ABOUT THIS SITE

Perhaps I don't need Yaddo, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Jonathan Karp, etc.

Let's hope not, for they don't seem to need me.

Consider a journalist who was once profiled in the following way in the reporter's bible, Columbia Journalism Review: "Full immersion reporting on dark and significant subjects is what Heldman likes and seems to need to do... He wants to do things his own way... The authenticity of what he was doing was clear... A writer who seemed to have such an affinity for lost souls... He's not your normal kind of guy, but I think he really has it..."

Consider that that guy - - not normal but one who "really has it " - - has won quite a number of awards, and has spent over 20 years risking his life and his career in an effort to avoid committing conventional journalism...

And now consider what would happen if that journalist got his hands on a website, a little Wordpress blog, and complete freedom.

Here then would be the results.

In my ongoing work here I aspire to be one part I.F. Stone, one part Grigori Perelman, one part Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, one part David Foster Wallace, one part Eminem, and one part earnest and diligent like Amy Goodman. I want to cover the media like it should be covered: interactively; to facilitate reporting, contacts, leads, tips, access. But in addition, I see no reason to not interrupt everything for a fine journalism related diary entry. And finally, what about all important flights? If a throwaway police blotter item in the NY Post touches me like madeleine, can I not go off, if I've proven that my going off might be on occasion beautiful and insightful.

Please read; on a regular basis. I will try, and either succeed, or fail amazingly. In the latter case you can of course watch as I slink back to Facebook, defeated, off to try and win friends and touch people with status updates. A writer's sad pasture.