There’s a scene in “Page One,” a 2011 documentary about The New York Times, that stands out among the others. David Carr, the Times reporter who died Thursday, interviews the founders of Vice, the upstart media company that made its mark “going places we don’t belong,” according to the company’s tag line.
In the video, above, Shane Smith, the CEO and co-founder of Vice, tells Carr that Smith had been to Liberia, where he saw that people had been using the beach as a latrine and learned that some locals engaged in cannibalism.
The exchange that ensues:
Smith: “The New York Times, meanwhile, is writing about surfing. And I’m sitting going, you know what, I’m not going to talk about surfing. I’m going to talk about cannibalism. Because that [expletive] me up.”
Carr: “Just a second, time out. Before you ever went there, we’ve had reporters there reporting on genocide after genocide. Just because you put on a [expletive] safari helmet and looked at some poop doesn’t give you the right to insult what we do, so continue. Continue.”
The scene resonates with me and with many journalists with whom I’ve talked about it over the years because it demonstrates two things. That Carr had guts. And that he had the courage to call out the practice of adopting the tropes of journalism without recognizing what reporting entails.
Carr never failed to sniff out spin. He was a master at revealing the veneer of news that companies, organizations, governments and others cloak themselves in when in reality they’re advancing their mission or bolstering their bottom line. Or, as in the case of Smith, those who are quick to dismiss the work of journalists as plodding or somehow out of step, as if the hard work of pursuing the truth, of asking what the truth of the matter happens to be, somehow misses the point.
As Carr reminded us, reporting is the best job in the world. It’s a license to ask questions, to learn and to be an honest broker.
David Carr embodied what it means to be an honest broker. He also happened to be able to report thoroughly and to write beautifully. By all accounts, he seemed to be a terrific colleague. I will remember him for standing up for journalism and for telling the truth. Readers, including this one, will miss him.