Membership

Writergrrls
Local Scene Buffet:
Journalism Panel

They were an eclectic bunch: two men, two women, and one mediator. One female boasted loud blond hair and piercings, and one of the men spoke with a thick Canadian accent. Belying the gloomy spring afternoon, four lively journalists gathered at the Seattle Film Institute for the last panel of the Writergrrls Local Scene Buffet. They talked about how they got into writing, how journalism has changed in recent months, and of course, the Internet.

Wilson has been an investigative reporter for 20 years. He recently made headlines, and received a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, as the co-author of a controversial five-part piece on the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, published in The Seattle Times. The series alleged that people died when they took part in two research studies in the 1980s and 1990s.

"Thank God for the Internet," he said. "We were able to post all our evidence online."

A longtime reporter, he's been in the game enough to know there are ups and downs, but even he agreed that now is a "very different time" for journalists, pointing to The Seattle Times' recent downsizing, partly as a result of the local strike, and partly due to the unstable economy. He has also noticed the shift in focus to international affairs in newspaper reporting and that the main content of the Times has changed, because more people are interested in world events and political news.

Since 1995, DeSantis has been the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of ROCKRGRL, a national publication on women in rock. She was in an all-female rock group in the 1980s and fumes when she remembers how some "fans" asked if the drummer was a guy in drag, and if they lip-synched their lyrics.

"Why is it that if you're a female musician, you're not a real musician?" she said.

ROCKRGRL now occupies one of the biggest spaces in her life, along with her son. Of putting out the magazine, DeSantis said, "I don't regret it. But it's been real hard." DeSantis said that since 9/11, she's found writers are a lot more introspective in the articles they send her. "I think people are re-examining everything about their lives."

She still feels compelled to take out all the "I" statements in the articles sent to her by budding rock journalists. She explained the articles need to be about the band, not the writer, but some writers thrive on "I" writing. Writers like Tamara Paris.

"It was only two years ago that I decided I was going to be a writer," Paris revealed. Before that, she was convinced that the sitcom "Friends" needed to have her as a neighbor. With her loud hair and energy, Paris talked like someone on stage. This made sense because she went to acting school for two years and even had her own one-woman show.

Paris is a film, theater, music, and book critic, and had the honor of writing the column "Last Days" for The Stranger, Seattle's boisterous alternative weekly, for six months. She makes no apology about what she calls her Prozac Nation-style of writing, filled with "I"s and self-reflection.

Paris said that since the tragedy of 9/11, she's found it difficult to strike the right chord in her humor writing. The Stranger displayed its usual cynicism and sarcasm during a time when everyone else was digging out their flags and watching Dan Rather weep.

"It was a very difficult time because there was no place in the world for us," Paris said. Other humorists could identify.

"You couldn't say anything about George Bush," Kirkland remembered. The audience laughed as he added, "That was a hard time."

Kirkland, who is a columnist and the author of Justice Is Blind—And Her Dog Just Peed In My Cornflakes, found his way into print journalism by way of the Internet. After a debilitating accident left him homebound, he found himself online and, one day, chatting with a newspaper editor. The editor asked to see some of his stuff, so Kirkland sent him an article, and he is now a self-syndicator.

Although ad revenues are down and, as Kirkland put it, "The economy is in the crapper," there is still reason to be hopeful about the state of journalism. "There are little signs that things are turning around a bit," he said.

Eve Lopez is a freelance writer living in Seattle.