Drinking vs. Creativity

(Hat tip: Mr. Forbes)

Back Again

Outline for "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold"

I'm still blogging at Trueslant, but my focus there is mostly Mexico. Here I'll continue posting other things--sometimes about Mexico, and often not.

Today's find is an interview with Gay Talese in the Paris Review. A friend told me about it weeks ago and I finally looked it up. I'm fascinated by process, and Talese is a case study in habit and precision:

INTERVIEWER Do you use notebooks when you are reporting?

TALESE I don’t use notebooks. I use shirt boards.

INTERVIEWER You mean the cardboard from dry-cleaned shirts?

TALESE Exactly. I cut the shirt board into four parts and I cut the corners into round edges, so that they can fit in my pocket. I also use full shirt boards when I’m writing my outlines. I’ve been doing this since the fifties.

Investigations and Awards

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City

Last month Francisco Gomez, an investigative reporter for the national daily El Universal, received honorable mention for uncovering that the U.S. Embassy had found a spy for the Beltran Leyva cartel among its ranks last fall. The spy flipped and was given the codename "Felipe." He became one of the primary protected witnesses that the Mexican government used to furnish its "Operacion Limpieza" (Operation Cleanup) investigation, the anti-corruption sweep that brought down 30 employees of the Attorney General's office, not to mention the head of Interpol and the drug czar. I contributed reporting to a Rolling Stone feature on the topic. Gomez took pity on me at the time and shared the sealed court documents that he'd used as the basis for his stories.

Mexico doesn't have a great tradition of investigative reporting. The press is still working out how to deal with its new freedoms since the end of one-party rule in 2000. But there are a few publications like Proceso, Rio Doce, and Reporte Indigo that aren't afraid to keep a check on power. And then there are the invidivual reporters like Gomez.