Michael Paul Mason

I keep a public Facebook profile so that interested readers can get behind-the-scenes updates involving new media. As the founding editor of This Land Press, I think it’s a great way to communicate with people who are watching today’s media landcape go through some drastic changes.

You can subscribe to my profile here: facebook.com/michaelpaulmason

For more information about This Land Press, read this write-up from Columbia Journalism Review, or–even better–subscribe to the print edition here.

Every year, the world’s foremost experts in pancreas care gather for “The Pancreas Club,” a medical conference that discusses advances in pancreatology. I had a chance to visit the club in New Orleans as part of research for my forthcoming book.

Unfortunately, this year marked the passing of Dr. John Howard, one of the pioneers of modern pancreatology. He was a tenacious researcher, and his curiosities about the pancreas spanned the centuries. Howard was primarily known for writing the most comprehensive book on the organ, called The History of the Pancreas.

For a short but colorful introduction to Howard, read his biography here.

One of the great privileges I have as editor of This Land is the opportunity I have to work with great writers and thinkers. This past year, I was able to work with one such luminary: Lee Roy Chapman, a self-educated historian whose obsessions with Tulsa’s history has made him an unlikely expert of Oklahoma’s past. Chapman’s strength, though, is that of an original thinker. He’s able to turn history over in his head in ways that create new narratives and allow for original perspectives to flourish.

“The Nightmare of Dreamland: Tate Brady and the Battle for Greenwood” is Chapman’s first major contribution in the field. It’s a gripping account of a founding father of Tulsa (Brady), and reveals a Tulsa steeped in racial tension. It’s an important piece because Tulsa still grapples with its racial divide. Today, the Brady name is emblazoned all over town, while the historically important area of Greenwood (a.k.a. “Black Wall Street”) has dwindled down to a small cluster of buildings.

Chapman’s article had tremendous impact in Tulsa. Several news outlets picked it up, hundreds of people commented about the article online, and over 300 people attended a talk inspired by the article. It demonstrated that Tulsa was eager to initiate a conversation that had long been suppressed.

The article is just one among many important reports issued by This Land, and hopefully marks only the beginning of many other significant works in the future. I was encouraged by the article’s reception, and by the standing ovation Chapman received at the event. It demonstrated that Tulsans are passionate about journalism, and that they’re eager to support it.

Click here to read Chapman’s “The Nightmare of Dreamland.”

Several years ago I traveled to Cuba in order to research the life of my grandfather. Although I was able to make a little headway, I ended up stumbling upon a much different story–that of Pantoja, one of Cuba’s most important street artists. Check out the excerpt below, or read the piece in its entirety at This Land Press.

I had heard Pantoja’s name before, a week earlier during a carnival in Cienfuegos. I’d asked several graduate students from a nearby university who they thought was Cuba’s most important living artist, and they all immediately answered “Pantoja.” They explained that he was a street artist whose paintings were highly critical of the government. They guessed he would be dead or “carried off” soon. Then they told me how to find him.

In 1921, Tulsa was the scene of the nation’s most violent race riot. In a talk I’ll be giving at the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Symposium, I’ll offer an overview of how a local media establishment reported the riot.

Through examining the various factors that influenced the media at the time, the talk will explore new biases that may affect our media today. I’ll also offer a few suggestions of how the media can help rectify coverage surrounding often-overlooked issues involving race and diversity.

Here’s a wonderful write-up about This Land in CJR:

In many ways, This Land is reminiscent of fellow place-based publication the Oxford American, and Mason shares a number of traits with that publication’s fantastic editor, Marc Smirnoff. Both men manage to bundle risky editorial decisions into a highly refined finished product (call it the New Yorker with balls), and both have a talent for mixing anachronistically beautiful print content with web features that are equal to (rather than derivative of) their print counterparts. But while the OA is a literary journal that takes the entire American South as its purview, This Land’s narrower scope and more journalistic bent allow it to provide a unique blend of civic boosterism and edgy social commentary. (Take, for example, This Land’s feature Together in Tulsa, which juxtaposes a wholesome photograph of a married couple in the city with an often off-color narrative of their relationship.)

I’m extremely proud of all the people and contributors who have helped make This Land a big success. In May of 2010, I launched a trial issue of the publication. Today, we’re seven issues in, and we’ve already drawn national attention for our great stories.

