December 13, 2024 • 42 mins
In this week's episode, our last for 2024, we speak with two of the magazine's most beloved writers about the craft of long-form journalism.
In conversation with Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland, they discuss their most popular stories of the year, what it was like to cover the Paris Olympics and Olympians, where they get their ideas from and the most difficult and rewarding aspects of the job.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:03):
Hi, I'm Conrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:25):
stories of the day. This week is the final issue
of the magazine for the year, featuring a series of
reflective pieces from Good Weekend staff writers and our favourite contributors,
all of whom were invited to write about something funny,
poignant or remarkable from their lives in 2024. Coming into summer,
(00:46):
I wrote about how and when and why I recognised
I was a water baby while the person next to me,
my fellow Good Weekend senior writer Amanda Hooton, wrote about
processing the end of her daughter's years in primary school.
It's become an annual tradition of good weekend talks for
staff writers to get behind the microphone at this time
of year for a chat about the specialist craft of
(01:08):
magazine writing. And with that in mind, the final episode
of season five of Good Weekend Talks will feature Amanda
and myself answering questions from our fearless editor, Katrina Strickland.
So welcome, Amanda and Katrina. Take it away, boss.
S2 (01:26):
Thank you, Conrad, and welcome Conrad and Amanda.
S3 (01:29):
Hello. Hello.
S2 (01:30):
It's rare that we're all in the same room, isn't it? Conrad. People,
listeners might not even know Conrad is based in Melbourne,
and Amanda and I based in Sydney. That's right. Um,
we were having a look at the top rating stories
for the year, and one of the the highest rating. Amanda,
was your piece on why suddenly everyone got ADHD. I
(01:50):
thought it was an interesting point to start with, because
that story didn't start as a long cover story. And
people often ask, how do stories develop? So tell us how.
Like when the idea came to you and then how
it went. I think it started as a two page
first person reflections piece, and then it kind of evolved
into what it ended up as, as a cover story.
(02:13):
Tell us about the process.
S3 (02:14):
Yeah, that's right actually. I mean, it's always tricky, isn't it?
I mean, it feels as if it was. The origins
of of everything are lost in the mists of time. Slightly.
I think we thought originally that the piece was a
two pager, because there had already been quite a lot
of stuff in the news. You know, it was one
of those kind of zeitgeist issues. Everybody was talking about ADHD.
(02:36):
Lots of people were either, you know, receiving diagnoses themselves
or knew of people of all ages that were getting
diagnosed with the condition. And I think so there's always
a sort of reluctance, I think, to kind of go
big on a story like that because you think, well,
there's so much out there. How can what can we
add to it? Or certainly I feel that, um, but
(02:58):
I think once, once I started looking into it, I
realized that, um, that actually that all of those news
stories and all of that really good reporting that had
been done was a sort of felt like a kind
of bedrock of information that was then kind of out
there in the, in the sort of public sphere. Um,
and that had led to a whole lot of new
(03:19):
sort of questions and new sort of ideas that people
were kind of mulling over and, um, that were kind
of swirling around. It felt like, and certainly that I had, uh,
that that hadn't been addressed or hadn't been answered, and
it had also given rise to a lot of conflict.
So there was a lot of public debate happening. There
was a lot of people with very strong opinions on
(03:41):
kind of every side of the question. And, you know,
the more I looked into it, the more there seemed
to be to say that was actually kind of new,
or at least offer the opportunity for new analysis of
the of the whole topic.
S2 (03:54):
And answering that question, which we did put on the cover,
which a lot of people have been asking themselves like, what?
Why is there suddenly such a high rate? And it's
interesting what you say, because sometimes we get that judgment
right and sometimes wrong in terms of if there's a
lot around about a subject, sometimes we can do the
definitive piece that brings it all together and it will
(04:16):
be hugely popular, and other times you can be slightly
behind the wave and everyone does feel like they've already
read it. So that's right. It's a hard judgment call,
isn't it? As to where where it sits there. One
of the other difficulties with that story, of course, is,
is the controversy and the fact that there's, you know,
we all know there's, you know, statistics can be used
(04:37):
in any way you want to paint whatever picture you want.
How did you go about finding your way through all
the facts and research and like, being able to write
about it in a way that kept the reader interested
and didn't get bogged down in all the facts, but
also didn't get you cancelled because it's a I remember
(04:57):
we had quite a few conversations about that at the time.
It's really hard to try and be neutral, but also
saying something and using the facts to to drive the
story forward and have something to say.
S3 (05:09):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, well, I guess, you know, that
is that's the eternal. That's the $64 million question, isn't it?
How do you kind of get that, get the reader
through a big story like that, which is very fact,
sort of based? I mean, I was very fortunate to
find a really good case study who was willing to
go on the record. A young woman called Sophie Knight,
(05:30):
who starts the story. She reappears through the story. And
so Sophie was willing to go on the record. I
also spoke to the mother of a teenager with ADHD,
and although she wasn't named, she was willing to sort
of tell her story, her son's story, and her perspective
on it, truthfully. And so, you know, people's own stories
always really help those, those fact, those fact heavy stories
(05:52):
for readers to sort of have a sense of what's
happening to a real person. And then I think, I mean,
it comes back to that, that thing of remembering what
the questions that you have about the topic and what
those questions are, and trying to actively engage with those questions. And,
you know, sometimes it is literally, you know, you have
to write the questions in the story. What is going on?
(06:15):
Why is everybody suddenly being diagnosed with ADHD? And then
you have to kind of use the facts to answer
those questions. Um, and I guess the other thing for readers,
they want to hear their questions or see their questions answered,
and they also want to recognize their own experience in
the story. So, you know, I think I know when
(06:35):
I read a feature, I love it when I have
that little hit of recognition where I think, oh, yeah,
that's exactly what I think about that topic, or that's
what happened to me, or that's what I heard about to,
you know, so what's going on there? So I think,
you know, being trying to be sensitive to what readers
(06:56):
are wanting and what readers are feeling. If you can.
If you can get any of that into a story.
If people read that, then they are immediately kind of
captured because they're like, yes, that's my experience. I can see.
S2 (07:10):
Myself in.
S3 (07:11):
That. Yeah, yeah.
S2 (07:11):
We did put a call out to our readers and
listeners on our social media asking them, did they have
any questions for writers? And one of them is pertinent
to this story. One of the readers said, how do
you balance the kind of duty of care to subjects
with your need to tell the truth? And I think
in this story that was that was really front of mind,
(07:33):
because you had a mother with a son with ADHD,
you had a young woman with ADHD. And yet there
was also some criticism of ADHD diagnoses and the levels.
How did you how do you balance that? Because I
think that is an interesting question that we we all
grapple with in almost every story. Yeah.
S3 (07:53):
I mean, I think actually trying to sort of really
do your job, the sort of fundamental job as a
journalist goes quite a long way towards resolving that question. So,
you know, that means being really clear with the subject
about what the story is and truthful and saying, look,
I am going to talk to people who are critical
of the condition, and I'm going to try and put
(08:13):
both sides of this story or in this case, you know,
multiple sides of a story. So, yeah, being clear with
the subject offering, always offering the subject the right of reply,
trying to if you have something that is, as in
this case, very critical of ADHD, then also balancing that
with the sort of opposing view of other people. I mean,
it was a really great exercise for me, actually, this story, because,
(08:36):
you know, it was because it was such a factual story.
It was an unusually, um, clear opportunity to to just
try to get back to those real journalistic roots of
being as objective as possible, you know, trying really hard
not to let my own prejudices or my own sort
of opinions, um, kind of direct the story.
S2 (09:00):
Um, follow the facts.
S3 (09:01):
Yeah. Just to follow the facts. Just to tell the story,
to tell all the sides of the story and and
let the reader, especially in this, in this debate. And actually,
it was a huge thrill for me. A couple of
people wrote and said, I couldn't tell where you stood
on this story, and that was refreshing.
S2 (09:17):
That's job well.
S3 (09:17):
Done. Yeah, I felt like I that that was a
great compliment. Um, in that, in that kind of context
because for, for, for just about everybody, you know, there
are very strong feelings attached to it. So it was,
it was, it was great to have the chance to
just be like, put all of that aside and just
(09:38):
just say the thing. Yeah. Just tell the story.
S1 (09:40):
Really followed your curiosity with the story too, like it wasn't.
Here's a slab of facts. Here's a slab of counter facts.
Here's the the weighty expert opinion. And then another one.
It was interesting people with interesting views, with interesting backgrounds,
and it made the piece eminently readable, even though it
(10:03):
was like a very long.
S3 (10:04):
It was a very long, complicated story.
S1 (10:08):
But it was like you were following what interested you.
And I always think that's a good guide. Yeah, that's
what it will probably interest the reader, too.
S3 (10:15):
I think that's exactly right, I think, yes, yeah. There's
nothing new under the sun. You know, we're all people
kind of grappling with these things in quite similar ways
when you get down to it I think. Yeah.
