Working It, As a Social Justice Journalist

By Celina De Leon, Feministing.com
Posted on October 25, 2006, Printed on July 19, 2008
http://www.wiretapmag.org/rights/42806/

Lakshmi Chaudhry has been a writer and a reporter for independent publications for more than six years. And now she's the Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and Contributing Writer at The Nation magazine. Lakshmi was a Senior Editor at In These Times for a year and before that the Senior Editor of Alternet.org for three.

Lakshmi is also the co-author of Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq and Start Making Sense: Turning the Lessons of Election 2004 into Winning Progressive Politics.

I interviewed Lakshmi last month by phone.

Celina De Leon: When did you know and decide that being a journalist was something that you wanted to pursue?

Lakshmi Chaudhry: I knew since I was a kid that that's what I wanted to do because my grandfather was a journalist back in India. He started his own newspaper back in the 1940s. At that time it was a noble, heroic thing to do; it was anti-British.

I grew up with a lot of stories about my grandfather. He was already dead by the time I was born. Obviously it sounded like the ideal thing to do. And English was the only subject that I was actually kind of good at it. [Laughs] So, being the logical choice, I went to undergrad and did journalism. I ended up being the executive editor of my college newspaper at Mount Holyoke. Once I graduated, I took a year off between undergrad and grad, and went back to India for a year. For some reason I met a lot of actual journalists; a friend of mine was in journalism, and I hung out with a lot of foreign correspondents. I didn't quite like them very much. [Laughs] I kind of got turned off. [Laughs] I know that not all journalists are jerks but it was just at that age -- I was 21 or 22 -- it just seemed that suddenly, well, maybe not.

So, I ended up going on to do a PhD program in political science, which I did for six years. And then I just realized I didn't want to be a professor. I really loved being in graduate school; I think I learned a lot. But then when I thought about the rest of my life just sort of specializing in this tiny, tiny sub, sub, sub field, which is what you do as an academic. I just couldn't see myself doing that. So, that's basically around the time that I got married, and we moved to Silicon Valley, and then I thought, "Ugh, now what do I do with myself?" And I really went back to journalism thinking, "OK, this is something that I wanted to do when I was young, why not give it a shot?" So, I applied for an internship at Mother Jones [magazine], and that's how I got into progressive journalism.

I think that that was very good for me because my notion of journalism was so shaped by the mainstream media. And those were the kinds of journalists I met, who had a mainstream, pro-establishment point of view. It was really exciting for me to be able to do journalism that actually meant something. That was imbued in value rather than say J-school journalism, which tends to be a lot more -- you have to be objective, you have to get the facts. Which is important journalism, but the kind of journalism that attracted me was journalism that had a very clear point of view. That came to the world from this position that social justice is important, human rights are important, equality is important, feminism is important. And so, I really think Mother Jones was a big part of why I decided that journalism was for me. And so I've been [in journalism] since.

CDL: Do you see yourself as having particular goals as a journalist? Or having a personal mission for how you approach your work?

LC: Probably, when I started out. I think this happens to everybody. I think I was obviously much more idealistic in terms of what I thought the media could or could not achieve. And now I'm 38. [Laughs] So, this is what I feel now: I don't feel like progressive journalism is going to change the world. In many ways, it wouldn't change the world until people, individual people, are willingly open to changing their lives and the way they look at the world. And a lot of those people don't necessarily read. I think you can do progressive journalism either in progressive publications or outlets, or you could do it in a very mainstream place -- but introduce these ideas into the national debate.

For example, if you're going to say the foreign policy that aims only to secure American self-interests is a worthy and good foreign policy, and that is what foreign policy ought to do -- you have to counter the idea with perhaps, U.S. foreign policy does not exist, or its only goal is not to promote American self-interests but to create a better world.

Or for example, in the feminism debate, a great example would be the Forbes article. There was such a huge outcry, and a lot of people were writing on Feministing and for all sorts of publications. But the reason that this outcry was much broader is because feminist ideas, and the work that feminists have done, progressive writers have done, and publications have done, are part of the broader debate. And they've been doing this for 30-plus years. So, it's not something that can just be dismissed.

It's much more of a special process [progressive journalism]. Every article you put out, every issue that you put out, every day you publish your stories, you are adding to a national conversation. And even if no one, or not a lot of people, read that piece today. You have people who read it today, and then they'll be five other people over the course who will write about it as well. It then becomes a bigger voice, so to be speak, that has to be reckoned with and responded to and acknowledged. I think that's what I feel every time I put out a story. My personal mission is quite modest in that way. Every time I write an article I ask myself, "Am I saying something that would be useful and important for the reader?" Even if I write a piece about something quite trivial, like what not to wear, am I raising points about how we think of ourselves and our bodies and what we deserve as women -- how we need to be treated? And I think even if the reader doesn't agree with me, if they read the article with an idea that makes them go, "Hmmm, I need to think about that," I think that's a job well done. Which is why I try quite hard not to be shrill. While it is my point of view, I try, I think, to be reasonable. The point of my writing is not to say I'm right and I'm proving you wrong. It is much more to get people to think about issues and think about aspects of those issues.

