That's how he would describe his experience of uncovering the shady real-estate deal between "Duke" Cunningham and the defense contractor, Mitchell Wade.
After seeing that Duke had recently made 2 trips to Saudi Arabia (and for no noble purpose, he assumed, noting "the Duke's" heavy drinking and womanizing qualities), he became suspicious. So he went to see if the Duke had recently updated his living conditions. Sure enough, he had recently sold his house in exchange for a new one. Who to? An address. 1523 New Hampshire Ave - a DC address that Stern traced back to Mitchell Wade.
Anyhow, the nice little tale of corruption ends with Duke pleading guilty of accepting over $2.4 million in bribes and going to prison (where he is no longer able to entertain female lobbyists on his boat, "The Dukester", dressed in pajamas, amidst lava lamps and candles, while serving flutes of chilled champagne), and Stern and his partner, Jerry Kammer, winning the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
The product of having Stern and Krammer speak today was an odd sort of jumbling of messages. On one hand there was Stern, who said that DC politics were a "self-reinforcing loop of legalized corruption", and that Congress is "the largest crime scene in the world".
These themes of tyranny and corruption were then partly counteracted by Kammer's seemingly eternal optimism. "Journalism should be fun", he said, despite the fact that the secrets he was uncovering exposed some very dark sides of society. And not only is he a self-proclaimed "patriotic American", but believes that every good journalist needs a bit of naivety to really trust in the fact that there are good people out there who want to help.
Other key points of the seminar: learn to use databases and be proficient at online research, develop a niche area of reporting that makes you stand out from the others, and don't listen to what people say but look at what they do.
"Journalism is like being a parent," Stern said, you don't need to be certified or have some special qualification. You just need to be motivated and persistent.
Kind of makes you leery of the title itself, doesn't it? Like some odd-ball nosy peeper sort could just start calling people up claiming to be conducting research for a story, because really, how are his credentials any different from a "real" journalist?
And parents?
Well, judging by the metaphor, it seems they could just as well be the peeper creepers we all fear.
 | |||||
| Marc Stern and Jerry Kammer - | "Journalism should be fun - this guy made it fun when he wasn't a pain in he ass" | - Jerry Kammer |
No comments:
Post a Comment