Submersion Journalism

by Wasik, Bill

• ISBN13: 9781595583932
• ISBN10: 1595583939
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-09
• Publisher: New Pr

Summary

Fifteen sparkling works of inside-out reportage--Harper'sown house brand of "Submersion Journalism"--an unapologetically aggressive approach to reporting in an age of lies. "A dazzling intellectual immersion....Consistently challenging, even demanding, Harper's power is in its ability to cause sometimes subtle, sometimes seismic shifts in a reader's world view."--National Magazine Award citation for General Excellence, 2006 Over the past several years,Harper's Magazinehas fostered an exciting brand of journalism, participatory, sometimes even undercover, in approach. The magazine's correspondents have infiltrated the Republican machine, from its lowliest canvassing operation to its corporate and evangelical elite, and they have posed as shady clients for sleazy blue-chip lobbying firms. They have shot machine guns, lounged in Vegas brothels, and peered into secret tunnels in Mexicali. They have terrorized art museums and touched off worldwide fads. Submersion Journalismcollects the best of this reportage--by celebrated authors (William T. Vollmann, Barbara Ehrenreich) and fresh new voices (Wells Tower, Jake Silverstein) alike--in a book that serves not just as a collection of striking stories but also as a proclamation in favor of truth-telling instead of managed "news" and PR spin. The book is a defense of the radically first-person dispatch, filed from exactly those points of view where a reporter is not supposed to be. With articles by Charles Bowden, Adam Davidson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Steve Featherstone, Kristoffer A. Garin, Gary Greenberg, Jay Kirk, Willem Marx, Morgan Meis, Jeff Sharlet, Jake Silverstein, Ken Silverstein, Wells Tower, William T. Vollmann, Bill Wasik

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vii
Politics
Bird-Dogging the Bush Vote: Undercover with Florida's Republican Shock Troops	p. 3
Their Men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.'s Lobbyists for Hire	p. 30
Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover Among America's Secret Theocrats	p. 49
Violence
Teachings of Don Fernando: A Life and Death in the Narcotics Trade	p. 73
The Line Is Hot: A History of the Machine Gun, Shot	p. 92
Illness
Welcome to Cancerland: A Mammogram Leads to a Cult of Pink Kitsch	p. 109
Manufacturing Depression: Notes on the Economy of Melancholy	p. 130
Vice
A Foreign Affair: On the Great Ukrainian Bride Hunt	p. 153
My Undertaker, My Pimp: Looking for Grace in a Desert Brothel	p. 170
They Came Out Like Ants! Searching for the Chinese Tunnels of Mexicali	p. 187
The Arts
What Is Poetry? And Does It Pay?	p. 217
Devil's Work: Secret Doings at the Queens Museum of Art	p. 241
My Crowd: Or, Phase 5: A Report from the Inventor of the Flash Mob	p. 257
Confessions of War
Misinformation Intern: My Summer as a Military Propagandist in Iraq	p. 285
Out of Iraq: The Rise and Fall of One Man's Occupation	p. 304
Contributors	p. 321
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