OK, I'll own up to this, but please don't think this is representative of my work....
Last year, when the movie "The Full Monty" opened in the UK, I got a call from the Daily Express. The film is about a bunch of former steelworkers who become strippers to pay the bills, and the paper wanted a journalist to find out what it's like to do a striptease when you have a less than perfect physique.
I really didn't want the job, but they offered such a huge fee that simple economics forced me to accept. The venue was a all-female club in central London, packed with raucous, drunken women on hen nights, determined to see some male flesh. I had to perform with the Dreamboys, an eight-strong, Chippendales-style striptease act, all as tanned and muscular as I was pallid and thin.
The owner of the club poured cocktails down my throat to help
me summon the courage to go through with it. My brief was to come
out on stage in a tux, choose a girl from the audience, bring
her onto the stage and pour her champagne before stripping down
to my (clean) Calvins to the accompaniment of Harry Connick Jr
singing "It had to be You."
Before I went out, the guys rubbed baby oil into my skin in an
effort to make me look more attractive, and the girls outside
were informed that I was a reporter with a louche lifestyle, and
therefore they shouldn't expect too much.
They were very supportive when I actually appeared, cheering and
whistling and making various improper suggestions. It all went
wonderfully, and I was even enjoying it - poured the champagne
OK, got the tux, bow-tie and shirt off fine...
Then disaster struck. The trousers had velcro seams, so you can
just grab the front and rip them off. This was supposed to be
the grand finale, so I reached down and gave them a firm yank
-- too firm, in fact, and the front half wrapped itself tightly
around my head. My efforts to remove them were hampered by the
fact that I was effectively blinded, blind drunk, and smothered
in slippery baby oil. I had to be led from the stage. Back to
being a hack...
I don't know if I would describe myself as an adventure journalist; it's hard to categorize what I do. I want to write about people, places and activities that excite me; life is too short to write for Injection Moulding Monthly. But some of the best reporting is about ordinary people and mundane activities; we shouldn't rely on sexy subject matter to make our copy fizz.
You can write about whatever you want, so long as there's a market
for it. Here in the UK there's been an explosion in the men's
lifestyle magazine market, with some titles posting consecutive
100 per cent year-on-year circulation rises -- fantastic news
for writers like me.
The most frightened I've ever been was when I threw myself out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft three miles up in the sky when researching a story on skydivers in Spain.
The closest I came to serious physical injury -- after reporting from the West Bank and Northern Ireland -- was here in London, when I was charged by two policemen mounted on the biggest horses I've ever seen, during a riot a couple of years ago. All the rioters had the sense to run away, but I just stood there, thinking that the cops would somehow be able to detect that I was a reporter. They didn't, and I was lucky to make it behind an oak tree before they clobbered me.
There are lots of people who would kill to avoid seeing their stories sensationalized on the front page of a tabloid. But they are often very media-savvy, and understand the difference between sensation and a reasonable attempt to show what they do and how they live. Eight glossy pages in a magazine appeals to some people's vanity, but it's still extraordinary how much time people will devote to a reporter trying to write something detailed and fair, even if there's no benefit to be had from the publicity, or if publicity ought to be actively avoided.
You simply need to win people's confidence. If they, or their
profession -- has been maligned in the press in the past, don't
skirt around the issue; acknowledge the fact, and try to reassure
them about your intentions. Tell them in detail exactly what you
plan to write, and show them some of your work. There are degrees
of confidence -- sometimes people will grant me access but stay
suspicious, and the story always suffers.
Ultimately, only the editors can decide whether your work makes the page. But it's up to free-lances to make sure they get paid regardless of how their work is used. I often spend weeks of my time and thousands of pounds putting a story together. Before I start, I make sure that I have a watertight legal agreement with the magazine, covering the rights I'm assigning, my fee and payment of expenses.
Of course, a magazine can simply choose to ignore this and refuse any payment, in which case the journalist either has to start legal action, or abandon all hope of payment; for cash-strapped free-lances, the former is rarely an option, particularly when your opponent is some huge publishing conglomerate. Thus a contract isn't always enough. I only undertake big projects for magazines for whom I have written before, with a good record of payment, and for editors with whom I have a good working relationship.
But that doesn't mean that we should turn away commissions from
new publications. Asking an editor to pay an advance, or pay for
flights and accommodation, helps reduce the journalist's financial
exposure and increases the publication's commitment to the project.
I haven't been doing this long enough to have come up with any particularly expert answers. The popular image of a foreign correspondent is of a flash, brash individual, festooned with expensive cameras, strutting around some Third World hellhole peeling notes from a thick wad of dollars. There are plenty of reporters who do just that, immediately making themselves targets for everyone from muggers to the local secret police. And they draw attention to the activities of the people they are reporting on, people who often put a great deal of effort into avoiding unwanted attention.
The great thing about print reporting is that you need nothing
apart from a notebook -- people won't know you're a reporter unless
you announce the fact. By being a quiet, unassuming "gray man"
you'll blend in, and get a far better story by not irritating
the people you're writing about. Doing lots of local research
will educate you about risk, but also show people that you take
a genuine interest in them.
Copyright 1998, Thomas L. Mangan
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