S2 (10:27):
And Conrad, your one of your top raters for the year, interestingly,
also wasn't initially conceived as a cover story, which was
the troubles that craft brewers were in both here and internationally. Again,
one of the questions from readers was how do you
get your ideas? So let's go to how that idea
came about and again, how it evolved from really, I
(10:49):
think your original conception was a kind of short second
or third feature, and then it really did. Turn out
to be not only a cover story, but a massively
popular cover story. Which took you by surprise. I remember.
S1 (11:03):
Yeah, it was shocking. Um, well, first of all, we're
not shocking.
S2 (11:06):
Good. Shocking.
S1 (11:07):
Where do you get your story ideas? Is is an
awful question. So thank you for asking it. I really
hate that one. Um, why.
S2 (11:14):
Do you hate that one?
S1 (11:15):
Because you get asked it all the time. You get
asked it at as many barbecues as you get. People
coming up to you saying, I've got a really good
story idea for you.
S2 (11:24):
That is true.
S1 (11:25):
Um, but also.
S2 (11:27):
The worst one is. Can I write a story for you?
I'm not a journalist, but.
S1 (11:32):
But also, I feel like that question in this particular
instance outs me as a very big beer nerd, because
that's where it began. Um, I, like a lot of
people throughout the pandemic, was confined to my couch on
a Friday night and had that little bit of expendable
income because you're not going out and I drift down
to the local sellers and buy these weird, crazy. Oddly
(11:56):
expensive cans of very strange beer. And then I noticed
how many. Fridges were being taken up in that space.
And how this craft beer. Explosion seemed to be just
unrelenting and happening apace. But then a couple. Of years
down the track, as I got more and more interested
(12:17):
in it. And. More and more besotted with various sour
beers and wheat beers and. Stouts and you name it.
I then began to notice sort of the opposite. You'd
get these little reports of breweries closing and you'd think, well.
Hang on, they won a bunch of awards last year. Like,
that's one of my. My favorite breweries and one of
(12:39):
the ones that beer nerds on forums online. Are really
crazy about. And then it would happen again and again
and and then little stories began popping up in the newspaper.
And often that's really a good source of stories for us.
As long form writers is a daily Rounds reporter or
a beat reporter has found something and they follow it
(12:59):
with little pieces throughout. But maybe they don't have the
that luxury of time that we have, or that luxury
of real estate, like 5000 words to expend on a story.
S2 (13:11):
And so just on that, that can be tricky, right?
Because they often do want to do it themselves, and
you're kind of resting it off them as the big,
big piece you feel.
S1 (13:22):
You do feel like the vulture. Um, particularly because you
often really need to lean on that person for assistance. Like,
I'd really love to speak to this person that you
quoted in a story from a few months ago. Can
you put me in touch? And what else should I know?
And for the most part, they're incredibly gracious about that.
And they just want the story to be done well.
S2 (13:43):
But and they don't have the time either, because they're
on the beat every day. But that's always an interesting
kind of relationship, isn't it? On a story like that.
S1 (13:52):
It's a tricky one.
S2 (13:53):
And why do you think that story resonated so much?
S1 (13:57):
Yeah, I, I mean, beer is still exceptionally popular. So
I think whenever you're crafting a story for the magazine,
you want to think about the swath of readers that
are going to just be interested in that topic. And
we forget. Like, it's it's a sort of a dominant beverage. Um,
and so there's a lot of interest there. But then
(14:19):
maybe it just comes down to some of the notions
of unfairness that govern that industry and some of the
mysteries around it. And it's it plays out in so
many other spheres, like a lot of the distilleries are
going under as well, even though they have kind of
gold medal scotches and gins and whatnot. And at its heart,
(14:40):
there's this sort of very unlevel, unfair kind of, um,
business playing field when it comes to taxation and a
bunch of other issues. That's so.
S2 (14:51):
True. So it plays into our sense of David and Goliath,
kind of like a story about the little guy who's
getting screwed over by the system.
S1 (14:58):
It's about beer, and it's about a fair go, you know, like.
S2 (15:02):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's part of it. And and also,
I wonder if it's that thing of like so many
people now dream of, you know, the entrepreneurial dream is
probably bigger than it was decades ago, um, with 20
somethings wanting to start their own brewery or start their
own gin, or start their own makeup company or something.
And so it was a it was also a depressing
(15:24):
lesson that sometimes that sounds so cool. And, you know,
Colin from accounts. And yet it's, um, the harsh reality
is you can lose your money or you can just
work yourself to the bone, or you can just get
do really well and then get, you know, screwed over. Yeah, but.
S1 (15:40):
Most of the stories were just stories of heartbreak and
incredibly Devoted and very smart and rational and careful, fastidious
sort of people getting into this industry, but then just
ultimately getting burned by the system and by circumstance.
S2 (16:01):
And how do you get those people to participate? Because
it's a little bit like Amanda's ADHD, when, you know,
people don't tend to want to talk about their failures. Um,
they have to be quite involved often, don't they, to
really be open to being on the cover of a magazine,
talking about what didn't work, how did you bring those
(16:23):
brewers who participated and got photographed to the table?
S1 (16:27):
I think it helped with a lot of them that
I was able to start from a position of fandom. Like,
I like these beers. They're disappearing for whatever reason. Can
you explain that to me? I'm going to look at
all of the potential own goals and failures within the industry.
So exactly what Amanda said you need to be open
(16:48):
and up front about where you're going to go and
that it's it's not just going to be their side
of the story. And once they understand that where you're
coming from and what the process is going to look like, um,
I think people just feel more comfortable because you've removed
the entire mystery from the equation, because there is a
lot of mystery for people, right? Like how many people
actually get written about in a magazine? We do it
(17:11):
every day, but they have no idea what it looks like.
S2 (17:14):
And it does help, I think, with magazine piece that
there's the length to tell the story from all sides,
which you both kind of saying, and to have the
texture and the nuance that so so it's by nature
of the length. It's not a gotcha. It's not, it's
it's rarely a kind of, um, a thing where they're
going to get shocked at how they've been portrayed, because
(17:36):
the length means you can have all sides and all
the shades of gray, I think.
S1 (17:41):
And when you began as editor, you started saying, and
you could see it in pitches that we would make
to either profile subjects or people about topics like at
Good Weekend, we want to write the definitive story. And
I sort of I kind of include that shorthand in
most of my pitches as well, because I think it
resonates with people that you're going to you're going to
(18:02):
completely circle this thing.
S2 (18:04):
And take care. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the other big thing
obviously this year was the Olympics, and you were both
heavily involved. Conrad you got.
S3 (18:12):
I think, Conrad slightly. Conrad got the trip to Paris
than me.
S2 (18:16):
Yeah. That's right. Conrad. You went as part of the
Sydney Morning Herald and Age contingent? I did. Um, you've
written a lot about sports, and you've won multiple sports
journalist awards. Tell us why you wanted to go and
what surprised you the most about that experience?
S1 (18:34):
Well, I think I've been writing long form for quite
a while, but obviously, like like any journalist, I started
in daily newspaper reporting and, um, and I guess I
wanted a taste of the immediacy again, of of short
form and the adrenaline of covering something live and not
having all that time to, you know, craft something lyrical
(18:56):
and just push yourself, really get out of your comfort zone.
And I was really curious about whether my short form
skills would have, like, atrophied over time, if that muscle
had just wasted away after all these years. But it's
amazing how, um, the pressure of the deadline and yeah,
that that adrenaline just kicks in and carries you forward
(19:20):
and you just, I don't know, I found you sort
of had this muscle memory because you're going from place
to place. You know, one day you're covering archery, which
you know nothing about like three hours before you go
out there to, to watch people, um, loosing arrows. And
then the next you're covering equestrian or kayaking or, and
(19:43):
you have to become this quick study. And where is that?
And oh my God, I need to leave three hours
in advance and it starts at nine. So I guess
I'm up at four tomorrow. And um, yeah, these long,
frantic days with walking, nobody tells you about the walking
like you walk ten, 15km a day in the middle
(20:03):
of summer, covering these things, trying to find the right
stadium door.
S2 (20:07):
And and are you filing from there? Are you taking
the computer and just logging on there and.
S1 (20:12):
Taking your computer along, logging on? But first you've got
to like sort of acquaint yourself with every new facility
that you're at. Unless you're one of those people that
sort of I cover athletics and I'm at the track
every day, or I'm at the pool every night, the
way I'm Michael Gleason or a Tom decent might be. Um, no,
I was sort of going out to one new stadium
(20:32):
after another and it's like, oh, I find out where
the mixed zone is, which is where the athletes come
off and do interviews immediately after a game, find out
where the media center is, which is where you can
sit and file. Find out where the Media Tribune is,
which is where you have your seats, so you can
take notes and watch as the game is going on.
Now figure out how long it'll take to get from
(20:53):
one to the other, and where you need to be
to make sure you don't miss.
