Publisher's Synopsis
Richard Daub never set out to be a journalist. As a self-described artist with high standards and lofty aspirations who spent nearly a decade writing his first novel, the thought of being a journalist never crossed his mind beyond a brief moment in 1995 just after graduating college when he played sportswriter for a night at Shea Stadium. When that novel was finally completed, he needed to take a break from writing fiction. He had recently read David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" essay and was inspired by what the greatest fiction writer alive at the time was able to do in the realm of journalism. Without giving it much thought or having any idea of what he was doing, he decided to travel to the small town of Emmitsburg, Maryland and simply write about what he found there. Thus began an unlikely career in journalism that only a little more than a year later took him to an unlikely peak for someone who was totally self-taught in the trade-a morning spent with the White House press pool covering an appearance by then president George W. Bush. Because he didn't know what he was doing at first, his early work took on a Hunter S. Thompson-like gonzo style in which he made himself part of the story. He would, however, become more polished and learn the nuances of the trade as he went along, such as: how to interview sources such as politicians, small business owners, and CEOs; dealing with editors cutting your work to shreds or dropping it altogether; being criticized by (or worse, being ignored by) your readers; and learning the political and business motivations of different media publications and realizing that they often conflict with the reporting of a story. However, the most important thing he learned was how to write quickly and efficiently, which is something he struggled with mightily as a fiction writer. Dateline: Far and Near is a collection of articles that span Mr. Daub's brief journalism career and show the evolution of someone who started with no training or experience into a respected professional. The Introduction, titled "Tales of an Unplanned Career in Journalism," is a fascinating and humorous look at how Mr. Daub educated himself as a journalist from freelancer to staff writer to international trade reporter, but ultimately wound up as an artist trapped inside the business and politics of contemporary media. Yet, as unpleasant as this career could be at times, the experience did serve as somewhat of a writing boot camp that not only benefitted his art, but also his life. In addition to the articles themselves, Mr. Daub shares the stories behind the stories, which include: a detailed account of his morning spent with the White House press pool and irking Secret Service agents with his Fuji FinePix camera; interviewing the paranoid head of Pfizer Animal Health at the secretive Pfizer headquarters in New York City; turning a private luncheon with Arnold Palmer in Baltimore into a press conference; and, while purging his frustrations into his notebook during a soul-searching night in Kansas City-the very city where Ernest Hemingway began his journalism career-ultimately realizing that he had to get out of journalism and work his way back to the kind of writing he loved. Overall, Mr. Daub credits his experiences as a journalist with not only making him a better overall writer, but also a stronger person. Time and time again, journalism brought him to situations that were well outside of his comfort zone, which helped him confront and ultimately shed his fear of trying new things and made him realize that sometimes it is best to choose a general direction rather than a specific destination so that you don't miss anything along the way.
