100 Interviews 1-Year Project: Completed

Friday, September 30, 2011

100 Interviews 1-Year Project: Completed

[Audio doesn’t match my mouth. C’est la vie.]

When I finished interviewing 100 people in a year, I wanted to write some kind of glorious wrap-up.

I thought maybe it could rival the Gettysburg Address in brevity and poignancy, or prove once and for all that journalism isn’t dead. It could bring hope and comfort to struggling writers and journalism majors everywhere: A sort of 100 Interviews fireside chat.

Alas, none of us are Lincoln or Hunter S. or FDR. We don’t have good enough beards, drug habits, or lap blankets.

But I am like you. I graduated from college and had no direction. The only difference is one day, I decided to stop thinking about doing something insane, and instead, I just did it.

Maybe I’m naive, and journalism is dead, and I’m clinging to the past with two fists I’ve nicknamed Woodward and Bernstein. But how could I believe it’s anything but alive after what this year has done for me?

I worked a full-time job and did comedy for the first 11 months of this project. Then, in my spare time, (what spare time, right?) and initially for no one but my harried, frustrated self, I wrote 100 Interviews. I did it, as most rappers and sports professionals would say, for the love of the game. I’d still be writing it for no one if the Village Voice hadn’t picked up on what I was doing two months in. For that, I am eternally grateful.

In my college journalism ethics class, I was taught that the interviewer is supposed to melt into the background. The final piece should come off as though the subject was questioned by a robot ghost with no opinions, feelings or conflicts. After this project, I believe that the interviewer matters just as much as the interviewee in why a story turns out the way it does.

Did I mean for my parents to read about my flirtations with a porn star? Did I mean to cry during interviews and make enemies of people I liked and generally let every stranger I meet know the intimate details of my life? Can’t say that I did.

100 Interviews is not going to end. In a few weeks, the site will be redesigned and start taking submissions. The love, inspiration and insight of the bottom line behind this project has been proven more than necessary. There’ll be another post soon with more information on that, but please know 100 Interviews will continue. (If you’re a web designer or Photoshop fiend, hit me up.)

There will also be a 100 Interviews Live show on November 4 in New York City. More details to follow there too. I hope you all can make it.

Like some of you, I was worried I’d majored in the Titanic, a sinking ship about as useful as a Beta Max. But you, the readers and fans, prove that journalism isn’t dead, that people still want to read long-form stories about people, that writing about someone can make a difference. There’s a reason to keep reporting, to keep majoring in journalism, to keep those skills sharp even behind a barista counter, even at an office job, even in your parents’ basement. Journalism is alive.

They say if you truly love what you’re doing, it won’t feel like work. I think that’s bullshit. 100 Interviews was work, every day of my life for a whole year. But I loved it enough to power through the work part to get to the amazing part. And so many parts were amazing. These 100 people, all of them, made me think and helped me become a better writer and reporter and human being. I can never thank them enough.

As Steve Martin once answered when someone asked him how to make it in show business: “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

100 Interviews showed me that there is no reason to give up. What we do has evolved, but it still serves a purpose. And only we decide when journalism is dead.

Now, let’s not be ignored.

More:

The Complete 100 Interviews List

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