S2 (20:57):
Sounding stressful, right?
S1 (20:58):
I'm stressing myself out again all over.
S2 (21:01):
What was the most stressful? Can you give us an
anecdote that shows either the most stressful or the most surprising,
or the most joyous, or all three?
S1 (21:11):
Yeah. Um, look, it probably would have been. I was
lucky enough to cover both of the Fox Sisters when
they won gold medals. Um, and those those runs, those
gold medal runs, they are super quick. And you're sitting
in baking sun. It's like it's 39 degrees and humid,
and you're watching them go down and just trying, scribbling
(21:31):
down notes again about a sport that you'd know nothing
about prior to that day. Uh, trying to get a
handle on who they're competing against when they edge in
front where they make a mistake, and then you've got
to sprint down to that mixed zone and kind of
elbow people aside, or make sure that you get there
in front of center to get a one question off,
(21:53):
at least sometimes that won't happen. And you have to
kind of put your phone on a tray that somebody
carries around so that there'll be this person whose job
it is to carry 15 iPhones on a tray and
place them in front of the face of the athlete
that's being interviewed. So you set it.
S3 (22:10):
On record, you.
S1 (22:11):
Set it on record and.
S2 (22:11):
Hope it works. Back off the tray and see what
you've got.
S1 (22:14):
That's right. And then, of course, you've got to go
back and immediately crank something out. And I don't know,
you're the only person there because, you know, they don't
have the resources to send a couple of staff to.
You're the only Australian. The only. Yeah. Well, the only
person from the organization. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you've
(22:39):
got to get it right. And you have to, I
don't know, compose this piece that gives people the news,
but also takes them there, gives them something that they
don't get from watching it on TV or seeing a
snippet on socials. And look, probably that's where the magazine
(22:59):
writing comes in handy, you know, because those pieces could
be 1000 or 1500 words long. There was some space
to play and bring colour and movement and and joy
into it. When, you know, Noemie Fox wins the gold
that she hadn't been able to win so far and
moves out of her sister's shadow on a on a
hot day like you were there. Yeah, a bit of
(23:20):
an honour to do it, really.
S2 (23:36):
And Amanda, you've done two Olympians. Yes. One before the
games began. Ariarne Titmus, the swimmer and then one after,
was Nina Kennedy, the pole vaulter. How was it different?
I guess one was before and one was after. Was
there a big kind of difference in their kind of sensibility,
(23:57):
given one was hoping to win and actually did end
up winning, and the other one had already come out
the other side having won.
S3 (24:03):
Uh, you know, I think it's a good question. I
haven't even thought about it, I guess. Of course, you know,
Ariarne was very, um, careful because, you know, she she
had it kind of all to do, you know, it
was in front of her, and she she was clearly
she was clearly sort of confident and clearly knew that she,
(24:26):
you know, was a real favourite for the, for the 400.
And I suspect she, she, you know, really felt like
she was in with a chance in the 200 as well.
Freestyle in the freestyle. So. That's right. Um, but uh,
but it was different, you know? She was very, very
self-contained and and and hopeful. Whereas, Nina, you know who I,
(24:49):
who I interviewed after her gold medal performance in pole vault.
She was just so thrilled and so relieved. And so
the whole experience was completely different because.
S2 (25:00):
It was joyous.
S3 (25:01):
Yeah, it was, it was and it was all it
was just all upside, you know? It was all the,
the just the memory of it was so thrilling to her.
You know, I think it still felt like a miracle, um, on,
on some level that it had actually come off. You know,
she had put everything in place and she was absolutely
(25:22):
determined and, and and completely I mean, I think that's
the fascinating thing about these people, however different they are.
And whatever point you see them in, people who who
take on a sort of a dream like that and um,
and just sort of put themselves on the line and
put years of their life on the line in something
(25:42):
like a sporting event. They all have the ability to
to sort of somehow control their own mental world, you know,
in a way that makes that feasible. You know, I mean,
it's just an extraordinary.
S2 (25:57):
People, aren't they?
S3 (25:58):
That part of them is extraordinary. I mean, often when
the difficulty is getting them to talk about that, because
they're often they either aren't doing they they don't do
it consciously or, you know, or they they're just not
used to articulating it. And so they come across often
just as very, you know, normal people with, you know,
normal sort of, um, ways of interacting with the world. But,
(26:22):
you know, because, you see, I mean, Ariarne Titmus, the
thing of her standing up on that block, you know,
in a, in a aquatic center with, you know, Katie
Ledecky beside her and, and a billion people watching on
TV and knowing that the next four minutes or less
are going to are going to define the last decade
(26:44):
of her life, and the fact that she can do that,
you know, she can do that and not just kind
of collapse under the strain. I can't even watch that moment.
You know, I find it just overwhelming. It makes my
legs feel weak even thinking about it. Um, so that
that and Nina has that same ability, you know, like that.
Those people have that thing inside where they can come
(27:07):
right to that point of absolute tension and they can perform,
you know, under those circumstances.
S2 (27:14):
But they're not always introspective about it. No. That's right.
Articulate about it. That's right. That's the that's why sports people,
they can sometimes be really boring subjects. Unless you can
find that.
S3 (27:27):
Yeah. Unless you can find a way to to to
get them to talk about it. That's right. I mean,
Nina was really exceptional because she has done a lot
of very conscious work. So she's she's worked with sports psychologists,
she's worked with counsellors. She's done a lot of reading
and investigation of her own sort of mental state, I think.
And so she, she had very conscious sort of patterns
(27:50):
and processes that she went through. And, you know, I
always think it's wonderful because, you know, when you watch
her before she starts a vault, you can see that
she's speaking, you know, you can see her lips moving and,
and what she's actually telling herself. Is this a sort
of a little mental rundown of of what she's about
to do? So she's just talking herself through her process
(28:12):
as a, as a way of, of kind of containing
the tension. And what she basically says to herself is, um, yes, brain,
thank you for the information that I'm standing here at
the Paris Olympics, you know, with the eyes of the
world on me, I recognize it, I know that's happening,
but all I have to do here is my job,
which is to, you know, take ten steps, start lowering
(28:35):
my pole, take another six steps. You know, put the
pole in the box. You know, I mean, not in
those words exactly, but she just tells herself what she
has to do.
S2 (28:44):
Yeah.
S3 (28:45):
In a, in a very sort of calm, straightforward way. And,
you know, I find it remarkable. I just find that
whole sort of moment extraordinary.
S2 (28:55):
And it's funny, isn't it? Because often, you know, in
journalism where the trained observers and we're outside and we're
not we're not here to cheerlead, we're here to report.
And yet I remember slightly different with sports people, because
after you'd written about Ariane, you and I were both like,
we're getting up at 1 a.m. to watch and she
better win, you know, like, because we are Team Ariane,
(29:18):
we absolutely how that kind of that that journalistic distance.
S1 (29:23):
You'd been on a lot of teams this year then
haven't you. You've been writing Jamie Carter victory.
S2 (29:29):
Exactly. That's it's quite unusual isn't it. It's it's one
of the lovely things in sport. You're not really.
S3 (29:35):
That's right. That it is. So it's possible I always
I had a wonderful my very first editor or used
to love sports stories and he said, you know, the
great thing loved writing sports stories. And he he used
to say, the great thing about sport is you can
make it mythic. You know, you can you can engage
with sport in a way that it's very hard to
(29:58):
with other subjects. And I think it's because on some
level it kind of it means everything and nothing. You know,
people care so much about it. So you know, that
people will read it. Um, but you know, that, you know,
the fate of nations doesn't turn on, you know, whether
Nina wins the pole vault. So it's it's a yes.
You can kind of let go of that journalistic distance
(30:21):
a little bit and be be be on, be on team. Yeah.
S2 (30:25):
Speaking of very first editors, one of the other questions
that readers asked was how how did you get your
start and what drew you to magazine writing? Can you
each just give me very potted because we don't have
a lot of time left. Conrad, can you give us
your your path into magazine writing or first of all,
into journalism and then into magazine?
S1 (30:45):
Um, journalism was a bit of a fluke. I was
working in PR, and I guess the thing I liked
most when I was doing that was the writing, whether
it was press releases or stories for internal external publications.
And so I found my way into daily journalism that way.
Getting into magazine writing, um, came about kind of organically,
(31:06):
insofar as that's what I liked to read. Um, when
I was working in dailies for a decade, I would
say I read magazines far more than I read newspapers.
I had subscriptions to maybe a dozen.
S2 (31:21):
And what was that about? Was that about the writing
or the shades of grey in magazines, in the stories?
What was it? I mean.
S1 (31:29):
It's both of those things, but it probably started with
the writing. I loved the way the magazines could afford
the writer this chance to create a big, bold kind
of creative launch for their story, these sort of anecdotal
leads and, um, conceptual leads where they're inside somebody's head,
(31:55):
just stuff that is unlike anything that you read in
the daily newspaper. Um, and that they could be so varied.
