Responsibility can feel like a tricky idea for journalists. Typically, we default to what our traditional practice reminds us: we owe the reader. But what of the people whose stories we tell? What do we owe them?Thanks for reading Writerland! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
It's very important to share with subjects in a book the chapters they will appear in before publication, and for exactly the reasons outlined in this essay: greater accuracy, more information, and in furtherance of the mission of subjects feeling heard. My own editor at Scribner seemed surprised when I announced that we couldn't go to press until I had done this, but it vastly improved my book and preserved the relationships I had formed with my subjects. As I explained to him, they are going to read it anyway--why not before it's too late to change anything?
Never sharing your work with a subject before publication was drilled into us in J-school and at newspapers, but I have always thought that principle is wrong. No wonder so much of what is published is inaccurate and reporters are generally reviled, when you pass on the opportunity to have your work scrutinized and take away a subject's agency.
It's very important to share with subjects in a book the chapters they will appear in before publication, and for exactly the reasons outlined in this essay: greater accuracy, more information, and in furtherance of the mission of subjects feeling heard. My own editor at Scribner seemed surprised when I announced that we couldn't go to press until I had done this, but it vastly improved my book and preserved the relationships I had formed with my subjects. As I explained to him, they are going to read it anyway--why not before it's too late to change anything?
Never sharing your work with a subject before publication was drilled into us in J-school and at newspapers, but I have always thought that principle is wrong. No wonder so much of what is published is inaccurate and reporters are generally reviled, when you pass on the opportunity to have your work scrutinized and take away a subject's agency.