CDL: What do you think about mainstream media? Do you think mainstream media tells people what to think?

LC: I interviewed Matt Bai, he's a New York Times writer, for one of my pieces recently. And he said something really interesting to me. He said, "I don't know why everyone gets so angry about how the mainstream media has totally dropped the ball on the Iraq war. The truth is the media has never been very good when it comes to war. We didn't do all that much better during Vietnam or Korea." I took that as an important reminder that the media has always been--at least the big media outlets or even local, small town--the media has tended to be pro-establishment. I think the notion of the media being the dying guard of the resistance is not terribly true. For the most part, journalism attracts people who think the world is pretty OK the way it is. It could do with some improvement, but it's essentially fine. These are not the people who are going to sit around and say, "Oh, we should have radical change." These are not people who sat around and said after the 2000 election that Gore really won. Because for them, it's important to preserve order, to say that the system works, and whether we like it or not, Bush won and we need to go on. It's that kind of point of view. And yet, it's been exacerbated over the last 20 years by consolidation; by the increasing push to put profits before substance. I think you see this a lot more on television. And I do think you see it increasingly within the last 10 years in newspapers and publications.

But I think some of that also has to do with the changing class identity of journalists. I think we forget that until our generation, in a sense, journalism wasn't a high-paying job. Now it's basically become like an ad job. You go into journalism because you're ambitious, you want to be famous. And on top of that, because these publications are now basically run by corporations, they also pay big fat corporate salaries. So, in a sense, if you're making a lot of money, you're in New York, and you already came from one of those nice schools--and I shouldn't talk, I came from Mt. Holyoke--but you're not going to see the world the way that someone who 30, 40 years ago, who was from an upwardly working-class family and didn't make a lot of money would. I think the class identity of journalists, what I would call The National Press Core--I think it's important to keep those distinctions--has changed. As the media becomes so corporate, people who work within the media behave increasingly like people who work in a corporation. You're concerned about getting your raise, going up the ladder, about making more money, having more status, more prestige. And, I think the effects are a lot more subtle than let's say someone coming in and saying, "Hey, don't talk about Bush because we need a bill to go through." I don't think it works like that. Look at Judy Miller! She's totally the New York socialite. She travels with only people who look like her, think like her--what possible concept of the world might she have?

CDL: Do you think a lot of progressive publications attract people of a certain class?

LC: I think for progressive magazines this has always been a problem. Progressive magazines don't have money, but then on the other hand they also make it quite hard because of that, for people who don't have money to work for them. One, because when you come from a less affluent background, financial security is important. Two, you don't get paid at all for these internships. Nonprofit magazines, progressive magazines, pay crap in comparison to corporate internships. You make more money working for Time or Newsweek than you do at Mother Jones. So, then the question is, are you really making it possible for people who would want to be part of progressive journalism to be a part of progressive journalism? And then that gets into the business of funding, and you know that no one funds progressive media. All of them are struggling for money. No one understands that journalism requires money. [Laughs] You have to hire people, you have to pay them well, you have to give them resources.

I think that the people who are attracted to progressive journalism are people who are idealistic. Who come into journalism for their beliefs and their values, and they want to dedicate their lives to it. And yes, usually, they're from comfortable middle-class backgrounds. But, the difference between them and someone who is on the fast track at the New York Times who wants to be there is it's a prestige issue. You might have two people who went to a good school and one person decides, I really care about the world and I really care about making it a better place and I want to do progressive journalism. And the other person says I want to be successful; I want to be a winner. I think there's a motivation difference. I don't know how much of a huge class difference you're going to find between progressive journalists.

CDL: Have you faced particular obstacles as a journalist over the years?

LC: I think the biggest frustration for me has been the lack of resources. You have these progressive publications that attract a lot of really smart, talented people. And I'm not patting myself on the back. I met a lot of really amazing people where I've been. But how much good work can you do when you're an editor and you're not really paying one much money? How good of work can you do when you have a tiny staff? Always kind of struggling to do the best you can on the budget you have rather than the best you can period? And I think that becomes really, really demoralizing. That at the end, you have to put out really good stuff but you can only do what you can.

CDL: In your opinion, what domestic and international issues do you think Americans should keep on top of?