So you could really tap into. Yeah. Just tap into
your creative side. Um, and I think what began to
happen was I would write my daily newspaper stories and
features in that mould as well, and would often have
(32:17):
to be reined back in by my editors who.
S2 (32:20):
Wanted the facts.
S1 (32:21):
Can we have that inverted pyramid, please? Um, but it
was very hard for them to beat it out of me.
And so the first chance I got to, um, to
write for a magazine, I did.
S2 (32:32):
And what about you, Amanda?
S3 (32:34):
Um, yes. Well, I really it was just a question
of my inability to do anything else, I think. I
that's always quite.
S2 (32:42):
Useful, isn't.
S3 (32:43):
It? It is. It makes the choices very simple. Um,
I did I didn't do any sort of training in journalism.
I did a degree in medieval history in English. Um,
you know, so I was qualified to do absolutely nothing
in the real world.
S2 (32:56):
And highly vocational.
S3 (32:57):
Course. Yes, exactly.
S1 (32:58):
Philosophy.
S3 (32:59):
Anthropology. Here. There you go. And psycho. Absolutely. It's it's
it's a miracle that we've we've we've got anything sort
of meaningful to do with our day. Um, but yeah.
So I did love I loved reading, um, feature writing.
I was, I was completely not a newspaper reader or
(33:20):
a news story, sort of, you know, the furthest thing
imaginable from a newshound. Um, but I got some work
experience at a at a magazine. I was in the
UK where I went to university and I went to
a newspaper, and the only place on the newspaper that
would give me a work experience was a magazine, because
(33:40):
they didn't have the daily deadlines and they didn't have
the sort of skill requirement in a funny kind of
a way. You know, I didn't need legal skills, you know,
legal training or shorthand or any of those sorts of
things that daily journalists sort of need to have, um,
or expertise on a particular round. So the magazine said, oh, yeah,
you know, you can come and sit on the radiator
in the magazine offices for a fortnight. And, you know,
(34:03):
I went down there, wrote a single story in that fortnight.
And then the editor who was a, you know, a
great person, said, look, you can stay for another two
weeks and if you get anything else published, we'll pay
you as a freelancer. So I stayed two years on
that basis. Yeah. And learnt very swiftly how to get
a story into the paper, because that was the only
(34:24):
point at which I was getting anything that was earning
any money. Um, so that's how that started.
S2 (34:31):
Okay. So now a few quick fire questions for each
of you. So just who do you look at, Conrad
as as your favorite writers can be here or overseas
in journalism, in magazine writing?
S1 (34:43):
Um, probably the pinnacle for me would be someone like
David Grann, who writes a lot for The New Yorker
and has produced that many pieces that go on to
become later books and then movies. His stuff is just, um,
without peer.
S2 (35:01):
Amanda.
S3 (35:03):
I cannot give one person that's just impossible. But, um,
someone I have absolutely loved reading this year is Tim Heywood,
who writes the of all things, the restaurant Reviews in
the Financial Times in London. And I just think that
is such a difficult form to write. He's been doing
it for ten years, and actually I just recently discovered
(35:24):
he's he's stepping back from reviewing to write about food
more generally, I think. So I really hope, you know,
we don't sort of lose him in that sense. But,
I mean, I just think the sort of way he
works in a very constrained form. It's just so funny
(35:44):
and so erudite and so everything is so beautifully, sort
of constructed. And he still tells you how the rest,
you know, whether the restaurant is worth it or not. Um,
I'm just sort of filled with admiration. I love reading
his stuff.
S2 (35:59):
Another question from our social media poll is at what
point in the story do you know this is what
it's about? Do you know that at the beginning, or
do you work it out through the research, or is
it halfway through the writing?
S1 (36:13):
Conrad uh, I find that I know it, um, about
halfway through the research. There's something about that. I'm sure
I could pick up something lighter that would determine it.
But for whatever reason, when you're approaching the subject really
fresh in those first 4 or 5 interviews with people
or scenes that you've gone out and seen. I can
(36:34):
pretty much picture the beginning of the story, and that
kind of gives me the the nut graph and the
track of where it's going to go.
S3 (36:41):
Amanda, I often only discover the story when I am
halfway through the writing, which is of course, absolutely appalling,
because that is at the point at which I need
to go. I then need to go back to the
person and start all over again and with a whole
lot of new questions. But yeah, I find it. I
find kind of scrabbling my way through. It is a
(37:02):
very long process and often takes much, much longer than
I would wish.
S2 (37:07):
Final question do either of you have particular goals from
a writing perspective for 2025?
S1 (37:13):
Conrad I don't want to say them because I say
them every year for the last two three years and
still haven't, um, found the time or the the right
subject to, um, to do them. But I've always wanted
to write one of those really big, long form stories
about a kind of pivotal court case that everybody is
(37:36):
thinking about, like, I'd love to park myself in the
Supreme Court following something that everyone's interested in, and then
write the the massive kind of definitive feature that circles it.
That would be a goal, and I'd love to profile
a Polly. I've never really profiled a Polly in a
national magazine, so if I could just find the right, um,
(37:59):
the right person from Canberra, that would be great.
S2 (38:02):
To those, um, court case ones, it's interesting to wonder
if you can still do that in this time of
so many people writing so many things and online, will
it hold for the length of time you need for
a magazine piece? Do you think it's harder to say yes? Well, I.
S1 (38:17):
Would have said that, but the winner of the Walkley
for feature writing this year was probably the best thing
I've read in Australia all year. And that was Sarah
Krassner scenes. Look at the Malka Leifer trial in Melbourne.
And I almost feel like that's a story that only
she could have written. Like a legal background, a background
(38:38):
in that cultural community. Um, but she followed it so
well and cracked it open completely. And it was a
motive and tough and lyrical. And, I mean, it was
probably it was also probably like 10,000 words or something.
I mean, it was a beast, but.
S2 (38:54):
Which again, shows that thing that we say, if you
can do the definitive piece, it doesn't matter if everyone's written. Mhm.
S1 (39:01):
That's right.
S2 (39:02):
Miles and miles of copy on it. Amanda any particular
goals for next year?
S3 (39:07):
I am going with the Olympic idea of faster, higher, stronger. Um,
I just want to get faster. I feel like I
have it's been so hard to, um. Get get just keep,
keep things moving. You know, with this year. Um, I
think that's often the problem with long form stuff is
(39:28):
that it's it's because it seems to stretch out forever.
You know, you never know how close you are to
the end. And so you're not very good at organizing
your next story so that you don't have a break
in between.
S2 (39:39):
And you're so fully immersed. Yeah.
S3 (39:41):
It's so. And then you try and sort of shoehorn
in little stories in between that, then end up becoming
much bigger than you expected. And yeah, I just I'd
like to just get more. I feel like if I
could be more efficient, I would get to the end
of more days feeling like I'd had a satisfying day,
you know, of a of a of achievement.
S2 (39:59):
It is interesting, though, isn't it, that almost every writer
that that I work with at the end of one
of those really big cover stories, you are exhausted and
you can't go straight on to another one. You have
to do a two of us or a spotlight or
a smaller. Yeah. Almost like a brain cleanser.
S1 (40:15):
I need to do them in the middle sometimes, honestly.
Like I'll do all of the reporting for a big piece,
and it's like, I'm really not ready to confront the
amount of stuff I've gathered and form it into a story.
Can I do a two of us or a some
some little one pager that doesn't require that sort of commitment.
S3 (40:34):
But I think I mean, that's the one that's something
I envy daily journalists so much, is that sense of
achievement that you get at the end of every story?
It's exhausting, but you also feel like you exist. You know,
it's that terrible thing where you only feel like you
really are are out there in the world when you're
in the paper. And so when that only happens once
a month, you know, you spend a long time in
(40:55):
this kind of limbo world. And and I love that
feeling of actually even just getting to the end of
the day, knowing I've written 500 words that that will
make it into the story. Yeah. Um, so I like
that feeling more often.
S2 (41:08):
Right. Okay. Well, we'll see what we can do about that.
Thank you, Amanda, and thank you, Conrad. And, um, happy holidays.
S3 (41:15):
Thank you.
S1 (41:16):
You too. Thank you. That was good weekend. Editor Katrina
Strickland interviewing staff writers Amanda Hutton and Conrad Marshall on
the latest good week end talks. If you enjoyed this episode,
please remember to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get
your podcasts and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations.
(41:39):
Like most of you, we're taking a short break over
the end of the year, so in the coming weeks,
we'll be running a few of our most popular episodes
from 2024. But rest assured, we'll be back with new
episodes in January as we launch season six of Good
Weekend Talks. Good Weekend Talks is brought to you by
the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age proud newsrooms powered
(42:00):
by subscriptions to support independent journalism. Search. Subscribe. Sydney Morning
Herald or The Age? This episode of Good Weekend Talks
is produced by Kea Wong. Editing from Conrad Marshall. Tom
McKendrick is head of audio and Katrina Strickland is the
editor of Good Weekend.
