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November 2006 From the President's Desk: Our Reality

by Jack El-Hai

It had to happen eventually. After focusing on people in need of dates, island castaways, folks pretending to be pioneer homesteaders, aspiring singers and dancers and models, terrible dressers, candidates for plastic surgery, and marketers in training, the makers of reality television programs have finally set their sights on journalists. Earlier this year Rolling Stone magazine announced its participation with MTV in a reality series for wannabe writers. "Working with the magazine's top editors, competitors will hone their writing skills and secure interviews with major musicians, actors, and politicians," the casting call read. Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's founder and publisher, cited the publication's venerable list of contributors-including Hunter S. Thompson and Cameron Crowe-and added, "We're anxious to meet the candidates and welcome them into the Rolling Stone family as they embark on their professional careers."

When I first saw the announcement of the program last spring, I read the magazine's statement several times over. Should journalists begin their careers, I wondered, by interviewing major performers and politicians? Wouldn't the interviewees take advantage of the inexperience of the neophyte writers? What happened to the idea of learning a craft in small steps? It might be best to interview the retiree next door before seeking such big game as Bill Clinton.

My concerns increased when I obtained a copy of the form that Rolling Stone was requiring applicants for the program to complete. It did ask for three writing samples (200 to 500 words, on such topics as music, film, TV, fashion, politics, or pop culture), evidence of writing interest, and citations of publications and awards. But it also asked for a few things that I've never had to provide in all of my career as a writer: two photos (full-length and close-up), acting experience, details of the applicant's feelings about New York City, opinions of the nation's worst and most overrated journalists, big events looming in the applicant's personal life, stories from childhood, details of a typical weekend and explanations of any recent outbursts of crying.

With the help of several media blogs, I followed the program's progress as the show's six participants were selected and trotted through their paces during the summer. Gawker.com reported that "three of them are absolutely hopeless, clearly cast as the proverbial 'stupids' necessary for any successful reality competition. There's also one clear front-runner, a fellow talented enough that he has no business on a show designed for special-needs journos." Anecdotes leaked out of the contestants attending and reviewing concerts, getting filmed at Coney Island, and so on.

None of this is surprising. Every reality program I've seen, whether it deals with high-ability nannies or children searching for a wife for their rich old dad, smells of storyboarding, scripting, and blatant manipulation of events. Little is real or spontaneous.

But the show's progress inspired me to imagine what a true reality show about writers would look like. Although I know a few writers who travel frequently or engage in adventure journalism, most of my colleagues in ASJA do not lead glamorous lives. We are rarely photographed, followed, or even noticed-if we are doing our jobs right. We'd make dreadful subjects of a TV series.

TV wouldn't like us for two reasons. First, for many of us, the point of writing is to examine the lives of others. It's not about us. By investigating the lives and passions of other people, we can occasionally come to valuable conclusions about the human experience in general. The specific becomes the universal, a major goal of any field of artistic expression. And second, those conclusions we reach most often come to us through sorting information, putting pieces together, writing, rewriting, and thinking-all of which takes time and looks a lot like what people do when they are doing absolutely nothing. TV doesn't like subjects who look like they are doing nothing.

So if and when MTV ever broadcasts that series about young journalists in pursuit of the previous night's concert headliner, remember a few things: 1) It's not real; 2) what you're seeing has little to do with journalism; and most importantly, 3) the lucky ones are those who can switch off the show and return to the satisfying work of nonfiction writing.

Jack El-Hai of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is president of ASJA. E-mail the president through www.asja.org/contact.php.