Tableau’s discussion with alumni journalists Kealey Boyd, AB’01, AM’10, Ben Steverman, AB’99, AM’99, and Zeba Khan, AB’03, AM’03, yielded more insights than could fit in print. Here are a few extras.

Books in progress

Boyd and Steverman are both embarking on book projects.

Boyd: I’m very interested in creative labor. Earlier this year I published an article with the Los Angeles Times about the Works Progress Administration and how it shaped a group of artists in New Mexico called the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG). They sought to connect viewers to a spiritual realm through abstract art. In the 1930s that was wild talk.

The government work-relief program helped artists connect with the public and understand how art could be in service of their neighbors, when previously art was really siloed away from the public. I did a lot of archival research and found that the TPG artists talked about money a lot. We usually scrub that away when we write about art and make it very romantic, but I’m interested in how artists make decisions to survive—and why they don’t see their work as a form of labor in an economy.

I’ve been focusing on how artists today have been mitigating the price fluctuations under supply chain duress and under inflation. I’ve been conducting interviews with artists—and the foundries and fabricators they use—to document their unique choices in managing their practice, given that their fixed costs are far exceeding their ability to pass them through to the buyer, a museum, or a public commission.

In 2023 I published my earliest findings in “How Has the Supply Chain Crisis Affected Artists?” for Hyperallergic. Artists are an individualized labor group, and with the decline of unions and guilds, they don’t have access to collective bargaining. This makes the sustainability of their labor precarious. The goal is to turn this research into a book this year.

Steverman: I’ve been writing about inequality for several years and felt like I’d accomplished a lot on that topic and was maybe ready for something new. Also, I felt like I was about halfway through my career: 20 years in. What’s next? So, I took leave from Bloomberg and wanted to spend the year thinking and writing and researching and auditing classes—and the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship makes that possible.

I have a particular project that I’ve been thinking about for years. As I’ve been obsessed with inequality, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the decline of community in America. Last year the surgeon general declared an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, but I’ve been thinking about this whole issue of polarization and community for a long time. I got interested in the idea that nightlife might be an interesting way to look at this problem/question. Through nightlife, I want to look at why community has declined and what we might be able to do about it. The book would look at the decline of American community alongside the decline of the nightlife industry over the past century, as well as what people are trying to do to revive socializing in real life—in bars, dance clubs, music venues—in a digital age, especially for marginalized communities.

The goal is to spend this year doing that, and by the end of it to have started a book that will look at those bigger issues.

Objectivity in journalism

Steverman: This is a really tough question, and we’ve been talking about it a lot during this fellowship. My opinions are a little in flux right now, and I’m not even sure that I know what I think.

I believe in fairness, but I also believe in the truth. I’m not sure that objectivity is possible, and I’m not sure it’s actually something that exists in the real world. There’s the truth that you’re trying to explain to readers: what’s actually happening. And then there’s fairness—and those things can sometimes conflict. If someone is absolutely lying to you, they don’t deserve to have equal weight in your story.

Our job as journalists is to dig and dig and dig and try to figure out what’s really going on. I don’t know if that’s objective, but I think it’s the right goal.

Khan: I am an opinion writer and editor. By definition, not objective. It’s one of the things I appreciate about my area of the field. We wear our biases on our sleeve and tell the reader why they should care about the subject we’re writing about.

In non-opinion journalism, there’s a strong adherence to the idea of objectivity, which is tricky. I think we’ve seen in recent years how biases absolutely can and often do play into the production of “objective” journalism, and I think the lack of acknowledgment of that reality is to the detriment of the field as a whole. That said, Opinion is distinguished from the rest of the field and relies on the information produced by the news side to craft arguments. That distinction is crucial to how Opinion functions.

I think what matters more than objectivity is transparency. This is true no matter what the vertical. Where are you getting your facts from? How did you select the facts you brought to bear in the piece? That latter question is particularly important for non–opinion journalism. But even in Opinion, where a writer is making an argument, as an editor, I still want to know what’s your evidence and what’s your source.

The secret to pitching freelance stories

Boyd: Create a very disciplined pitching regimen: one to three pitches a week (which is exhausting). This schedule will create a very clear perspective—on what editors want, what readers want—and also a clearer perspective on what you want to write about.

Those early years I pitched an incredible amount, and that really helped me focus. The rejections don’t bother you when you have several projects in the works.

My new mantra these last couple of years was, Whenever I get a no, pitch a bigger platform, because what gets through is so subjective. For the piece that got in the LA Times, I had nine previous rejections. What is there to lose? Go big.

You have to be really comfortable with asking for what you need. That’s what I learned in my previous career in finance. Banks want you to ask for more all the time, because it benefits them, and so they teach you how to ask for more. Don’t be afraid to ask for a higher rate than the first offer or what they advertise on the submission page. I see my peers giving away work to add a byline or find a home for an essay. I understand the reasoning, but to be a full-time freelancer requires one to approach writing as a profession. Pay is part of professionalization. 

Also, when I give away work, I’m actually doing real harm to my field, and I’m doing harm to other writers.

Many writers, especially in the literary sphere, argue that the low pay is how it has always been. What other industry looks to the past as a metric for how it should run today?