Prufrock and Me

by Libby Hellmann

““I grow old.. I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled..” The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

I wasn’t going to blog on politics. I really wasn’t. We’re not a political blog. But then Marcus did and it sparked a lively conversation. And I decided I could rationalize it by saying it’s in my DNA. I grew up in Washington, DC, where, when you’re talking about the neighbors at the dinner table, you’re talking politics.

But this isn’t really about politics. It’s more my personal political journey. My first “political” act was triggered by my mother when she dragged me downtown to see the funeral cortege of President Kennedy in 1963. She said it was something I would probably never see again. I remember the flag-draped coffin, the horse with its saddle and stirrups on backwards, the tears and somber expressions. But I had a more personal connection to that event also. I went to the same high school as Luci Baines Johnson and was sitting across from her in study hall when the principal came in that Friday afternoon, beckoned Luci out of the room, and rocked her (and our) world forever.

In 1968 I was supposed to take a semester off college to work for Bobby Kennedy’s campgaign. It didn’t happen. The assassinations kept piling up. Camelot was dead. Vietnam raged. I marched. I protested. I started working for an underground newspaper. Then I dropped out and hitchhiked across country. I thought I was headed to a hippie commune in Colorado where everyone lived off the land. What I found was a crash pad where people subsisted on peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. I kept going and was in the middle of the Nevada desert, six hours from Las Vegas, with a back pack, sleeping bag, and no water, when something kicked in. What was a nice Jewish girl doing in a place like that?

I got myself back East. I re-joined the system. Went to grad school. Started working in TV news. Helped produce the Watergate hearings and watched them twice a day. Then the impeachment hearings. Moved to Chicago. Worked at a PR firm. Eventually started writing.

Why the personal disclosures? Because I’m now on the older end of the Baby Boom, and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek says there’s a difference. Which can affect whether you support Obama or Clinton. If you’re a younger Boomer, born after 1955, you tend to be more hopeful, reject the politics of the past, and support Obama. If you’re an early Boomer, you don’t. (Btw, the Outfit is split down the middle and I suspect our politics are too)...

I’m on the older end. For me, the disappointments of the Sixties, the Seventies, and the past 7 years are still raw. Messages of hope, of redemption for the future, just fall flat ... even with such a likeable, eloquent candidate as Obama. I find all his promises just that-- abstract, feel-good ideas. (Remember “if it feels good, do it?”) I keep thinking the guy is a politician first. Trying to win an election. I doubt that we’ll see any fundamental change in a system where civil servants spend their entire careers working in government and presidents spend a maximum of eight years. And I admit it – I subscribe to the “other shoe” theory of politics. I fear that something bad is going to happen if we get our hopes up too high.

There’s a thoughtful piece worth reading in the New Republic’s “Washington Diarist.” In “Forever Young,”, Leon Wieseltier says your politics comes from how you view the world:

“The question of whether Barack Obama will make a fine commander-in chief finally depends on your view of the direction of history in the coming years.” The author says, “I cannot escape the foreboding that we are heading into an era of conflict, not an era of conciliation.”

I agree. I just can’t ignore that there are people—even entire nations -- that want to destroy us and that they’re devious enough to pick on an untested leader with limited foreign policy experience.

Am I a skeptic? Yes. A cynic? Probably. Clearly on one end of the Boomer spectrum. But I don't want to ruin it for you. Those of you who are full of hope for the future, enjoy. Get involved. Make it happen. Some things will change just by having a Democrat in office (assuming we beat McCain). Just don’t expect me to join in.

So... which type of Baby Boomer are you? Does it even make a difference, or am I just whistling ts elliot?

Amy, We Hardly Knew Ye

by Libby Hellmann

One of the biggest challenges for crime fiction authors (at least this one) is coming up with a credible plot. Is it authentic? Could it really happen? Does it make sense? Will the reader believe it? We ask these questions endlessly, discussing the finer points of crime scenes, weapons, police procedure, and more with each other, law enforcement, editors, maybe even criminals.

One of the hottest stories in Chicago this summer touches on that credibility. And I have to admit, I’m having a hard time with it. If it was fiction, would it pass the credibility test? The fairness test? Would it play? Or is it an example of what’s happened to the media in the 21st century, shielding themselves (and their corporate stockholders) from risk, bad press, and the threat of litigation?

You be the judge.

Last week Amy Jacobson, an ambitious TV reporter for Channel 5 News (the NBC station) was fired. Why? She was videotaped in her bikini at the home of a man whose wife has been missing over two months. The tape was shot by a rival local station, WBBM Channel 2 (the CBS station).

