The Manila Folder

NEW YORK, N.Y. – It was Monday morning—a little over a week after my first day at The New York Observer—and the interns were sitting around, waiting for the managing editor to arrive. But after an hour, there was no sign.

Then he walked in, beard unshaven, looking distraught. Earlier, one intern had told me she’d heard that he had been laid off. He quickly gathered us in an unlit office (with some sunlight) to confirm the news.

“I knew that there would have to be layoffs, but I wasn’t expecting this,” he said, holding up the manila folder. “I was looking forward to working with you guys the whole summer.”

“At least this means the newspaper will survive the summer,” he added, trying to be optimistic. “And you guys will get to write more, so take advantage of it. Even when it’s a bloodbath, some people can come out stronger.”

That was the last time we would see him: The managing editor and the other writers and editors who were laid off had to move out of the office that day.

Our managing editor was supposed to be the friendly face that would guide us through the summer: giving us articles to fact-check, referring us to editors for articles to write, and integrating us with the rest of the staff. He was the one who’d hired us in the first place, interviewed us on the phone or in person. But no one was safe anymore.

He was right that the interns would get to write more. So far, every one of us has been getting at least one or two bylines online a week, sometimes every day. While we were awkwardly relegated to a side room before, now we have desks in the center of the newsroom. We no longer have to fact-check every print article for the week’s paper: Fact-checking (by interns) has been abolished. Now, we simply report and write.

It’s exciting—even liberating—to feel as though I have a real job. But what’s going to happen to those desks in the middle of the newsroom come the end of the summer? There will be fall interns, but is this sustainable?

I still remember Peter W. Kaplan ’76’s last day as editor-in-chief—it was my first day on the job. He was leaving for Conde Nast Traveler as their new creative director, to cook up ideas for saving journalism, but wouldn’t say good-bye without meeting the new interns.

Sitting on the back counter in the conference room, with his gray hair swept across his forehead and his horn-rimmed glasses facing us, he asked each intern a series of questions to test us out, get to know us better. When he asked one girl what she wanted to do after college, she said law school; he affirmed that as a secure path. Another intern said that she really wanted to go into journalism; he asked, “Are you sure?” When a third intern told him she was a literature major at Bard, he said that she’s undoubtedly going to become a literature professor.

Then he got to me. He asked what I wanted to do for a living; I said print journalism. This time, he didn’t discourage. After more questioning, he asked what House I lived in; I said Winthrop. He told me he’d also lived in Winthrop (“Eh, it wasn’t great,” he said of the rooming.). But the next thing he said came as more of a surprise:

“What do you care about?”

It took a while for the question to even register. “Um…”

He gestured and asked, “What do you want to write about?”

“Oh. Um…media and politics and education.”

My answer seemed adequate, so he nodded and began to interrogate the next subject.

That may have been the only time I interacted with Kaplan, but that question—and my hesitation—have stuck with me. In late May, I barely knew what real estate was—now it’s my beat, and I’ve loved working on every article I’ve written so far. So, if my preferences change so easily, what do I care about? And why am I so intent on going into journalism in the first place?

No matter the medium or subject matter, journalists need to provide a sustained check on power now more than ever before. Climate change is worsening, the financial crisis could leave the United States permanently weaker, and even just neglecting to repair an airplane or subway train can render consequences. So, even though the castle of print journalism is falling, a stronger city—with buildings old and new—needs to rise from this siege soon.

What do I care about? Simply journalism. That will always need writing.


Bonnie J. Kavoussi ’11, a Crimson news editor, is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House.