LC: I think the immigration issue is going to get a lot uglier. I think we're in some kind of lull before the storm. Maybe because I think the economy is not really going to recover. Bad economic times always spell bad times for immigrants, especially the illegal ones. And I think the immigration issues are coming from different angles: the general post 9-11 climate that has kind of transplanted itself into a sort of generalized xenophobia against all foreigners. Often, it specifically targets Arabs, but anyone kind of brown is really not considered trustworthy. And then that sort of exasperates the existing game that's always been there. I think this could get ugly if the economy does get ugly. If we follow the economic sense of Bush, I think this will be a tough phase for all immigrants. At least in the short run. I don't know how it's going to achieve itself out at the end of it all.

I think the most important question that Americans aren't asking themselves--and I think the media is stating it but not raising or asking it -- is where do we want to be 10 years from now? We're constantly arguing about where we are. Or where we have been. Or who is going to kill us tomorrow. And how many people did we kill in Iraq yesterday. Or what's going to happen in the next election. Everything is so short run. The reality is, the whole world is changing so dramatically. Relationships in power are changing. Countries like India and China are on the rise. How things are in Iraq. The anger against America is growing. Europe seems to want it both ways. They're really focusing on the EU [European Union] being the great economic power but they don't really want to take responsibility for what is happening politically in the world. They don't want to take the lead in Israeli-Palestinian issues. They don't want to take the lead on anything. They may or may not support the United States. But they politically don't want to do anything differently themselves. The global economy is changing…

Whether you're progressive or conservative, I don't care. I think even if you're a progressive and want to do all these great things you still need American wealth and power to do it. And the question is, where are we going to be 10 years from now? I feel as a progressive, we want a humane US foreign policy. So, then you have to set yourself targets saying this is where we want to be 10 years from now, and these are the steps we're going to take in between. Because our policies don't change over night. If you want a sustainable economy, it doesn't change over night. You have to make a plan. I think in this country, it's like we have ADD--we can't focus on anything for more than five minutes. And we have short memories. We also have no sense of the future. We wake up one morning realizing, hey, we're in a completely different world and we don't know what we're doing. This is particularly frightening because pretty much every other country has a plan. I'm not saying they all have good plans. But they're all planning for the future. They all are making strategic decisions now based on where they want to be in 2020, something like that. We need to think like that.

For example, drilling in Alaska is important. But in the end, what's going to save our environment is having a sustainable, eco-friendly economy that creates jobs, that is good for our environment, and creates potential for growth and prosperity, and gives back a new generation of Americans the so-called American dream. That you can hope for your children to do better than you did. It would make real the notion of opportunity for people who are poor whether they're in the South, or they're in the inner cities, or they're in Appalachia -- a real sense that they could improve their lives.

I think that is probably the greatest damage Bush has done. He made the whole conversation that we have now just about him. We only talk about the Bush administration, and what the Bush administration is doing. So, all of our responses are either to stop or undo what he's already done. He looms so large in our horizons, rightfully so. I'm not saying that's wrong. But we need to be able to think more broadly as Americans and have a vision that goes just beyond Bush, because Bush is going. He's gone in two years. I think that's something we need to think about.

CDL: What advice do you have for young women who are working towards a career in journalism?

LC: Lots of things have changed. Lots of things are better. But beware of the fact that there's this perspective of where women think they want to start out. They always seem to find themselves pushed into "women-friendly" types of journalism -- culture, lifestyle, the soft pieces. Or doing journalism about women. And while these things are really important, and really valuable -- I'm not knocking that -- but there are a lot of women who start out saying I want to be a congressional reporter, I want to cover the White House, I want to be a foreign correspondent, and they find themselves pushed to be in these niches. So, my advice would be you should try really hard to: a) do as broad a spectrum. Don't get pushed into a beat early. Try to get experience in as many different fields of journalism as you can. And b), if you don't want to do something that is not considered traditionally women's journalism, stick to it. You just have to make an effort and say no, I want to do that story. I don't want to do this story on women's salaries. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing anti-feminist about that. It's not that women's stories aren't important. I do women's stories all the time. But, if that's not all you want to do, you just have to be very, very firm and very determined about that. I think you don't really see it when you're first going in. But there is a subtle way in which women get sort of gently directed towards certain subfields in journalism.

For Alternet I did a lot of political writing. And now I'm doing culture, and it's fine. I won't get pigeon-holed into culture. I can do political if I want to because I already have the background. Once I worked for Wire News, and I knew nothing about technology, and it was good for me. I found good stories and it really gave me a lot of confidence that I can do any kind of journalism. Even if that's not what you want to do, it's good to do it early in your career because it adds to your self-confidence. I would have rather written about pop culture [Laughs] but it was good for me. And now I feel like I have so many more options.

If you start out doing political writing, it's easier to do culture writing and come right back out. But if you start out doing culture writing, and you want to do hard-core political writing, it's harder. And whether we like it or not, there's a higher prestige on some level, unless you're writing for The New Yorker, for political writing.

Celina De Leon is a contributing writer of WireTap and the Interviews Editor at Feministing.com living in Brooklyn, NY.

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