“What makes a middle-class guy from New Jersey go to a house with 10 to 15 Mexican girls and spend 20 minutes having sex with them?” Peter Landesman, a prominent journalist and novelist, asked an audience of about 25 people in Fisk Hall on Monday.
Landesman, who has contributed to publications such as Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, described his profession as a journalist covering horrific stories in some of the most dangerous regions of the world. The assignments have forced him to be a keen observer of how human nature can be subverted into evil, he said.
In his talk, “Reporting on the Heart of Darkness,” Landesman talked about some of the ethical issues he has faced regarding the procurement of sources for some of his more sensitive articles. Some of the topics he has covered include the genocides in Rwanda and Kosovo, sex trafficking in the United States and weapons trafficking in Russia. These assignments have involved risking his life and the lives of his subjects.
“Just seeing him here brought life to the stories that he has written,” said Sujata Shyam, Education junior, who has read some of Landesman’s articles.
During one segment of his talk, the journalist recalled in chilling detail one of his perilous assignments — meeting the most notorious arms dealer in Russia.
“This is a monster who loads a Belgian plane with weapons to supply both sides in the Liberian conflict and then returns to pick up U.N. peacekeepers to send there,” he said of the arms dealer.
As Landesman recounted, the arms dealer knew that the journalist’s published article could lead to his own assassination, and he could have killed Landesman at any moment.
A moral dilemma arises when a person’s tragedy creates a journalist’s opportunity, Landesman said. In the quest to seek truth in stories about the criminal underworld, a journalist must seduce his sources and win their trust to access information. He ultimately betrays this trust by writing the article revealing the truth as told by his source.
However, Landesman said keeping promises to his sources is part of maintaining integrity and developing relationships in the profession.
When he is researching his subjects, Landesman said, he often feels dehumanized, but this allows him to bring an impartial perspective to the situation.
“I am always shocked but never surprised,” said Landesman of the inhumanities committed by or to his sources. It is this attitude that will lead him to cover Saddam Hussein’s trial, he said.
“Today is a glorious time for journalism,” Landesman said of the effect of the business on the course of modern history.
Some NU journalism students were encouraged by his appearance.
“His talk was profound,” said Jeannie Vanasco, a Medill junior. “He thinks about how the story comes out on paper and how it all comes off in terms of relationships and a sense of honor as a journalist.”
Reach Stanley Wong at [email protected].
