We Did It Together

(Photo by Laila Comolli)

Over the past 50 years, one of the subtle changes in journalism has been the way reporters have started working in teams. 

According to conventional wisdom, 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 (1929-2022) and Tom Wolfe (1931-2018).

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.)

Meanwhile, the Center for Investigative Reporting and Mother Jones get credit for establishing the non-profit model of investigative journalism.

So concentrating on those two organizations, which encapsulated so much of my early career, we tended to produce our muckraking reports in teams much more than as individuals. 

Personally, I have published with many co-authors, 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.

Therefore, whenever I consider a memoir of my career, this pattern is so obvious that I almost think any such book ought to be titled: "We Did It Together."

(I published an earlier iteration of this one three years ago in December 2020.)

HEADLINES:

• The Pentagon says US warship, commercial ships attacked in Red Sea. Houthis claim attacking 3 ships (AP)

• Iran-linked cyberattacks threaten equipment used in U.S. water systems and factories (NPR)

• Israel Orders Evacuations Amid ‘Intense’ Attacks on Southern Gaza (NYT)

• VP Harris calls on Israel to respect international law, stop killing innocent Palestinians (USA Today)

• U.S. officials warn Israel to protect civilians as airstrikes resume in southern Gaza (WP)

• On Palestine, the gap between the US right and left is huge (Al Jazeera)

• Freed Palestinians Were Mostly Young and Not Convicted of Crimes (NYT)

• What the DeSantis and Newsom Debate Really Revealed — The space between red and blue states (Atlantic)

• Suspect in custody in killings of 3 homeless men in Los Angeles (NBC)

• Liz Cheney Gets Last Laugh Over Marjorie Taylor Greene (Newsweek)

• Charlie Peters, the man who tried to save Washington — He believed that ruthlessly idealistic journalism would renew faith in government (Economist)

• US commerce chief warns against China ‘threat’ (South China Morning Post)

• Politicians in a city in Brazil passed a law secretly written by ChatGPT - and now there is uproar (EuroNews)

• Drunk and Asleep on the Job: Air Traffic Controllers Pushed to the Brink (NYT)

• An archaeological find in Scotland weaves together mystery, tragedy and scientific inquiry (WP)

• Dolly Parton Salutes Rock and Roll (New Yorker)

• Michigan, Washington, Texas, Alabama selected for College Football Playoff (WP)

• 2 clear and consistent paths toward effective, accelerated AI regulation (VentureBeat)

• The world is splitting between those who use ChatGPT to get better, smarter, richer — and everyone else (Business Insider)

• God Who Took Form Of Swan Finding It Much Harder To Seduce Women Than Expected (The Onion)