Five questions for Steve Weinberg
Steve Weinberg investigates one of the ultimate investigators in “Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller.”
It’s a book that looks at both people and tells how Tarbell exposed a monopoly and basically invented muckraking.
Weinberg lives right down the road - Interstate 70 that is. He’s been a longtime journalism teacher at the University of Missouri - Columbia and a book critic (he’s reviewed books for the Post-Dispatch.) Weinberg is former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors.
I e-mailed him five questions about his new book. We review the book Sunday in the print version of the Post-Dispatch and online in the Entertainment-Books section.
Q: Your book’s subtitle calls Tarbell’s investigation of Standard Oil an “epic battle.” How did Rockefeller fight back?
A: I used the word “battle” in more than one sense. Tarbell had to battle to find information that would allow her to write a fair and full report. Rockefeller battled mostly through personal evasiveness, as well as encouraging lack of cooperation by those at Standard Oil Company. Q: Both have been the subjects of previous biographies. Did anything really surprise you about either one?
A: I advance the understanding of Tarbell in two ways, I think. First, I show the hurdles–based on arduous travel, gender bias, Rockefeller’s evasiveness and the huge amounts of information to gather–overcome by Tarbell to invent what today we call investigative reporting. Second, I advance the understanding of how much Tarbell gave up in her personal life, by choice, to make the world a better place through her reporting and writing. As for Rockefeller, I hope I convey something fresh about the depth of his concern for the reputation of Standard Oil and for his personal reputation in the face of Tarbell’s digging.
Q: You write that Tarbell basically “invented” investigative journalism just over 100 years ago. Are investigative journalists doing things differently now? How do online sources affect their work?
A: The best investigative journalists function as Tarbell did all those decades earlier–by following paper trails and people trails wherever they lead. As for online sources, they often make the work easier than during Tarbell’s era. But so do airplane travel, the interstate highway system, photocopy machines, etc. Tarbell labored under much more difficult conditions than today’s journalists.
Q: From your book, it sounds like Tarbell had a bit of freedom in adding color commentary to how she portrayed Rockefeller. By today’s standards, was she “objective”?
A: Almost every first-rate magazine practicing investigative journalism today seeks color commentary from its contributors, otherwise know as the writer’s voice. Tarbell became an expert journalist, and thus earned the right/met the obligation of interpreting as well as explaining.
Q: You write that you worked on this book for at least 10 years. … What took so long?
A: I did not obtain a large enough advance from the publisher to drop everything else and work on the book full-time every week. The book took me a decade to complete mostly because I had to share it with magazine feature writing, freelance book reviewing, and part-time teaching at the University of Missouri. Furthermore, when I could devote full-time to the book, I could not start writing a publishable version until after visiting numerous huge archives across the nation.
Current technology certainly makes investigations easier, but what I’d like to know is, does the current legal system put more restrictions on a journalist to prevent the slander and defamation suits?