many new or one-off writers in the service of enriching the discourse of armed conflict, often and by design with a focus on the *experience* of war. /7
and under the editing of @Lkatzenberg, @NYTimesAtWar is so much more. it undertakes major projects and seeks a richer array of voices than its themes sometimes attract. (cough cough this is no fukn vetbro locker room.) example of a project below: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/23/magazine/those-who-cant-forget.html?module=inline /8
(if you follow @NYTimesAtWar, i'll now tease by saying @Lkatzenberg and @johnismay will soon be publishing a richly researched and profoundly human investigation into an american military weapon with a fratricidal history that has never been told. yeah. i'm proud of them.) /9
this @NYTimesAtWar thing has grown in ways i did not foresee. we do public events. i've attended all but one of our many TimesTalks around the country & found we have a genuine community of readers who turn up to meet & to talk, with passion. it's moving to be in these rooms. /10
none of this is to suggest we have our shit wired. we're four committed people who live in three different geographies. we rarely actually see each other and we all wish we could be better, faster, smarter and more in sync. and, for the record,.. 11/
...john & tm can default to knucklehead & lauren brings the intensity of a chainsaw. (note to haters: imma chainsaw nut so that's compliment). it's all good faith & they serve readers & their consciences each day, which are the right fuels. we try for good humor on the way. /12
so why this thread? because in journalism, if you value sanity, you learn to appreciate & be grateful for simple, sturdy beat work, told cleanly, as the foundation of all else. and we have examples that can be lost under the roar of major news or ego-driven prizebait stories /13
one is this piece. it landed w/o fanfare but is is a type of interpretive explainer readers need. john dunked it while doing four other things for another desk. news orgs get immense value from organic, unheralded inputs flowing from staff diversity. /14 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/us/navy-seal-trident-insignia.html
another is this, by tm & @FatmaFaizi. it's beautifully told, reflects full (& expensive) newspaper commitment to international coverage, & emanates a humanity that makes war coverage cohere facts and analyses into sorrow & moral rigor. /15 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/world/asia/afghanistan-bombs-war.html
both examples, like the previous link of the project lauren led on Section 60, are essential for other reasons, internal to the ever weird workplace that is the @nytimes. why? because they are not strictly @NYTimesAtWar work -- they reflect collaboration across desks & turf. /16
tm works for the dc bureau & also contributes overseas. john is at present on our national desk. but both were hired expressly to enrich war & vet coverage, wherever assigned, in the @NYTimesAtWar reanimation jake & dean offered. lauren roams the newsroom in collaboration. /17
another example of that collaboration is below, cooked up by lauren and @samsifton for @nytfood, with huge assists from the @NYTimesAtWar reader community i mentioned above. all of this was published *this week* in a climate churning with news. /18 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/18/dining/soldiers-military-thanksgiving.html
yeah yeah i'm running long. don't worry. almost over. keep your short-attention-span-fucked-up-digital-drunk brains together for a few more words. 19/
as we head to a 3rd year of our channel's 2nd life, let's hope it will be still better. i invite you to subscribe to our newsletter, & to see in our experiment the rich results that can follow diversity in hiring & willingness to mentor people not of presumed pedigrees. /20
i also invite you to reach out tell us what we can do better, or share tips or source recommendations, or anything else. yeah my hatemail bin is open too - [email protected] - & i'm known to keep a list of top-ten insults; if you're an internet misanthrope have at it... /21
...but if you're a grateful reader maybe bang a mug for john, lauren & tm, & the good fortune of having a few bosses up high give them space & budget to do what they believe in. journalism has issues, don't we all know it. so does @nytimes. so do we. but we're not dead... /22
...and this experiment is like a pilot light in darkness; small, yeah, but enduring, promising warmth and hope. i have plenty of editor blood on my antlers & will probably end up w more before they gore me at last. but i'm thankful for this thing... /23
...and will end w this: i hope the synergies and work that have bloomed around @NYTimesAtWar can be a model for newsrooms anywhere, or for teams of journalists on ANY beat who want to serve communities and change the song. thanks @nytimes for this chance. that's it. i'm out.
well, not quite out. a postscript, to offer that our visions are often more small than grand. pretty much every day we show up hoping to be involved enough to prevent self-inflicted wounds like what's below. (i'd venture that every vet who reads journalism can relate.)