Hmmm.

But let’s proceed.

The story is this: Lisa Stebic, mother of two and husband of Craig, disappeared last April. The couple was in the midst of a contentious divorce. In fact, Lisa had tried to evict Craig from their house in an affluent suburb when she went missing.

Jacobson was covering the story for Channel Five, doing what a good reporter does on a potentially big story: following leads, developing sources, piecing it together.

Apparently one of those sources was Craig Stebic’s sister. She called Jacobson on her day off, inviting her to the Stebic house. Craig was there – maybe he’d talk to Jacobson. After consulting with her husband, Jacobson, who says she was on her way to a swimming date with her kids, went to the Stebic house instead. Everyone went swimming: the kids, Stebic, the sister, Jacobson. Which was when the video was shot.(Btw, the link is to the unedited, raw footage)

A few days later, she was fired for breaching journalistic ethics. They claimed she was too close to the story; that by going to the house and being captured on tape, she became part of the story – a journalistic taboo.


I’m still scratching my head over this.

Clearly the story isn’t as important as Watergate, when the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee and Katherine Graham condoned the fact that Woodward and Bernstein did pretty much the same things Jacobson did. And stood up to Attorney General John Mitchell when they were challenged. And no one claims Jacobson was undercover, where secrecy – and putting oneself in jeopardy -- are tacitly approved, in order to “get the story.” Although it turned out that she’d been briefing the police about her contacts with Stebic -- without her boss’s knowledge. (Just after she was fired, btw, the husband was officially named a “person of interest” by the police.)

I do think she showed poor judgment by exposing her children to a potentially dangerous situation. They should have never gone with her. I also think she was foolish not to have told her bosses she was talking to the cops. It’s never a good idea to be free-lancing during the investigation of what might become a serious crime.

But should she have been fired?

No one denies Jacobson is ambitious. And apparently this is not the first time her methods have been questioned. Maybe she has cut a journalistic corner or two. But she does get stories. Exclusives. This time she gave up her day off, dragged her kids to the house, in pursuit of an interview. Does that make her damaged goods?

Another point that has been raised: the video aired by Channel 2 shows Amy in a bikini with a towel around her waist. If it had been a man, would we even be having this conversation?

Some reporters have contractual language which says they can’t be fired unless they commit a felony while pursuing a story. A felony. Not a misdemeanor. What Amy did wasn’t remotely close to that, and yet, she got the ax. Was her breach of ethics all that egregious?

Finally, let’s apply the credibility test. I realize I’m jumping from reality to fiction here, but how many novels have you read that center on a journalist who goes to extraordinary lengths to solve a murder?
Consider Jan Burke’s Irene Kelly… Edna Buchanan’s Britt Montero… Denise Hamilton’s Eve Diamond… The Outfit’s own Cat Marsala by Barb D’Amato.

Would they brief the police if they had crucial information? Of course they would. There is a symbiotic link between journalists and law enforcement. Both reporters and police need information. A sophisticated barter system between them often results, which can lead to important developments in a story.

And what about cozying up to suspects? According to neighbors, Jacobson had been seen at the house before. Maybe she was getting background. Advancing the story. Confirming a rumor. In the spirit of full disclosure, I used to work in TV news – coincidentally a lot of that time at NBC -- and I once bought a pizza for Walter Mondale’s kids the night before he was named Jimmy Carter’s running mate. We were trying to confirm the rumor. Following the story. If I’d been fired for what I thought was just doing my job, I would have been devastated.

So why did NBC fire Amy? Unless there is more to the story we don’t know, their decision looks to me to be excessive. I can’t help but wonder whether the constant beatings the press has taken over the past eight years have had their effect. Owned by major corporations, the networks are now so risk-averse that the slightest whiff of controversy has them scurrying to the sidelines, sluffing off anything that could damage their stock prices. I keep thinking that maybe Amy was collateral damage.

As you’d expect, the story has resonated with other reporters, media and bloggers. Some of it is funny… Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera, for example, proclaiming Amy’s termination a “no-brainer” -- this, from the guy who opened up Al Capone’s vault on national TV and found… nothing.

What do you think? Is this just a tempest in a teapot? A case of reverse sexism? Revenge of a competing TV station? Is it misleading to compare Amy’s plight to fiction? Are there a different set of rules for fictional reporters? Can they get away with tactics “real” reporters can’t? Or is something amiss with the way information is purveyed today?

PS Speaking of information purveyors, maybe someone else can weigh in on the Conrad Black guilty verdict…