Hi, I'm Conrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:25):
stories of the day. This week is the final issue
of the magazine for the year, featuring a series of
reflective pieces from Good Weekend staff writers and our favourite contributors,
all of whom were invited to write about something funny,
poignant or remarkable from their lives in 2024. Coming into summer,
(00:46):
I wrote about how and when and why I recognised
I was a water baby while the person next to me,
my fellow Good Weekend senior writer Amanda Hooton, wrote about
processing the end of her daughter's years in primary school.
It's become an annual tradition of good weekend talks for
staff writers to get behind the microphone at this time
of year for a chat about the specialist craft of
(01:08):
magazine writing. And with that in mind, the final episode
of season five of Good Weekend Talks will feature Amanda
and myself answering questions from our fearless editor, Katrina Strickland.
So welcome, Amanda and Katrina. Take it away, boss.
S2 (01:26):
Thank you, Conrad, and welcome Conrad and Amanda.
S3 (01:29):
Hello. Hello.
S2 (01:30):
It's rare that we're all in the same room, isn't it? Conrad. People,
listeners might not even know Conrad is based in Melbourne,
and Amanda and I based in Sydney. That's right. Um,
we were having a look at the top rating stories
for the year, and one of the the highest rating. Amanda,
was your piece on why suddenly everyone got ADHD. I
(01:50):
thought it was an interesting point to start with, because
that story didn't start as a long cover story. And
people often ask, how do stories develop? So tell us how.
Like when the idea came to you and then how
it went. I think it started as a two page
first person reflections piece, and then it kind of evolved
into what it ended up as, as a cover story.
(02:13):
Tell us about the process.
S3 (02:14):
Yeah, that's right actually. I mean, it's always tricky, isn't it?
I mean, it feels as if it was. The origins
of of everything are lost in the mists of time. Slightly.
I think we thought originally that the piece was a
two pager, because there had already been quite a lot
of stuff in the news. You know, it was one
of those kind of zeitgeist issues. Everybody was talking about ADHD.
(02:36):
Lots of people were either, you know, receiving diagnoses themselves
or knew of people of all ages that were getting
diagnosed with the condition. And I think so there's always
a sort of reluctance, I think, to kind of go
big on a story like that because you think, well,
there's so much out there. How can what can we
add to it? Or certainly I feel that, um, but
(02:58):
I think once, once I started looking into it, I
realized that, um, that actually that all of those news
stories and all of that really good reporting that had
been done was a sort of felt like a kind
of bedrock of information that was then kind of out
there in the, in the sort of public sphere. Um,
and that had led to a whole lot of new
(03:19):
sort of questions and new sort of ideas that people
were kind of mulling over and, um, that were kind
of swirling around. It felt like, and certainly that I had, uh,
that that hadn't been addressed or hadn't been answered, and
it had also given rise to a lot of conflict.
So there was a lot of public debate happening. There
was a lot of people with very strong opinions on
(03:41):
kind of every side of the question. And, you know,
the more I looked into it, the more there seemed
to be to say that was actually kind of new,
or at least offer the opportunity for new analysis of
the of the whole topic.
S2 (03:54):
And answering that question, which we did put on the cover,
which a lot of people have been asking themselves like, what?
Why is there suddenly such a high rate? And it's
interesting what you say, because sometimes we get that judgment
right and sometimes wrong in terms of if there's a
lot around about a subject, sometimes we can do the
definitive piece that brings it all together and it will
(04:16):
be hugely popular, and other times you can be slightly
behind the wave and everyone does feel like they've already
read it. So that's right. It's a hard judgment call,
isn't it? As to where where it sits there. One
of the other difficulties with that story, of course, is,
is the controversy and the fact that there's, you know,
we all know there's, you know, statistics can be used
(04:37):
in any way you want to paint whatever picture you want.
How did you go about finding your way through all
the facts and research and like, being able to write
about it in a way that kept the reader interested
and didn't get bogged down in all the facts, but
also didn't get you cancelled because it's a I remember
(04:57):
we had quite a few conversations about that at the time.
It's really hard to try and be neutral, but also
saying something and using the facts to to drive the
story forward and have something to say.
S3 (05:09):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, well, I guess, you know, that
is that's the eternal. That's the $64 million question, isn't it?
How do you kind of get that, get the reader
through a big story like that, which is very fact,
sort of based? I mean, I was very fortunate to
find a really good case study who was willing to
go on the record. A young woman called Sophie Knight,
(05:30):
who starts the story. She reappears through the story. And
so Sophie was willing to go on the record. I
also spoke to the mother of a teenager with ADHD,
and although she wasn't named, she was willing to sort
of tell her story, her son's story, and her perspective
on it, truthfully. And so, you know, people's own stories
always really help those, those fact, those fact heavy stories
(05:52):
for readers to sort of have a sense of what's
happening to a real person. And then I think, I mean,
it comes back to that, that thing of remembering what
the questions that you have about the topic and what
those questions are, and trying to actively engage with those questions. And,
you know, sometimes it is literally, you know, you have
to write the questions in the story. What is going on?
(06:15):
Why is everybody suddenly being diagnosed with ADHD? And then
you have to kind of use the facts to answer
those questions. Um, and I guess the other thing for readers,
they want to hear their questions or see their questions answered,
and they also want to recognize their own experience in
the story. So, you know, I think I know when
(06:35):
I read a feature, I love it when I have
that little hit of recognition where I think, oh, yeah,
that's exactly what I think about that topic, or that's
what happened to me, or that's what I heard about to,
you know, so what's going on there? So I think,
you know, being trying to be sensitive to what readers
(06:56):
are wanting and what readers are feeling. If you can.
If you can get any of that into a story.
If people read that, then they are immediately kind of
captured because they're like, yes, that's my experience. I can see.
S2 (07:10):
Myself in.
S3 (07:11):
That. Yeah, yeah.
S2 (07:11):
We did put a call out to our readers and
listeners on our social media asking them, did they have
any questions for writers? And one of them is pertinent
to this story. One of the readers said, how do
you balance the kind of duty of care to subjects
with your need to tell the truth? And I think
in this story that was that was really front of mind,
(07:33):
because you had a mother with a son with ADHD,
you had a young woman with ADHD. And yet there
was also some criticism of ADHD diagnoses and the levels.
How did you how do you balance that? Because I
think that is an interesting question that we we all
grapple with in almost every story. Yeah.
S3 (07:53):
I mean, I think actually trying to sort of really
do your job, the sort of fundamental job as a
journalist goes quite a long way towards resolving that question. So,
you know, that means being really clear with the subject
about what the story is and truthful and saying, look,
I am going to talk to people who are critical
of the condition, and I'm going to try and put
(08:13):
both sides of this story or in this case, you know,
multiple sides of a story. So, yeah, being clear with
the subject offering, always offering the subject the right of reply,
trying to if you have something that is, as in
this case, very critical of ADHD, then also balancing that
with the sort of opposing view of other people. I mean,
it was a really great exercise for me, actually, this story, because,
(08:36):
you know, it was because it was such a factual story.
It was an unusually, um, clear opportunity to to just
try to get back to those real journalistic roots of
being as objective as possible, you know, trying really hard
not to let my own prejudices or my own sort
of opinions, um, kind of direct the story.
S2 (09:00):
Um, follow the facts.
S3 (09:01):
Yeah. Just to follow the facts. Just to tell the story,
to tell all the sides of the story and and
let the reader, especially in this, in this debate. And actually,
it was a huge thrill for me. A couple of
people wrote and said, I couldn't tell where you stood
on this story, and that was refreshing.
S2 (09:17):
That's job well.
S3 (09:17):
Done. Yeah, I felt like I that that was a
great compliment. Um, in that, in that kind of context
because for, for, for just about everybody, you know, there
are very strong feelings attached to it. So it was,
it was, it was great to have the chance to
just be like, put all of that aside and just
(09:38):
just say the thing. Yeah. Just tell the story.
S1 (09:40):
Really followed your curiosity with the story too, like it wasn't.
Here's a slab of facts. Here's a slab of counter facts.
Here's the the weighty expert opinion. And then another one.
It was interesting people with interesting views, with interesting backgrounds,
and it made the piece eminently readable, even though it
(10:03):
was like a very long.
S3 (10:04):
It was a very long, complicated story.
S1 (10:08):
But it was like you were following what interested you.
And I always think that's a good guide. Yeah, that's
what it will probably interest the reader, too.
S3 (10:15):
I think that's exactly right, I think, yes, yeah. There's
nothing new under the sun. You know, we're all people
kind of grappling with these things in quite similar ways
when you get down to it I think. Yeah.
