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by Thornton X/PNN Poverty Scholar in residence I want to write like Studs Terkel did for over 40 years. He more-or-less practiced Poor Magazine’s "I"-focused journalism, and knew how to get out of the way and let the experience of the people he interviewed speak to readers of books like: Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do, and Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession. No one knows Terkel’s interview style for his books, but he made editing and writing look easy; the mark of a great writer it looks like any idiot can do it! I know better. Writing is a discipline demanding daily dues paid up front. It is all too easy to Not Write, while the pen and keyboard are there, always ready to put my thoughts where someone else might read them. Terkel was also a television pioneer and a survivor of the McCarthy-dominated 50’s television and radio blacklists, running a variety/interview show called Stud’s Place from 1950-1952, canceled after NBC tried to get him to sign a paper stating he was duped into signing petitions for progressive causes. Late in 1952 Terkel heard Woodie Guthrie singing on WFMT radio station in Chicago, he called and began a 45-year career there, essentially inventing the radio talk show and honing the "invisible interviewer" mode of editing found in his books. There are many practitioners of that style, including my favorite, the Oakland, CA-based science fiction/fantasy/horror/mystery author interview/book review magazine called Locus. Terkel’s tombstone epitaph is Curiosity Didn’t Kill This Cat. True, it drove him to live 96 good years, listening to everyone who would talk to him. |
Original Post Date
2009-03-22 11:00 PM
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