Seven answers on 7Q (also known as the FAQs of life.)				Interviewed by Tom Mangan Mack Reed, digital journalist. Previously Q'd here.		AUTHORS Michael Fuchs Elizabeth Hilts Paul Riddell Gary Rivlin Jim Motavalli Barbara Shafferman Jules Siegel Keith Snyder ARTISTS/POETS/ PHILOSOPHERS Jon C. Allen Will Baker Mike Leung Jon Sarkin COOL SITE KEEPERS Mike Cash Scott O'Neal Colf Godfrey Daniels Cliff Davis, DDS Tammy Hocking Wes Modes Frank Rogan DIARISTS Ralph Becker J. D. Bruns Linda DeVault Mike Reed Moira Richardson Jessamyn West FILMMAKERS Ben Kufrin Dean Mermell JOURNALISTS Bernie Mary Cooley-Jones Lindsay Crysler Jamie Dupree M.O.A.T.M.A.I. David Moll Robert Niles John Orr Steven Ovadia Pierce Presley Mack Reed Rip Rense Curtis Ross Neal Ross John Scalzi Catherine Seipp David Sheets Dwight Silverman Matt Welch MOVIE MAVENS MaryAnn Johanson Brian Koller HUMORISTS Debbie Farmer Mike Jasper Madeleine Begun Kane Patrick Keller Bob Sassone Valerie Sprague Ken Swarmer Ian Wolff SOLDIERS Maj. Jon Anderson, USAF TEACHERS John Warner TECHIES Chris Adamson Mike Gunderloy Michael Ivey Greg Knauss Floyd Maxwell Ellen McDonough Mike Pingleton Wayne Thume John Worth TEENS Gary Baum Marty Beckerman UNDECLARED Bev Gibbs Beth Reid WEBLOGGERS Jason Kottke Jish Mukerji
ONE				What do you think of the whole Staples Center controversy that your old employer, the Los Angeles Times, has gotten itself embroiled in? When I opened the paper that day and saw the magazine's hyperbolic state of gush, my wife and I uttered the same word: a two-syllable euphemism for fellatio. Now, the Times is paying dearly for its little deal with the devil, as it should. The biggest mistake Kathryn Downing made was in not fully disclosing this unprecedented agreement to the paper's top editors beforehand so that someone could have said "whoa, dude, that profit-splitting thing's just wrong." But I guess when money talks at that level, ethics walk. I love the Times and the bulk of its savvy, hardworking staff, with whom I had the privilege to work for seven years. But while the paper's heart remains one of the greatest in American journalism, its head keeps making its hands do unspeakable things. These seem to have begun with with the appointment of Mark Willes as CEO in '95 and were followed shortly thereafter by: The layoffs in '95 of 175 editorial staffers and hundreds more paper-wide The folding of terrific sections such as World Report and City Times The hamfisted creation of special "teams" and even editions for covering women and minorities rather than instilling the editorial staff with a more diversity- and market-sensitive mission The much ballyhooed "bazooka" number that Willes and team performed upon the traditional wall between advertising and editorial The Staples thing should have been no surprise to anyone. It was -- while obviously reprehensible and self-destructive -- the bloated flesh finally hung on the corrupt spirit of the last bullet point above. It's interesting to note that newspapers remain by and large the only holdout of the church-state separation that has crumbled (if it ever existed) in TV and radio and never even developed on the Web. It's a very noble standard to maintain, and one I wish I could follow. But my business demands occasionally that I blend advertiser teases into car reviews, create packages from sponsor-supplied content and generally watch our bottom line. Fact is, Web banner ads don't work, and all content sites, even Cox Interactive Media's, are scrambling to find other ways to deliver clickthroughs to sponsors and thus keep them happy enough to pay the bills.
TWO				Lots of folks in newsrooms are bolting to work for dotcoms. What words of caution would you send to others thinking of making the same move? Do your research. Learn HTML. Don't jump on a startup right away without knowing where it's come from and where it's headed. Learn HTML. If you have a solid newspaper gig, bide your time and choose carefully. And LEARN HTML. It's not that hard, and most Web companies don't give a flying f*@# how well you can write, how much experience you have, how many awards you've earned or how much you'd love to make the switch to the Internet. If you don't know its core language (and that's raw HTML, not just intimacy with FrontPage, PageMill, DreamWeaver or other WYSIWYG editors that no sizeable media company uses) then you ain't gettin' into the party, stud.