S2 (10:27):
And Conrad, your one of your top raters for the year, interestingly,
also wasn't initially conceived as a cover story, which was
the troubles that craft brewers were in both here and internationally. Again,
one of the questions from readers was how do you
get your ideas? So let's go to how that idea
came about and again, how it evolved from really, I
(10:49):
think your original conception was a kind of short second
or third feature, and then it really did. Turn out
to be not only a cover story, but a massively
popular cover story. Which took you by surprise. I remember.
S1 (11:03):
Yeah, it was shocking. Um, well, first of all, we're
not shocking.
S2 (11:06):
Good. Shocking.
S1 (11:07):
Where do you get your story ideas? Is is an
awful question. So thank you for asking it. I really
hate that one. Um, why.
S2 (11:14):
Do you hate that one?
S1 (11:15):
Because you get asked it all the time. You get
asked it at as many barbecues as you get. People
coming up to you saying, I've got a really good
story idea for you.
S2 (11:24):
That is true.
S1 (11:25):
Um, but also.
S2 (11:27):
The worst one is. Can I write a story for you?
I'm not a journalist, but.
S1 (11:32):
But also, I feel like that question in this particular
instance outs me as a very big beer nerd, because
that's where it began. Um, I, like a lot of
people throughout the pandemic, was confined to my couch on
a Friday night and had that little bit of expendable
income because you're not going out and I drift down
to the local sellers and buy these weird, crazy. Oddly
(11:56):
expensive cans of very strange beer. And then I noticed
how many. Fridges were being taken up in that space.
And how this craft beer. Explosion seemed to be just
unrelenting and happening apace. But then a couple. Of years
down the track, as I got more and more interested
(12:17):
in it. And. More and more besotted with various sour
beers and wheat beers and. Stouts and you name it.
I then began to notice sort of the opposite. You'd
get these little reports of breweries closing and you'd think, well.
Hang on, they won a bunch of awards last year. Like,
that's one of my. My favorite breweries and one of
(12:39):
the ones that beer nerds on forums online. Are really
crazy about. And then it would happen again and again
and and then little stories began popping up in the newspaper.
And often that's really a good source of stories for us.
As long form writers is a daily Rounds reporter or
a beat reporter has found something and they follow it
(12:59):
with little pieces throughout. But maybe they don't have the
that luxury of time that we have, or that luxury
of real estate, like 5000 words to expend on a story.
S2 (13:11):
And so just on that, that can be tricky, right?
Because they often do want to do it themselves, and
you're kind of resting it off them as the big,
big piece you feel.
S1 (13:22):
You do feel like the vulture. Um, particularly because you
often really need to lean on that person for assistance. Like,
I'd really love to speak to this person that you
quoted in a story from a few months ago. Can
you put me in touch? And what else should I know?
And for the most part, they're incredibly gracious about that.
And they just want the story to be done well.
S2 (13:43):
But and they don't have the time either, because they're
on the beat every day. But that's always an interesting
kind of relationship, isn't it? On a story like that.
S1 (13:52):
It's a tricky one.
S2 (13:53):
And why do you think that story resonated so much?
S1 (13:57):
Yeah, I, I mean, beer is still exceptionally popular. So
I think whenever you're crafting a story for the magazine,
you want to think about the swath of readers that
are going to just be interested in that topic. And
we forget. Like, it's it's a sort of a dominant beverage. Um,
and so there's a lot of interest there. But then
(14:19):
maybe it just comes down to some of the notions
of unfairness that govern that industry and some of the
mysteries around it. And it's it plays out in so
many other spheres, like a lot of the distilleries are
going under as well, even though they have kind of
gold medal scotches and gins and whatnot. And at its heart,
(14:40):
there's this sort of very unlevel, unfair kind of, um,
business playing field when it comes to taxation and a
bunch of other issues. That's so.
S2 (14:51):
True. So it plays into our sense of David and Goliath,
kind of like a story about the little guy who's
getting screwed over by the system.
S1 (14:58):
It's about beer, and it's about a fair go, you know, like.
S2 (15:02):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's part of it. And and also,
I wonder if it's that thing of like so many
people now dream of, you know, the entrepreneurial dream is
probably bigger than it was decades ago, um, with 20
somethings wanting to start their own brewery or start their
own gin, or start their own makeup company or something.
And so it was a it was also a depressing
(15:24):
lesson that sometimes that sounds so cool. And, you know,
Colin from accounts. And yet it's, um, the harsh reality
is you can lose your money or you can just
work yourself to the bone, or you can just get
do really well and then get, you know, screwed over. Yeah, but.
S1 (15:40):
Most of the stories were just stories of heartbreak and
incredibly Devoted and very smart and rational and careful, fastidious
sort of people getting into this industry, but then just
ultimately getting burned by the system and by circumstance.
S2 (16:01):
And how do you get those people to participate? Because
it's a little bit like Amanda's ADHD, when, you know,
people don't tend to want to talk about their failures. Um,
they have to be quite involved often, don't they, to
really be open to being on the cover of a magazine,
talking about what didn't work, how did you bring those
(16:23):
brewers who participated and got photographed to the table?
S1 (16:27):
I think it helped with a lot of them that
I was able to start from a position of fandom. Like,
I like these beers. They're disappearing for whatever reason. Can
you explain that to me? I'm going to look at
all of the potential own goals and failures within the industry.
So exactly what Amanda said you need to be open
(16:48):
and up front about where you're going to go and
that it's it's not just going to be their side
of the story. And once they understand that where you're
coming from and what the process is going to look like, um,
I think people just feel more comfortable because you've removed
the entire mystery from the equation, because there is a
lot of mystery for people, right? Like how many people
actually get written about in a magazine? We do it
(17:11):
every day, but they have no idea what it looks like.
S2 (17:14):
And it does help, I think, with magazine piece that
there's the length to tell the story from all sides,
which you both kind of saying, and to have the
texture and the nuance that so so it's by nature
of the length. It's not a gotcha. It's not, it's
it's rarely a kind of, um, a thing where they're
going to get shocked at how they've been portrayed, because
(17:36):
the length means you can have all sides and all
the shades of gray, I think.
S1 (17:41):
And when you began as editor, you started saying, and
you could see it in pitches that we would make
to either profile subjects or people about topics like at
Good Weekend, we want to write the definitive story. And
I sort of I kind of include that shorthand in
most of my pitches as well, because I think it
resonates with people that you're going to you're going to
(18:02):
completely circle this thing.
S2 (18:04):
And take care. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the other big thing
obviously this year was the Olympics, and you were both
heavily involved. Conrad you got.
S3 (18:12):
I think, Conrad slightly. Conrad got the trip to Paris
than me.
S2 (18:16):
Yeah. That's right. Conrad. You went as part of the
Sydney Morning Herald and Age contingent? I did. Um, you've
written a lot about sports, and you've won multiple sports
journalist awards. Tell us why you wanted to go and
what surprised you the most about that experience?
S1 (18:34):
Well, I think I've been writing long form for quite
a while, but obviously, like like any journalist, I started
in daily newspaper reporting and, um, and I guess I
wanted a taste of the immediacy again, of of short
form and the adrenaline of covering something live and not
having all that time to, you know, craft something lyrical
(18:56):
and just push yourself, really get out of your comfort zone.
And I was really curious about whether my short form
skills would have, like, atrophied over time, if that muscle
had just wasted away after all these years. But it's
amazing how, um, the pressure of the deadline and yeah,
that that adrenaline just kicks in and carries you forward
(19:20):
and you just, I don't know, I found you sort
of had this muscle memory because you're going from place
to place. You know, one day you're covering archery, which
you know nothing about like three hours before you go
out there to, to watch people, um, loosing arrows. And
then the next you're covering equestrian or kayaking or, and
(19:43):
you have to become this quick study. And where is that?
And oh my God, I need to leave three hours
in advance and it starts at nine. So I guess
I'm up at four tomorrow. And um, yeah, these long,
frantic days with walking, nobody tells you about the walking
like you walk ten, 15km a day in the middle
(20:03):
of summer, covering these things, trying to find the right
stadium door.
S2 (20:07):
And and are you filing from there? Are you taking
the computer and just logging on there and.
S1 (20:12):
Taking your computer along, logging on? But first you've got
to like sort of acquaint yourself with every new facility
that you're at. Unless you're one of those people that
sort of I cover athletics and I'm at the track
every day, or I'm at the pool every night, the
way I'm Michael Gleason or a Tom decent might be. Um, no,
I was sort of going out to one new stadium
(20:32):
after another and it's like, oh, I find out where
the mixed zone is, which is where the athletes come
off and do interviews immediately after a game, find out
where the media center is, which is where you can
sit and file. Find out where the Media Tribune is,
which is where you have your seats, so you can
take notes and watch as the game is going on.
Now figure out how long it'll take to get from
(20:53):
one to the other, and where you need to be
to make sure you don't miss.
S2 (20:57):
Sounding stressful, right?
S1 (20:58):
I'm stressing myself out again all over.
