Sarah Hutchins | Oct. 31, 2007
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"There’s a divide between people who thrive on being war correspondents and those who will go into those situations it if they have to, but find other kinds of stories about life and society where there are not open conflicts, but problems like dictatorships,” he said. “I learned early what side of the divide I’m on.”
Nagorski covered those "other kinds of stories" as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Warsaw and Berlin and wrote four books before becoming a senior edtior. This week, he visited IU to describe his work and talk about his latest book, The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow that Changed the Course of World War II.
Monday, Nagorski visited associate professor Owen Johnson’s J110 Foundations of Journalism class to talk about his career as a foreign correspondent. Tuesday evening, he gave a general lecture at the IMU.
Nagorski told J110 students that he never majored in journalism; instead, he wrote for his college newspaper. He taught at a high school in Massachusetts for three years, but when he was offered tenure at the age of 25, he decided to apply for a job in journalism. This led him to a trial program and, eventually, a job at Newsweek.
“I always had an interest in going abroad,” Nagorski said. “There was a whole romantic notion about being a foreign correspondent.”
Between freshman and sophomore year in college, Nagorski went to New York and became a copy boy for the New York Times. His job was to take the glue pots used to revise articles (a physical form of the digital “copy and paste”) off editors’ desks, scrape off the congealed glue, stir the pots and put them back.
While Nagorski typed his first book on a typewriter, something he said he can never imagine doing again, he views technology as a mixed blessing.
“Now, you’re reachable all the time,” Nagorski said. “That’s great in terms of instant communication but it also means that foreign correspondents are at the beck and call of their desks.”
One trend Nagorski noted is that publications are cutting back on the number of foreign correspondents, a development he said is “a loss for everybody.”
Nagorski offered students several pieces of advice throughout his Q&A session. His first tip was to learn foreign languages. Nagorski speaks Polish, French, Russian and German. However, he said Chinese and Arabic are important tools for aspiring journalists.
“You really want to get into a culture and learn about the society,” he said. “Go there and get to know the people and the concerns that they won’t tell a stranger.”
He emphasized that reporters should strive to give people the idea that they are getting inside a country or society.
“You want to give people something different than what they’re reading every day. Especially in magazine journalism, stories need a narrative thread that pulls it all together.”
While Nagorski said there is no set way to get into journalism, he ended with advice.
“If your goal is job security, you need a new profession,” he said. “You’ve got to be willing to take risks, be good with different mediums, develop interests and seize all the opportunities available.”
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