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Interview with Richard Behar, senior writer at Fortune magazine and recent recipient of the Daniel Pearl Award

June 23, 2003

By Lorie Konish, media analyst

Richard Behar, senior writer at Fortune magazine, has been the recipient of much recent acclaim in the journalism field for his investigative article "Kidnapped Nation," the result of ten weeks he spent reporting in Pakistan. Over the past few months, Behar received several awards for his stories, most recently, the Daniel Pearl Award from the South Asian Journalists Association, at Columbia University on June 20.

The Scoop caught up with Behar in between his deadlines to find out more about his most recent accomplishments, his take on the provocative issues he has investigated both domestically and internationally, and his thoughts on the current state of the journalism industry.

Congratulations on winning the second annual Daniel Pearl Award for "Kidnapped Nation," as well as the Overseas Press Club Award and the Deadline Club Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for the same story. You have won so many awards over the course of your career. What has been special to you about these most recent awards?

These honors are particularly meaningful, given the fate of Danny, a First Amendment patriot who made the ultimate sacrifice - his very life. Every reporter I know who was working in Pakistan at the time was profoundly affected by this tragedy. And there hasn't been a day since his murder when I haven't thought about him and his family - as well as the government investigators on his case, who I know were also deeply affected. While he lost his dad before meeting him, Adam Pearl hasn't lost a great role model.

Moreover, these awards are meaningful because the article itself came close to being nixed. That's because I returned from Pakistan in bad shape. I couldn't write, and could barely get out of bed for a month. Finally, I spent weeks holed up in the apartment of a brilliant former editor of mine, Will Bourne, who helped me reconstruct and write the piece. He graciously declined a co-byline, but he deserves to share these awards. Fortune's International Editor, Robert Friedman, and Managing Editor, Rik Kirkland, provided the excellent top-editing to finally get the article into print.

After the events of 9/11, you had the opportunity to have an exclusive look at the 'Phoenix Memo,' the FBI memo dated July 10, 2001 that warns of the possibility that Middle Eastern men with terrorist connections may have been attending U.S. flight schools, as detailed in your article dated May 22, 2002. How did it feel to be the first journalist to read the memo? Do you think journalism can be used as a catalyst for this type of information to come to light?

How did it feel to be first? Scary, frankly, given the details in that pre-9-11 memo. I also felt a responsibility to get this out to the public - not to feed the hunt for a specific fall guy in the FBI, so much as to contribute to the body of knowledge on what was systemically wrong with US intelligence-gathering. I felt sad, too. I'm a big fan of the FBI, and most of the bureau's hard-working agents aren't paid as much as they deserve - to do all that Americans expect and demand of them. Journalism is sometimes the only catalyst or venue for sunshine in these areas. One area that reporters could focus on - I hope to do so myself - is the difficulty that the FBI has in attracting talented field agents and supervisors to serve at its headquarters. The best and brightest inside the FBI have to take pay cuts to serve in Washington, so why should they? How could such a perverse system exist? If the bureau's best and brightest were lured to Washington with higher pay, then perhaps intelligence memos would receive more analysis and action. As things now stand, the super-talented agents don't want to work there, or they keep their heads down to move up in the hierarchy. They know that aggressive and creative thinking doesn't always fly with the senior brass.

Your articles have explored many investigative domestic topics, most recently including Donald Rumsfeld's role as a director on the board of the engineering firm ABB and the fall of Gruntal & Company from its status as a Wall Street firm. How important do you think it is for journalism to inspire a dialogue about controversial topics? How do you reconcile the risk of offending someone versus the need for an honest depiction of the events you are covering?

I think such a dialogue is critical for a healthy society. Unfortunately, we're not in a very healthy period. There's too much media stimulation and overload; people are shutting down. At the same time, the need for in-depth articles is as great as ever.

It used to be easier to predict which articles would inspire a dialogue. Now it's next to impossible. Case in point: The Rumsfeld/North Korea story. We received more reader e-mail on it than any article I've done in my eight years at Fortune, but the rest of the media has been as silent as Rumsfeld about it. They're staying away from it.

A lot of good investigative reporting takes place in a vacuum. At journalism award dinners, I sometimes marvel at how many of the winning entries were largely ignored by the media and public. I half-joke the applauding, black-tied audience may sometimes outnumber the readers who even saw the article. And most of the clappers didn't cover it either, in their mediums.

As to your second question, it's never easy. Sometimes you genuinely like the people who you ultimately have to expose, and it hurts to do so. Not long ago, I wrote a story about the former governor of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker. I got to know and like him, met and liked his family, visited his home, flew with him in a chopper, and tagged along with him at a convention. He was a quiet, all-American Jimmy Stewart-type guy. I was eager to explore whether Ken Starr's team had been too harsh on Tucker. But the deeper I probed, the more I concluded that Starr's team had been fair. I would have liked to exonerate him, but the facts got in the way - in my view. That was personally painful.

Years ago, a PR friend at Hill & Knowlton came to me with a nasty story about her client's rival. But after I looked into it, I came out with an opposite conclusion about the rival. My friend was devastated. But there was nothing I could do. Any friend who comes to me with a story has to be willing to take the risk that it could backfire. A reporter has to go wherever the story leads. Period.

You serve on the board of advisers of NYU's business journalism masters program. With all the scandal the journalism industry has seen most recently with The New York Times, as well as Lee Bollinger's intentions to reform Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism curriculum over the next ten years, what effect do you see these events having on journalism education and the journalism industry?

Introspection is always a good thing. Although they rejected my application 20 years ago (I'm long over it!), I've always been a fan of Columbia's program. If students can shell out the funds and take the time, they should learn a lot from a terrific faculty. And for business journalism, NYU is tops.