THREE				A lot of the news people I know have become hardened and cynical about the business. Any ideas on what might bolster their morale? Wait, hardened and cynical is a bad thing? Okay, here goes: Suicide and divorce rates are slightly lower than for cops Late-breaking news is a great excuse for avoiding your kid's school play Everyone above your direct boss will go to his grave without ever having enjoyed the fruits of an honest day's brilliant work -- such as abject poverty, total obscurity and clumsy editing Win any spelling bee that will let you enter! You can exact withering public revenge on liars, cheats, thugs and hucksters -- and still get your ass sued off You are funnier when drunk than most people are sober, though the officer never tells you so when he's writing the ticket Idiot politicians leave office young, but you can labor long into your 70s so long as you keep making them sound smarter than they actually are Write a Pulitzer-worthy story that gets passed over in favor of a lesser one written by a Pulitzer panelist's own staff You're doing kinda sorta almost exactly what Dan Rather and Peter Arnett are doing, only you don't have to wear makeup, squint at hot lights, ride to work in a limousine or worry about how to spend your stock-option bonuses Two words: Free coffee
FOUR				Are newspapers doomed? No, but they're coughing up blood. Seriously, they may suffer the sort of die-back that Broadway did when movie theaters sprang up all over NYC, but they will survive in some form. Until you can browse the Web on an inexpensive handheld device that fits in your pocket, there will always be a need for cheap, fully portable and disposable info provided in newspapers. (Hey, wait a minute...)
FIVE				Some of us keep thinking one of these days we're going to screw up our nerve and go to Burning Man. What hard, nasty realities do we need to know before we act on such impulses? BM's hard nasties are these: $100 entry fee (unless you order early) Many, many, many miles from just about anywhere Hot, windy, filthy, crazy Few people cook very well on Coleman stoves, and PopTarts and tunafish get real old real fast Scads of naked people (few are 19, female and cute) Rampant "art" (not all of it witty, worthy or even art) Windy, hot, filthy, insane Get drunk enough and you could die Get too close to a fire or speeding vehicle or ill-aimed explosive or bad art installation and you could die Get ahold of the wrong drug and you could die Don't take the plunge, and you could die without ever having been to the coolest, most eye-opening temporary city on earth. Think Brigadoon-as-desert artists' colony. And remember what Kurt Vonnegut never said about the sunblock.
SIX				Tell us about something you did in your job in online news that was impossible in print. Publishing up to 100 photos of a single event so that people can see all the work of good photographers that print always squanders in favor of two ill-cropped, poorly chosen, shittily repro'd pix. Our formula has shifted away from mostly-news, but we routinely have beaten the local newspapers (and TV stations) to the street with scoops on pro sports trades, disasters and political scandals. We created a live public forum for transmitting news of and giving the little guy a voice in Orange County's biggest political war. It gets hundreds of pageviews each day: http://www.ocnow.com/news/special/eltoro/
SEVEN				You wrote rather fondly of a grizzled old car you drive. Any good stories to tell about it? It's a '94 Saab with 160,000+ miles, a permanent undercoating of Burning Man-generated alkali mud, a little flood damage, a few brushfire scorchmarks and the lasting devotion of its owner. But its predecessor will always be closest to my heart. Steve Marquez, a Philadelphia Daily News reporter and one of my best friends, died of AIDS in '87 and left me his battered old '75 Toyota Celica. In the course of our long life together, I rebuilt the Celica's motor twice, reupholstered it, painted it, (electric blue, then plum-crazy purple) and put a total of 400,000+ miles on it covering everything from earthquakes and defense contract fraud to psychiatric hospital abuse and mass-murder trials. It died exactly seven years to the week after Steve did, and never worked any less than as hard as he did.
				THE BIG INDEX... Who they are, what they do, how they think. Go there now. A TO Z ARCHIVE... Everybody here, with quickie bios. Go there now. Return to the main Seven Questions page See the original Newsies 7Q project Contact info@sevenquestions.com Copyright 1999-2002, Thomas L. Mangan