NEWSMAKERS
Writerly insecurities
MITA KAPUR
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Veteran journalist Tina Brown talks about writing — whether for a magazine, a book or the Internet — and the challenges of each.
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Photo: V. Sudershan
In the thick of the journalistic buzz: Tina Brown makes a point.
“Obama’s 10 Best Moves and 5 Worst Stumbles So Far” and a lucid take on “Writing off Updike” — featured in Tina Brown’s latest trailblazer, The Daily Beast — is reflective of her definition of what cyber-journalism should be. It’s being watched and read widely, given her past record with Vanity Fair and New Yorker; the move away from the printed word is an adventure for her.
Having run through a career that runs like a Shakespearean drama, “Working is a very serious business but also the passion of my life. I love the creative cut and thrust of media life and only pine when I can’t be in the thick of it,” she says. In India for the Jaipur Literature Festival, Tina felt “it was splendid. I love the colours and the energies”.
Sharpened wit combined with the sparkle in her eyes, slender and coiffed, Tina carried herself with an equanimity. She lost her cell phone on her way to India (that is a big deal, yes!) and was happy to sport borrowed sunglasses (also lost), even helped me chase another author in the crowd that thronged the festival venue.
Experiences
Writing a journalistic piece and writing a book are different experiences. What grabs her writerly sensibilities more is working on a book. “What I love about writing a book is the ability to pause and dilate upon a theme or a character for as long as the pace will allow it. I love the puzzle of a book, the tensions between thematic and chronological writing. You have to keep moving the story along while making the themes in strong relief. It’s very absorbing.” As a journalist, she hunts for the buzz, and as a writer, “Buzz is just another word for interesting enough to talk about. Hopefully, it applies to whatever one is writing. If it’s not interesting to others, what’s the point in writing it for publication? Save it for the personal journal!”
For a journalist who has the been through Tatler, New Yorker, Vanity Fair and now The Daily Beast, “it’s always a big commercial to and fro, how much you can get away with, how much the audience will accept, how much the advertiser will accept and how you can keep pushing the envelope. But the tension between the creative and the commercial sharpens the editorial senses and only makes you better at it”; though, as a writer, on intense introspection she feels she is “as insecure as all writers are”.
Curating ideas
She “curates” ideas to produce content for The Daily Beast, especially since the intent is to use the content generated as a marketing device. “On our site we scour the net both in the U.S. and globally for the 10 stories every morning, for The Daily Beast Cheat Sheet that we truly believe are necessary, fascinating or provocative. It’s a very subjective choice. We are not interested in obligatory news. There are plenty of other sites that do that. It’s all about the sensibility of the chooser; in this case, the very talented young editors who arrive at 4.00 a.m. to do the culling. Then, we also assign another 10-15 stories a day which we consider just as fascinating but are original to us. We have top drawer writers writing for us, and we respond to everything that goes to maintain quality. In an age of excess data, information, bombarding media, we feel we are there for quality control and to provide pointers to the best and most entertaining stuff we can find.”
Is journalism today doing any critical commentary? “Journalism is hazardous today with so many unreliable sources. But it’s also very exciting. We have never had access to so many outlets before in real time all over the world and mistakes can be instantly corrected. I think that when the economics of the web are truly sorted out, we will enter a new golden age of journalism.” The corporatisation of global journalism “has been a curse to journalism across the board. Big companies who acquire media with no understanding or experience don’t know or care how to support it and have no concept of what it takes to be a great news operation. A curse on all their heads!”
Impact of the meltdown
The literary and publishing scene in the U.S. and U.K. are different from India’s, yet have similarities — the impact of the meltdown has affected all “horribly. No one has a job. I wrote a column just recently called The Gig Economy about how everyone patched together bits and pieces to do since their jobs melted away. There is mass panic, but it’s also a great time to be innovative as we are finding at The Daily Beast. I think some of the good reception we have had is that people are thrilled that something new has started that is trying to do good smart journalism and commentary, and foster some bold new voices.”
Examining and exploring private lives, throwing out what’s not required takes a lot of discernment and Tina said, “I think every editor and writer has their own personal boundaries of how far they want to go and how they feel they can push without invading in gratuitous or clumsy ways.”
This approach shows even in her book, The Diana Chronicles and she says she is adopting the same for her book on Hilary Clinton. Having been quoted that “powerful women always interpret hostility as unrequited love” as a tactic, “It has been useful in the face of a great deal of flak directed at me over the years! Luckily for me, I have no memory for feuds. I am always getting into an elevator and warmly greeting someone who three weeks ago insulted me roundly.”
‘Being fired is good, writing a book is good, reaching your 50’s is good. As a woman who is an icon, “I adore my fifties. Have never been happier. Now my kids are in their late teens and early twenties, they are my best friends and I no longer carry around that rucksack of guilt every working mother feels: how long to stay at the office. I just wish I could stay this age for another ten years.”
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