But, in all these debates, (i.e. reforming Columbia and the NY Times, etc.), I think people are missing the bigger picture. Too many cub reporters - like their generation at large - are spoiled and pampered and are entering journalism as if it's their birthrights. They have great credentials - on paper. But they seem to forget, and their elders forget to teach them, that it's not about "them" - it's about "the story." It's about long hours, fairness, honesty, and not being afraid to publish the truth - even if you risk a lawsuit. It's about the willingness to burn shoe leather to get and develop a story. The best tradition of reporting in America comes out of this 'school' - the top people at Time, Inc., for example. But too many newsrooms today resemble life-insurance offices.

What would you like to see more or less of in the media today?

May I fantasize? I'd like more young Americans to have heard the name "Pearl, Danny" than Puff Daddy. I'd like to see 60 Minutes go hourly. I'd like to see CNN bury Fox with deeper investigative reports. I'd like to see far more of Ted Koppel and far less of Geraldo. And I'd like to see fewer stories about crooked VCR repairmen being billed as "great investigative" fare. Allan Dodds Frank, a longtime investigative reporter for TV and print, calls it the "shooting the midgets" syndrome. If the journalism industry must consolidate further, in order to protect the public trust the media companies must be willing to expose the powers that equal or exceed their own size. I applaud Fortune and Time, Inc. for displaying that commitment over the last decade, and I hope it continues in the years ahead, despite a floundering economy.

I'd like to see less fluff, and more in-depth reporting about how things (i.e. government agencies, corporations, industries) really work. I thought we'd see far more of this after 9-11, but we seem to be have drifted back to old habits.

In the print world, I'd like to see the launch of a monthly magazine devoted entirely to solid investigative reporting. (I'm told, however, that it would never attract enough readers or advertisers!) Sadly, there are fewer and fewer venues around for such articles. Among them: Fortune, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and, hopefully soon, a renewed NY Times.

In TV, it seems that younger reporters will say almost anything to get on the air, because the shows are increasingly producer-driven, not reporter-driven. In other words, it's packaging over content. I think the prime-time network news programs are still an exception. But the problem there is the huge gap in the salaries of anchors, producers, and reporters. And that has a corrosive effect.

I also hope that the Jayson Blair scandal doesn't set back the efforts of younger, solid reporters to come to their older editors with genuine news and scoops - out of a fear that their editors will care more about the internal corporate media hierarchy than what the public needs to know.

What principles do you measure your own work as a journalist by?

Having grown up as a teenager during Watergate, I believe in the "public trust" aspect of journalism. While it's fun and often adventurous work, I take the responsibility sacredly. Tarbell, Ochs, Murrow, Chancellor, Polk, Bingham, Bolles, Pearl - these are more than just names of some interesting people who once lived. I have a saying on my wall, from the late founder of Le Monde. He wrote: "Tell the truth, even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts." Not a bad motto.

For an archive of Behar's recent articles, visit the Fortune Web site:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/search?query=Richard+Behar&publication_id=6

For a special Q&A about Behar's time in Pakistan researching "Kidnapped Nation," and more, click here.
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Behar at anti-US riot in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, November 2001
Awards and citations received by Behar include the following:

DANIEL PEARL AWARD for "outstanding print reporting on South Asia by a U.S. journalist" (South Asian Journalists Association, Columbia University, 2003)

MORTON FRANK AWARD for "best business reporting from abroad in magazines" (Overseas Press Club of America, 2003)

DEADLINE CLUB AWARD for "Best News Reporting" and "Best Business Reporting (Society of Professional Journalists 2003, 1998, 1996)

NATIONAL HEADLINER AWARD for "outstanding continuing coverage (CNN Investigation Team) of attacks on America and their aftermath" (Press Club of Atlantic City, 2002)

BUSINESS JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR (2001 Business Journalism Awards; Corporation of London/World Leadership Forum)

BUSINESS NEWS LUMINARY OF THE CENTURY ("The Top 100," TJFR Group, 2000)

SOPA AWARD FOR BEST FEATURE WRITING (Society of Publishers in Asia, 2000)

JACK ANDERSON AWARD for "top investigative reporter of the year" (International Platform Association, 1999 and 1997)

NATIONAL HEADLINER AWARD for "coverage of a major news event" (Press Club of Atlantic City, 1999, 1997, and 1996)

NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARD for "editorial excellence" (American Society of Magazine Editors, Columbia University, 1997)

GEORGE POLK AWARD "for excellence in journalism — magazine reporting" (Long Island University, 1995)

GERALD LOEB AWARD "for distinguished business and financial journalism" (The Anderson School at UCLA, 1992)

CONSCIENCE-IN-MEDIA AWARD "for singular commitment to the highest principles of journalism at notable personal cost" (American Society of Journalists and Authors, 1992)

BUSINESS INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER-OF-THE-YEAR (Business News Reporter, 1992)

WORTH BINGHAM PRIZE "for distinguished investigative reporting" (White House Correspondents Association dinner, 1991)

Behar was also a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award (2000); National Magazine Award (1999 and 1992); IRE Award, Investigative Reporters and Editors (2000 and 1998).

magazine Richard Behar's "Kidnapped Nation" offers an in-depth look at Pakistan, a country over-shadowed by news coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Read on to find Behar's reflections on the ten-week odyssey that resulted in his award-winning investigative article. (Ed. Note-We suggest that you read the article to put the following article in context.)
For a special Q&A about Behar's time in Pakistan researching "Kidnapped Nation," and more, click here.