We Did It Together

(Photo by Laila Comolli)

When I think back over the past 50 years, one of the most dramatic changes in journalism has been the way reporters have started working in teams. 

We were taught that the way it worked historically was that a series of great men -- and a few great women -- achieved journalistic success individually. Partnerships were rarely mentioned.

The big names were John Peter Zenger (1697-1746), Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1912), Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) ... and more recently Barbara Walters (1929-present) and Tom Wolfe (1931-present).

There were investigative reporters too, like Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis in the early 20th century and then Jessica Mitford, Seymour Hersh, Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein in our time. (These are the famous ones, there were many others.)

Modern scholars credit the Center for Investigative Reporting and Mother Jones for establishing the non-profit model of investigative journalism.

So concentrating on those two organizations, which encapsulated so much of my own career, it's true we tended to produce our muckraking reports in teams much more than as individuals. Maybe this was a Baby Boomer thing; after all, we were such a huge generation numerically that we rarely could do anything in life completely alone.

Woodward & Bernstein are a tad older than our generation, but they certainly are the most famous co-authors in American journalism history.

Personally, I have published with many co-authors, a fact I treasure, both because I love working with collaborators and because we all uniquely bring different qualities to the partnership.

Some of us specialize in interviews, some in documents, some as investigators, some as writers or story-tellers; every reporter has his or her own strength.

When I work (intermittently) on a memoir, this pattern is so obvious that I almost think any such book ought to be titled: "We Did It Together."

Then again, that might be ambiguous, as it depends what the meaning of the word "it" is.

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The news together is...

* Supreme Court denies Trump allies’ bid to overturn Pennsylvania election results -- It was the first request to delay or overturn the results of the presidential election to reach the court. There were no dissents. (WashPo)

* More unaccompanied migrant children are testing positive for coronavirus (WashPo)

* As His Term Ends, Trump Faces More Questions on Payments to His Hotel -- A civil case being pursued by the attorney general for the District of Columbia has brought renewed attention to what limits there should be on a president’s ability to profit from the office. (NYT)

* It’s been dubbed “V-Day” in Britain. A week after the U.K. became the first Western country to authorize widespread use of a vaccine against COVID-19, it began administering the shots. Margaret Keenan, 90, a former jewelry shop assistant, was the first. The initial 800,000 doses will go to people over 80 who are either hospitalized or already have outpatient appointments scheduled, along with nursing home workers. [AP]

* Foster Farms will shut down a facility in Fresno after almost 200 workers there tested positive. [CalMatters]

* Japan plans to boost its tumbling birth rate by funding artificial intelligence matchmaking schemes to help residents find love. (BBC)

* Pfizer tells U.S. officials it can’t supply substantial additional vaccine doses until late June or July (WashPo)

* Greta Thunberg: "Changes will only happen if we keep pushing—if we keep being very, very annoying, and repeat these things over and over again.” (Time)

* California announced a new app called CA Notify that will alert users if they may have been exposed to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.It’s voluntary, which means it may not be as effective as you might hope, but it will be available starting on Thursday. [CA Notify]

* An Autistic Man Is Killed, Exposing Israel’s Festering Police Brutality Problem -- The police killing of a disabled Palestinian fueled nationwide protests. But the authorities have failed to rein in the use of excessive force, which has a long history. (NYT)

* The Trump administration fully restored the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shields hundreds of thousands of young people from deportation, complying with a federal judge’s order. The Department of Homeland Security posted on its website that it is accepting new applications, petitions for two-year renewals and requests for permission to temporarily leave the U.S. [AP]

* Amid history of mistreatment, doctors struggle to sell Black Americans on coronavirus vaccine (WashPo)

* More than half of media jobs lost this year are in news (Axios)

* The Kremlin Is Offering Russians Free Vaccines, but Will They Take Them? -- Distrust of the government is so widespread that 59 percent of Russians say they have no intention of getting a shot. (NYT)

* Drought Conditions in California Could Stretch to Spring, Set Stage for Another Rough Fire Season (KQED)

* Judge in Michael Flynn case says pardon does not mean the former national security adviser is innocent (WashPo)

* Everest Gets A Growth Spurt As China, Nepal Revise Official Elevation Upward --  After years of surveys and calculations, the countries said Tuesday that the world's highest peak now stands about 29,032 feet above sea level — more than 2 feet taller than the previous consensus. (NPR)

* The cost of child care was already astronomical. In the pandemic, it’s ‘terrifying.’ (WashPo)

* Armed Mexicans Were Smuggled In to Guard Border Wall, Whistle-Blowers Say -- In a complaint unsealed on Friday, whistle-blowers working on President Trump’s wall said that contractors were illegally bringing in Mexican guards to protect construction sites. (NYT)

* Japan's greenhouse gas emissions hit record low (NHK)

* Trump is causing a crisis of faith in our democracy (WashPo)

* The Michigan-Ohio State football game has been cancelled due to Covid-19. (CNN)

* John Lennon remembered 40 years after his murder -- John Lennon's wife, son, former Beatles band-mates and fans paid tribute to one of the world's most revered singer-songwriters on Tuesday, 40 years to the day after his assassination in New York. (Reuters)

* Latest polls in Georgia Senate runoffs: Ossoff (D) 48.6%, Perdue (R) 48.2%; Warnock (D) 49.1%, Loeffler (R) 47.1%. (538)

* Georgetown Hospital Staff Saddened By Elderly Patient Repeatedly Insisting He Used To Be America’s Mayor (The Onion)

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I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you

-- Mariah Carey / Walter N. Afanasieff

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