A panel discussion this afternoon at the Nieman Foundation conference featured The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson (he of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life fame, newly adapted for the screen by Steven Soderbergh) and senior editor Amy Davidson. The main thing I took away from it–well, actually, two things–is 1) Jon Lee Anderson is the shit and 2) If you want to do what Jon Lee Anderson does as a journalist, the only advice they can give to you is: Be Jon Lee Anderson. Apparently, you just have to have his instincts to get the goods. Cool, good to know.
Other interesting points:
•When Anderson was in Zimbabwe recently, reporting on the Mugabe regime, he wore only Adidas tracksuits. “Football hooligan chic,” he called it. Why? Because while he was waiting for his flight to Zimbabwe in “bucolic, rural England” all his clothes were stolen as he sat engrossed in all the Sunday newspapers . When he arrived, he looked around and saw that this is what all the men were wearing. So much for all those Dunhill suits he’s packed! (I wanted to ask him why he’d packed Dunhill suits, but I suppose it would be necessary in order to gain an audience with Mugabe, right?)
•When he reported on Katrina right after it happened, he had three days to report the story and one day to write it. Normally Anderson spends three weeks (minimum, often more like six) reporting a story and another two to three weeks writing it up. Because wireless/internet/etc. was so spotty at that point in New Orleans, he had to send his copy in chunks to Davidson by literally driving back and forth in front of a Sheraton hotel that still had wireless, trying to find one bar.
•”Maybe I represent a kindred spirit,” said Anderson, speculating on why dictators or other similarly difficult subjects have opened up to him in interviews. On Pinochet: “I saw how Pinochet saw himself through his henchman,” who he had to dance around for two weeks before being granted an interview with P. himself, “so I was able to get him to talk.” Like, find out what hobbies your dictator has and get him to talk about them! (Baking cupcakes, raising kittens, gardening, you know.)
•When Anderson was 17, he thought he wanted to become a guerilla.
•Sometimes other guerillas think he is one.
•After three weeks in a place, Anderson says he hits a routine, which means things stop looking fresh. Unless the point of the story has something to do with understanding that routine, it’s usually time to step back and get out with the information that you have.
So, yes, I would like to become like Jon Lee Anderson. Or maybe the Jon Lee Anderson of fashion. That’s a war zone, too, right? Yeah.
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