Our first issue featured Randy Potts’ remarkable account “Something Good is Going to Happen to You: Growing up Gay in the Oral Roberts Family,” which became a widely circulated article in both gay and religious communities when it first appeared, drawing commentary from all over the world. Issue One also included new writing from Rivka Galchen, who has been named as one of the prestigious “40 Under 40″ writers to watch out for by New Yorker magazine.

Our second issue, featuring the first in-depth report about the whistleblower Bradley Manning, was featured on the home page of both Harper’s Magazine and The Daily Beast, and has been sourced by NBC’s Today Show, TIME, Psychology Today, and other media outlets.

The community of Tulsa has also been enthusiastic. Check out this radio interview I did with KWGS’s Rich Fisher, in which we discuss the start of This Land.

Writers like Gordon Grice, S.E. Hinton, Hank Stuever, Ron Padgett, Sarah Brown, and Jeff Martin, are among the many voices contributing to This Land.

Please visit thislandpress.com to learn more, or check out the thriving community on This Land’s Facebook page.

In the case of public figures who are seriously injured, an all-too common pattern repeats itself in the media: cryptic, scant details are offered by medical professionals, and the world is left to dissect their meaning. When the ABC anchorman Bob Woodruff, for example, sustained a brain injury in Iraq in January of 2006, there was a tremendous amount of media coverage about the incident, but almost no details emerged about the extent of his injury. Reports said that Woodruff “responded to stimuli in his hands and feet.” It wasn’t until two months later, when Woodruff’s brother spoke to the media, that we learned Woodruff was walking and speaking. Finally, some 11 months later, when he and wife Lee released the book In an Instant, the public had a chance to learn the details of Woodruff’s recovery. With a lucrative television career at stake, Bob Woodruff had every reason to keep his condition confidential.

Now that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has survived a gunshot wound to the head, there’s a powerful opportunity for her family to take a different approach with the American public. Giffords is a champion of healthcare policy, having sponsored a number of health-related bills for both military members and civilians. Her history and success as a policymaker is indisputable. Now is the time for Giffords and her family to practice courageous transparency with the same diligence that honors Giffords’ life and work.

All of us realize that Gifford’s career is at stake, and that any of her gains and losses will be scrupulously analyzed against a political backdrop—but the public is largely blind to the truly catastrophic and debilitating nature of brain injury. By giving Giffords’ medical team permission and encouragement to talk openly of her injury and the details of her care, Giffords and her family can reform healthcare in a personal and profound way.

Rather than offer sentimental, soft-focused features that tend to focus only on the best hopes for Giffords, the media should take a candid, socially responsible approach to the issue. Television anchors shouldn’t talk to family members about their hopes and prayers; they should interview social workers about the enormous energy it takes to care for a person with a brain injury. A speech therapist might talk about the hour spent coaxing a person to swallow a sip of water. A severe brain injury might require the combined efforts of dozens of clinicians, and result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills. Case managers will admit how hard it is to find a rehabilitation center for most patients—there are only about 5,000 beds in the country that specialize in brain injury.

If Giffords’ family were to allow cameras by her bedside, viewers might be distressed by the reality of brain injury—but as Julian Schnabel proved with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, physical suffering can be conveyed with dignity. It’s hard to believe anyone can survive a situation in which large portions of their skull is missing. If the eyes are open, they may appear crossed or glassy and unresponsive. Communication, if there is any, exists on the level of hand squeezes, grunts, or blinks. Therapy consists of massaging and extending limbs, or whispering commands. Everything becomes a matter of screening and gauging a person’s level of functioning. Recovery seems to progress at a glacial pace as the patient inches up the Glasgow Coma Scale. Families cheer when first words are uttered; they despair if those words don’t make sense. Hallucinations and profound confusion may occur, and then give way to increasing clarity.

A penetrating head injury isn’t pretty, but its psychosocial impact can be even more gruesome. Let the American public see the uncertainty, and terror that Giffords’ family must wrestle with. Let them ask big questions about her current abilities and her career. Every year, about 1.7 million Americans sustain a brain injury—nearly five times the number sustained by servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brain injury survivors endure tremendous barriers to adequate healthcare, and they struggle far too often in silence. Giffords’ family has an opportunity to tell these Americans that they are not alone.

Left untreated, brain injury is destructive and debilitating, but it doesn’t have to be. With his own stellar recovery, Bob Woodruff demonstrated that brain injuries are treatable, and they need not be attached to a stigma. Congresswoman Giffords’ own convalescence can signal a turning point where Americans finally have a chance to see the true face of brain injury.

