Interview with Dana Jennings, Culture Editor
Dana Jennings is a culture editor at the New York Times. He has previously worked with The Wall Street Journal and The Exeter Newsletter. He has also published three novels, two nonfiction books, and a children’s book. Some responses have been edited for clarity.
How did you get into journalism?
I always wanted to be a writer. I wrote my “first novel” in third grade, and I’ve been writing ever since. I was an English literature major in college — the University of New Hampshire — worked on the college newspaper, did an internship at a small daily, and when I graduated in 1980 I went to work as a reporter for The Exeter (N.H.) News-Letter, which came out twice a week. I covered three towns, and I was also the sports editor.
That modest start led me to The Wall Street Journal, then The New York Times. I have mostly been an editor during my newspaper career, but have always continued to write feature articles. I’ve also published three novels, two books of nonfiction and a children’s book. Currently I’m working on my first collection of poetry — “TOXIC YOUTH: Factory Poems.” These days at The Times, I’m a senior staff editor who helps produce the print versions of our Culture sections and our weekly Feature sections, like Styles, Science and Dining.
If you were to list three key attributes that make a good journalist, what would be those?
You have to savor and respect the range of people’s stories, from garbage men to presidents to sawmill owners.
You have to love language, hunger for the way words taste in your mouth.
And you have to care deeply about accuracy.
How different are artists as story subjects then let’s say, politicians or other professionals?
Artists tend to act more human, and are more honest in their answers to questions. So many people now, whether actors, musicians or politicians, have media coaches and rarely say anything that strays outside their programmed comfort zones. They give assembly-line answers. Visual artists, and writers, too, care about deep human truths, and are willing to articulate them.
As a society, are we valuing our art and artists appropriately?
It’s odd. We’re in a time of more mass media than ever, but I think that serious artists are more devalued than ever. For example, there’s a wonderful renaissance going on in both cartooning/graphic novels and in poetry, propelled by young artists who own astonishing visions and voices. At least a few of them should be better known. But the mass media anoint the usual suspects, like comic-book movies {and I LOVE comic books}, Beyonce and actors who don’t have a brain in their pretty little heads. So many supposedly educated people wouldn’t know a genuine piece of new literature, even if it bit them in the butt.
How does technology and changing social norms impact the art and artists?
TECHNOLOGY: Visual artists will always be among the first-adopters of tech. Their job is to make us see the world — both the actual world, how they perceive it and, perhaps, a future to come. Artists, though, are also sensitive to how some technology can also debase our sense of being fully human. And their art will also address that.
SOCIAL NORMS: It is so refreshing to see the walls of what is supposed to be “normal” come tumbling down. And one of places where that is being celebrated and turned into art is in the world of poetry.
Right now, poetry is the place to be. And so much excellent poetry is coming from young poets who grew up marginalized. Poets who are: LGBT, trans, African-American, Latino, the spectrum of Asian-American-ness, Native American, Middle Eastern-American and more. Some of the poets I’ve read recently, and whose work I just love, include: Mai Der Vang, Danez Smith, Natalie Diaz, Kaveh Akbar, Ocean Vuong, Bao Phi, Raena Shirali, Morgan Parker and so many more.
Denmark has stopped teaching handwriting in their school system, do you see this impacting the future of art, painting and even writing itself?
I am 60, and old-fashioned.
I still write my first drafts in longhand, in special notebooks.
I also draw, pen or pencil on paper.
For me, art & creation are totally bound up in the scritch-scratch of pencil point and pen nib on paper. It transports me back to being a 10-year-old boy, sitting on my porch in rural New Hampshire — writing & drawing, writing & drawing — and dreaming about my future as some kind of artist.
So, yes, when you stop teaching handwriting, you also are killing an important way of thinking.