S2 (21:01):
What was the most stressful? Can you give us an
anecdote that shows either the most stressful or the most surprising,
or the most joyous, or all three?
S1 (21:11):
Yeah. Um, look, it probably would have been. I was
lucky enough to cover both of the Fox Sisters when
they won gold medals. Um, and those those runs, those
gold medal runs, they are super quick. And you're sitting
in baking sun. It's like it's 39 degrees and humid,
and you're watching them go down and just trying, scribbling
(21:31):
down notes again about a sport that you'd know nothing
about prior to that day. Uh, trying to get a
handle on who they're competing against when they edge in
front where they make a mistake, and then you've got
to sprint down to that mixed zone and kind of
elbow people aside, or make sure that you get there
in front of center to get a one question off,
(21:53):
at least sometimes that won't happen. And you have to
kind of put your phone on a tray that somebody
carries around so that there'll be this person whose job
it is to carry 15 iPhones on a tray and
place them in front of the face of the athlete
that's being interviewed. So you set it.
S3 (22:10):
On record, you.
S1 (22:11):
Set it on record and.
S2 (22:11):
Hope it works. Back off the tray and see what
you've got.
S1 (22:14):
That's right. And then, of course, you've got to go
back and immediately crank something out. And I don't know,
you're the only person there because, you know, they don't
have the resources to send a couple of staff to.
You're the only Australian. The only. Yeah. Well, the only
person from the organization. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you've
(22:39):
got to get it right. And you have to, I
don't know, compose this piece that gives people the news,
but also takes them there, gives them something that they
don't get from watching it on TV or seeing a
snippet on socials. And look, probably that's where the magazine
(22:59):
writing comes in handy, you know, because those pieces could
be 1000 or 1500 words long. There was some space
to play and bring colour and movement and and joy
into it. When, you know, Noemie Fox wins the gold
that she hadn't been able to win so far and
moves out of her sister's shadow on a on a
hot day like you were there. Yeah, a bit of
(23:20):
an honour to do it, really.
S2 (23:36):
And Amanda, you've done two Olympians. Yes. One before the
games began. Ariarne Titmus, the swimmer and then one after,
was Nina Kennedy, the pole vaulter. How was it different?
I guess one was before and one was after. Was
there a big kind of difference in their kind of sensibility,
(23:57):
given one was hoping to win and actually did end
up winning, and the other one had already come out
the other side having won.
S3 (24:03):
Uh, you know, I think it's a good question. I
haven't even thought about it, I guess. Of course, you know,
Ariarne was very, um, careful because, you know, she she
had it kind of all to do, you know, it
was in front of her, and she she was clearly
she was clearly sort of confident and clearly knew that she,
(24:26):
you know, was a real favourite for the, for the 400.
And I suspect she, she, you know, really felt like
she was in with a chance in the 200 as well.
Freestyle in the freestyle. So. That's right. Um, but uh,
but it was different, you know? She was very, very
self-contained and and and hopeful. Whereas, Nina, you know who I,
(24:49):
who I interviewed after her gold medal performance in pole vault.
She was just so thrilled and so relieved. And so
the whole experience was completely different because.
S2 (25:00):
It was joyous.
S3 (25:01):
Yeah, it was, it was and it was all it
was just all upside, you know? It was all the,
the just the memory of it was so thrilling to her.
You know, I think it still felt like a miracle, um, on,
on some level that it had actually come off. You know,
she had put everything in place and she was absolutely
(25:22):
determined and, and and completely I mean, I think that's
the fascinating thing about these people, however different they are.
And whatever point you see them in, people who who
take on a sort of a dream like that and um,
and just sort of put themselves on the line and
put years of their life on the line in something
(25:42):
like a sporting event. They all have the ability to
to sort of somehow control their own mental world, you know,
in a way that makes that feasible. You know, I mean,
it's just an extraordinary.
S2 (25:57):
People, aren't they?
S3 (25:58):
That part of them is extraordinary. I mean, often when
the difficulty is getting them to talk about that, because
they're often they either aren't doing they they don't do
it consciously or, you know, or they they're just not
used to articulating it. And so they come across often
just as very, you know, normal people with, you know,
normal sort of, um, ways of interacting with the world. But,
(26:22):
you know, because, you see, I mean, Ariarne Titmus, the
thing of her standing up on that block, you know,
in a, in a aquatic center with, you know, Katie
Ledecky beside her and, and a billion people watching on
TV and knowing that the next four minutes or less
are going to are going to define the last decade
(26:44):
of her life, and the fact that she can do that,
you know, she can do that and not just kind
of collapse under the strain. I can't even watch that moment.
You know, I find it just overwhelming. It makes my
legs feel weak even thinking about it. Um, so that
that and Nina has that same ability, you know, like that.
Those people have that thing inside where they can come
(27:07):
right to that point of absolute tension and they can perform,
you know, under those circumstances.
S2 (27:14):
But they're not always introspective about it. No. That's right.
Articulate about it. That's right. That's the that's why sports people,
they can sometimes be really boring subjects. Unless you can
find that.
S3 (27:27):
Yeah. Unless you can find a way to to to
get them to talk about it. That's right. I mean,
Nina was really exceptional because she has done a lot
of very conscious work. So she's she's worked with sports psychologists,
she's worked with counsellors. She's done a lot of reading
and investigation of her own sort of mental state, I think.
And so she, she had very conscious sort of patterns
(27:50):
and processes that she went through. And, you know, I
always think it's wonderful because, you know, when you watch
her before she starts a vault, you can see that
she's speaking, you know, you can see her lips moving and,
and what she's actually telling herself. Is this a sort
of a little mental rundown of of what she's about
to do? So she's just talking herself through her process
(28:12):
as a, as a way of, of kind of containing
the tension. And what she basically says to herself is, um, yes, brain,
thank you for the information that I'm standing here at
the Paris Olympics, you know, with the eyes of the
world on me, I recognize it, I know that's happening,
but all I have to do here is my job,
which is to, you know, take ten steps, start lowering
(28:35):
my pole, take another six steps. You know, put the
pole in the box. You know, I mean, not in
those words exactly, but she just tells herself what she
has to do.
S2 (28:44):
Yeah.
S3 (28:45):
In a, in a very sort of calm, straightforward way. And,
you know, I find it remarkable. I just find that
whole sort of moment extraordinary.
S2 (28:55):
And it's funny, isn't it? Because often, you know, in
journalism where the trained observers and we're outside and we're
not we're not here to cheerlead, we're here to report.
And yet I remember slightly different with sports people, because
after you'd written about Ariane, you and I were both like,
we're getting up at 1 a.m. to watch and she
better win, you know, like, because we are Team Ariane,
(29:18):
we absolutely how that kind of that that journalistic distance.
S1 (29:23):
You'd been on a lot of teams this year then
haven't you. You've been writing Jamie Carter victory.
S2 (29:29):
Exactly. That's it's quite unusual isn't it. It's it's one
of the lovely things in sport. You're not really.
S3 (29:35):
That's right. That it is. So it's possible I always
I had a wonderful my very first editor or used
to love sports stories and he said, you know, the
great thing loved writing sports stories. And he he used
to say, the great thing about sport is you can
make it mythic. You know, you can you can engage
with sport in a way that it's very hard to
(29:58):
with other subjects. And I think it's because on some
level it kind of it means everything and nothing. You know,
people care so much about it. So you know, that
people will read it. Um, but you know, that, you know,
the fate of nations doesn't turn on, you know, whether
Nina wins the pole vault. So it's it's a yes.
You can kind of let go of that journalistic distance
(30:21):
a little bit and be be be on, be on team. Yeah.
S2 (30:25):
Speaking of very first editors, one of the other questions
that readers asked was how how did you get your
start and what drew you to magazine writing? Can you
each just give me very potted because we don't have
a lot of time left. Conrad, can you give us
your your path into magazine writing or first of all,
into journalism and then into magazine?
S1 (30:45):
Um, journalism was a bit of a fluke. I was
working in PR, and I guess the thing I liked
most when I was doing that was the writing, whether
it was press releases or stories for internal external publications.
And so I found my way into daily journalism that way.
Getting into magazine writing, um, came about kind of organically,
(31:06):
insofar as that's what I liked to read. Um, when
I was working in dailies for a decade, I would
say I read magazines far more than I read newspapers.
I had subscriptions to maybe a dozen.
S2 (31:21):
And what was that about? Was that about the writing
or the shades of grey in magazines, in the stories?
What was it? I mean.
S1 (31:29):
It's both of those things, but it probably started with
the writing. I loved the way the magazines could afford
the writer this chance to create a big, bold kind
of creative launch for their story, these sort of anecdotal
leads and, um, conceptual leads where they're inside somebody's head,
(31:55):
just stuff that is unlike anything that you read in
the daily newspaper. Um, and that they could be so varied.
