What was your first job as a journalist?
Photographer for NY weekly newspapers Our Town and The Manhattan Spirit.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes. Own two.
How is social media changing news?
More readers, less money, more work, less time.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now.
What does it mean to be a journalist?
To be on the side of the underdog, even and especially when that changes from one day to the next.
What's the funniest news-related #hashtag you've seen?
Do people really click on hashtags?
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
With cash and inspiration.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Ha. Film and digital cameras, pens and notebooks, and a car.
What's your favorite social network?
Real life.
Who do you wish followed you?
Followed? You mean the NSA, FBI, CIA, INS, KGB, FSB, NKVD, or abbreviated agency of choice?!?
Why did you become a journalist?
To experience and witness rather than only read.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
I was editor of high school political magazine. Very proud that we were censored by the administration.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
Recently, the killing in rural Mississippi of unarmed African American man, Jonathan Sanders, by a white police officer.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Go to law school. And become more visually literate.
When's the best time to pitch you?
3 am.
What's the best pitch you ever got?
"Is $5000 enough?" (handed an envelope with cash by New York Times office manager in London en route to Afghanistan)
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
"Would you like to photograph my cat?"
What's your favorite drink?
Bourbon.
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
In the bathtub, reading, or riding a bicycle.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
New Yorker, New York Review of Books, South China Morning Post
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
That covering conflict always means "danger" -- rather than "boredom".
