Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking Read Free Page A

make Attica look like a picnic,’ the warden said today.”
    I spent the afternoon underlining passages for quotation in the book. On the last page of the final issue, I came across this:
    The following letter may be helpful in dispelling the idea that not much can be learned at the college level concerning the operation of prisons. Real intelligence is where you find it. Here is a young man who sees much farther than many and questions the soundness of the college courses. Now he just could be right and some day he might make a “top notch” prison administrator.
Dear Mr. Jameson,
As a graduate student in criminology at the University of California at Berkeley I was very impressed with a copy of your publication, “The Grapevine,” which I ran across here at school. I have long felt that my education here has been jammed into a liberal mold of propaganda. I see your publication as a credible news source of our profession undistorted by the rampant irresponsible and unrealistic biases of the media and campus liberals. Your publication offers the real current news. After all, as prison staff members you are the people who know what is really going on in our prisons. I am tired of reading the sentimental phantasies of reporters.
Our library does not receive your publication. How can I obtain the issues of the past year? I would be delighted to subscribe and to pay for a year’s back issues if available. Also, perhaps there is a local organization here that would have your newsletter on file. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your work.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Mill
    INTERVIEWING is where the fun really begins, and where you may uncover information that is accessible in no other way. There may be some delightful surprises in store as you pursue your quarry. Over the years, I have found through trial and sometimes painful error that the following methods are useful.
    The individuals to be interviewed will generally fall into two categories: Friendly Witnesses, those who are sympathetic to your point of view, such as the victim of a racket you are investigating, or an expert who is clarifying for you technical matters within his field of knowledge; and Unfriendlies, whose interests may be threatened by your investigation and who therefore will be prone to conceal rather than reveal the information you are seeking.
    While your approach to each of these will differ, some general rules hold good for all interviews. Prepare your approach as a lawyer would for an important cross-examination. Take time to think through exactly what it is that you want to learn from the interview; I write out and number in order the questions I intend to ask. That way I can number the answer, keyed to the number of the question, without interrupting the flow of conversation, and if the sequence is disturbed (which it probably will be, in the course of the interchange), I have no problem reconstructing the Q. and A. as they occurred. Naturally other questions may arise that I had not foreseen, but I will still have my own outline as a guide to the absolute essentials.
    Immediately after the interview, I type up the Q.s and A.s before my notes get cold. If, in the course of doing this, I discover that I have missed something, or another question occurs to me, I call up the person immediately while the subject is still freshly in mind.
    In the case of the Friendly Witness, it often helps to send him a typescript of the interview for correction or elaboration. I did this to good effect after interviews with defense lawyers from whom I was seeking information about the conspiracy law for The Trial of Dr. Spock , and with Dr. Margen and other physicians who revealed the nature of drug experiments on prisoners for Kind and Usual Punishment . In each case the expert whom I had consulted not only saved me from egregious error but in correcting my transcription of the interview enriched and strengthened the points to be made.
    For Unfriendly