Through public statements and a few touching photos, Giffords’ family has already demonstrated tremendous strength and resilience; now let them transform this terrible event into a public good in the service of all Americans with brain injury. This tragic event is an uncommon opportunity in which the light of responsible media attention can be therapeutic for an entire nation.

Update 3/6/09: I’d like to applaud the Giffords family for their radical transparency. They’ve offered an unprecedented level of openness about the medical care of a person with brain injury. Their courage is a gift to all America, and is helping to further the education and understanding of people and families afflicted by brain injury.

The excerpt below is from an article I wrote which will appear in the forthcoming book, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books (Counterpoint, March 2011) Edited by Jeff Martin and C. Max Magee.

If you want to know where writing is going, you shouldn’t look in a library or a bookstore. You shouldn’t even look online. Instead, you should rummage through the pockets of your nearest writer for clues. Take a peek in their book bags, purses, or backpacks. You’ll find everything you need to know.

In the right inside pocket of my jacket, where most people might carry sunglasses, you’ll find a Panasonic LX3 camera. It has a Leica lens capable of switching to wide-angle shots, and I can use the camera to shoot video as well. In the left-side inner pocket, I have an Olympus LS-11 voice recorder. The camera and the recorder are more important to me than pen and paper. My jacket functions as a portable production studio, but it’s my satchel that does (and requires) the heavy lifting.

My satchel is a worn-out leather bag, once a rich amber color, now frayed and graying like myself. I take it everywhere I go, and when it’s too hot for wearing my jacket, it ends up carrying the camera and recorder for me. In any season, though, you’ll find it packed with all sorts of geeky paraphernalia. Right now, it contains a neoprene laptop sleeve (where I usually keep the laptop I am typing on right now), three pens and a highlighter, a Moleskine notebook that I use for writing notes to my daughters when I travel, a laptop charger, a portable hard drive, two video adapter cables, an ethernet cord, business cards, a pair of German-made, surgeon-grade nailclippers (I obsessively cut my nails to the quick), an LED flashlight keychain, a paperback book, a folder pocket full of release forms and several transcripts of interviews I’ve conducted (I’m writing a second book right now, and I upload all my audio files to a disabled American in the Philippines who does all my transcribing). Although I carry pens and paper in my satchel, I don’t use them for much other than quick note-taking–phone numbers, memos, grocery lists. I haven’t outsourced those tasks to my phone. Yet.

I’m a writer, and yet I acknowledge that the tools of my trade have more in common with a Hollywood director than a typist. Yes, I still deal with words, but the words are complemented by the sounds and images I record while doing my work. When I conduct interviews, I always record rather than take notes. It isn’t that I don’t trust note-taking, it’s that I might also turn that interview into source material for a radio production (which, I might add, requires its own kind of writing). I also take pictures when I’m conducting interviews because they help me remember details I might otherwise forget: the goofy collared shirt my subject wore, the little boy doing a puzzle in the corner of the patio, the manufacturer’s name on a piece of lab equipment. As a result of carrying these tools, I’ve learned to use them. I can edit audio, I can Photoshop pictures, and I can cobble together video. I don’t consider myself a photographer a radio professional, or a director, but nobody is expecting that of me. They’re expecting me to write, and they’re curious about the places and people I visit.

Please purchase the book for complete article; it has a lot of great writing from authors like Rivka Galchen, Reif Larsen, Jonathan Lethem, and others.

As a longtime student of local journalism, I’ve been studying the various trends at work in my own home state of Oklahoma. Tulsa, for example, has one daily paper, Tulsa World, which is a privately owned family business. With some 700 employees, it maintains the largest newsroom this side of the state. There are several smaller papers in circulation, some of them free press. They’re all built and capitalized on the traditional models of printing, distribution, and circulation. As anyone in the media today can tell you, those pillars of publishing are crumbling.

To that end, I’ve started a new business in Oklahoma called This Land Press. It’s Oklahoma’s first new media company, which means that we plan to place equal emphasis on print, video, audio, and web-based journalism. We publish a monthly print broadsheet called This Land, and soon we’ll be adding a video and audio team. Bolstered by contributing writers, bloggers, and other content producers, This Land Press promises to test out new models of journalism.

If you’re interested in This Land, please check out the website. I also invite you to subscribe to our print edition; it’s a great way to support independent journalism.