So you could really tap into. Yeah. Just tap into
your creative side. Um, and I think what began to
happen was I would write my daily newspaper stories and
features in that mould as well, and would often have
(32:17):
to be reined back in by my editors who.
S2 (32:20):
Wanted the facts.
S1 (32:21):
Can we have that inverted pyramid, please? Um, but it
was very hard for them to beat it out of me.
And so the first chance I got to, um, to
write for a magazine, I did.
S2 (32:32):
And what about you, Amanda?
S3 (32:34):
Um, yes. Well, I really it was just a question
of my inability to do anything else, I think. I
that's always quite.
S2 (32:42):
Useful, isn't.
S3 (32:43):
It? It is. It makes the choices very simple. Um,
I did I didn't do any sort of training in journalism.
I did a degree in medieval history in English. Um,
you know, so I was qualified to do absolutely nothing
in the real world.
S2 (32:56):
And highly vocational.
S3 (32:57):
Course. Yes, exactly.
S1 (32:58):
Philosophy.
S3 (32:59):
Anthropology. Here. There you go. And psycho. Absolutely. It's it's
it's a miracle that we've we've we've got anything sort
of meaningful to do with our day. Um, but yeah.
So I did love I loved reading, um, feature writing.
I was, I was completely not a newspaper reader or
(33:20):
a news story, sort of, you know, the furthest thing
imaginable from a newshound. Um, but I got some work
experience at a at a magazine. I was in the
UK where I went to university and I went to
a newspaper, and the only place on the newspaper that
would give me a work experience was a magazine, because
(33:40):
they didn't have the daily deadlines and they didn't have
the sort of skill requirement in a funny kind of
a way. You know, I didn't need legal skills, you know,
legal training or shorthand or any of those sorts of
things that daily journalists sort of need to have, um,
or expertise on a particular round. So the magazine said, oh, yeah,
you know, you can come and sit on the radiator
in the magazine offices for a fortnight. And, you know,
(34:03):
I went down there, wrote a single story in that fortnight.
And then the editor who was a, you know, a
great person, said, look, you can stay for another two
weeks and if you get anything else published, we'll pay
you as a freelancer. So I stayed two years on
that basis. Yeah. And learnt very swiftly how to get
a story into the paper, because that was the only
(34:24):
point at which I was getting anything that was earning
any money. Um, so that's how that started.
S2 (34:31):
Okay. So now a few quick fire questions for each
of you. So just who do you look at, Conrad
as as your favorite writers can be here or overseas
in journalism, in magazine writing?
S1 (34:43):
Um, probably the pinnacle for me would be someone like
David Grann, who writes a lot for The New Yorker
and has produced that many pieces that go on to
become later books and then movies. His stuff is just, um,
without peer.
S2 (35:01):
Amanda.
S3 (35:03):
I cannot give one person that's just impossible. But, um,
someone I have absolutely loved reading this year is Tim Heywood,
who writes the of all things, the restaurant Reviews in
the Financial Times in London. And I just think that
is such a difficult form to write. He's been doing
it for ten years, and actually I just recently discovered
(35:24):
he's he's stepping back from reviewing to write about food
more generally, I think. So I really hope, you know,
we don't sort of lose him in that sense. But,
I mean, I just think the sort of way he
works in a very constrained form. It's just so funny
(35:44):
and so erudite and so everything is so beautifully, sort
of constructed. And he still tells you how the rest,
you know, whether the restaurant is worth it or not. Um,
I'm just sort of filled with admiration. I love reading
his stuff.
S2 (35:59):
Another question from our social media poll is at what
point in the story do you know this is what
it's about? Do you know that at the beginning, or
do you work it out through the research, or is
it halfway through the writing?
S1 (36:13):
Conrad uh, I find that I know it, um, about
halfway through the research. There's something about that. I'm sure
I could pick up something lighter that would determine it.
But for whatever reason, when you're approaching the subject really
fresh in those first 4 or 5 interviews with people
or scenes that you've gone out and seen. I can
(36:34):
pretty much picture the beginning of the story, and that
kind of gives me the the nut graph and the
track of where it's going to go.
S3 (36:41):
Amanda, I often only discover the story when I am
halfway through the writing, which is of course, absolutely appalling,
because that is at the point at which I need
to go. I then need to go back to the
person and start all over again and with a whole
lot of new questions. But yeah, I find it. I
find kind of scrabbling my way through. It is a
(37:02):
very long process and often takes much, much longer than
I would wish.
S2 (37:07):
Final question do either of you have particular goals from
a writing perspective for 2025?
S1 (37:13):
Conrad I don't want to say them because I say
them every year for the last two three years and
still haven't, um, found the time or the the right
subject to, um, to do them. But I've always wanted
to write one of those really big, long form stories
about a kind of pivotal court case that everybody is
(37:36):
thinking about, like, I'd love to park myself in the
Supreme Court following something that everyone's interested in, and then
write the the massive kind of definitive feature that circles it.
That would be a goal, and I'd love to profile
a Polly. I've never really profiled a Polly in a
national magazine, so if I could just find the right, um,
(37:59):
the right person from Canberra, that would be great.
S2 (38:02):
To those, um, court case ones, it's interesting to wonder
if you can still do that in this time of
so many people writing so many things and online, will
it hold for the length of time you need for
a magazine piece? Do you think it's harder to say yes? Well, I.
S1 (38:17):
Would have said that, but the winner of the Walkley
for feature writing this year was probably the best thing
I've read in Australia all year. And that was Sarah
Krassner scenes. Look at the Malka Leifer trial in Melbourne.
And I almost feel like that's a story that only
she could have written. Like a legal background, a background
(38:38):
in that cultural community. Um, but she followed it so
well and cracked it open completely. And it was a
motive and tough and lyrical. And, I mean, it was
probably it was also probably like 10,000 words or something.
I mean, it was a beast, but.
S2 (38:54):
Which again, shows that thing that we say, if you
can do the definitive piece, it doesn't matter if everyone's written. Mhm.
S1 (39:01):
That's right.
S2 (39:02):
Miles and miles of copy on it. Amanda any particular
goals for next year?
S3 (39:07):
I am going with the Olympic idea of faster, higher, stronger. Um,
I just want to get faster. I feel like I
have it's been so hard to, um. Get get just keep,
keep things moving. You know, with this year. Um, I
think that's often the problem with long form stuff is
(39:28):
that it's it's because it seems to stretch out forever.
You know, you never know how close you are to
the end. And so you're not very good at organizing
your next story so that you don't have a break
in between.
S2 (39:39):
And you're so fully immersed. Yeah.
S3 (39:41):
It's so. And then you try and sort of shoehorn
in little stories in between that, then end up becoming
much bigger than you expected. And yeah, I just I'd
like to just get more. I feel like if I
could be more efficient, I would get to the end
of more days feeling like I'd had a satisfying day,
you know, of a of a of achievement.
S2 (39:59):
It is interesting, though, isn't it, that almost every writer
that that I work with at the end of one
of those really big cover stories, you are exhausted and
you can't go straight on to another one. You have
to do a two of us or a spotlight or
a smaller. Yeah. Almost like a brain cleanser.
S1 (40:15):
I need to do them in the middle sometimes, honestly.
Like I'll do all of the reporting for a big piece,
and it's like, I'm really not ready to confront the
amount of stuff I've gathered and form it into a story.
Can I do a two of us or a some
some little one pager that doesn't require that sort of commitment.
S3 (40:34):
But I think I mean, that's the one that's something
I envy daily journalists so much, is that sense of
achievement that you get at the end of every story?
It's exhausting, but you also feel like you exist. You know,
it's that terrible thing where you only feel like you
really are are out there in the world when you're
in the paper. And so when that only happens once
a month, you know, you spend a long time in
(40:55):
this kind of limbo world. And and I love that
feeling of actually even just getting to the end of
the day, knowing I've written 500 words that that will
make it into the story. Yeah. Um, so I like
that feeling more often.
S2 (41:08):
Right. Okay. Well, we'll see what we can do about that.
Thank you, Amanda, and thank you, Conrad. And, um, happy holidays.
S3 (41:15):
Thank you.
S1 (41:16):
You too. Thank you. That was good weekend. Editor Katrina
Strickland interviewing staff writers Amanda Hutton and Conrad Marshall on
the latest good week end talks. If you enjoyed this episode,
please remember to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get
your podcasts and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations.
(41:39):
Like most of you, we're taking a short break over
the end of the year, so in the coming weeks,
we'll be running a few of our most popular episodes
from 2024. But rest assured, we'll be back with new
episodes in January as we launch season six of Good
Weekend Talks. Good Weekend Talks is brought to you by
the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age proud newsrooms powered
(42:00):
by subscriptions to support independent journalism. Search. Subscribe. Sydney Morning
Herald or The Age? This episode of Good Weekend Talks
is produced by Kea Wong. Editing from Conrad Marshall. Tom
McKendrick is head of audio and Katrina Strickland is the
editor of Good Weekend.
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