Keeping Humanity in Your Reporting: Mark Leibovich on Writing

Adding a Human Touch to Every Beat. The Atlantic staff writer Mike Leibovich still believes in the power of strong writing with a human touch.
by Madeleine Sherer, National Press Foundation

Mark Leibovich is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for profile writing. He has worked for a number of publications, including the San Jose Mercury News, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He spoke to NPF Paul Miller fellows about his writing process and developing a personal style.

Embrace the absurd

In writing about politics, Leibovich emphasized the value of emphasizing the absurdity involved. He referenced his interview with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who Leibovich says is highly expected to run for president in 2028.

“I didn’t think he was going to want to talk to me because he is very wary, rightfully, of making it look like he is trying to draw attention to himself,” Leibovich said. “He’s always being asked, ‘Isn’t Biden too old?’ And he’ll say, ‘No, no, no, no. I was just with him. He’s never been sharper.’ He’s like, it’s amazing, he tells that story, lie, over and over and over again, and he knows it, but he kind of has to play that game, which is absurd.”

Leibovich said that these absurd elements are the thing that can really elevate a story and make it compelling. He likes seeking out people in “unique positions,” like Nikki Haley, who he described as “running for the nomination of a party that doesn’t exist.”

“She clearly hates Trump, but of course she can’t criticize him too much because then Republicans will never nominate her. They weren’t going to nominate her anyway,” he said. “But again, she was someone that was in the news, she was someone that was having some success, and was drawing crowds, but belonged to a world that didn’t exist anymore in some ways. So I found that compelling.”

Just start writing

When it comes to striking the right tone in his writing, Leibovich said that he found it helpful to keep a file with various writing clips and lines from other authors. “Sometimes I’ll just read them because it puts me in a mood. It gives me a good lyrical voice in my head that sort of gets me out of myself a little bit and gets me kind of in a punchy mood. So that’s always a good way to start,” Leibovich said.

But the best way to get started, Leibovich added, was to simply sit down and do it. “It’s a cliche, but you just got to write, write as fast as you can and then go back and rewrite and re-edit and everything,” he said. “I can’t do that. I have to perfect the top or the first paragraph, then the second paragraph, and then before I write the third paragraph, I find myself rereading the first and second paragraph, and I’ll tweak here and there. I’ve learned not to beat myself up over that.”

Finding the humanity with your reporting

When Leibovich worked as a business reporter for The Washington Post, he said he often gravitated toward the stories that highlighted the humanity behind the companies. He didn’t have much experience in the realm of business reporting, so he became more of a “workplace reporter” instead, writing about the communities of the people that made the companies. He said that humanity was the key element to good reporting.

“For as much as we are an AI and tech-driven society, and everything’s moving fast, and everything is online and everything’s on a screen, humanity is still pretty much central to what we do,” Leibovich said. “And that was true then and it’s true now.”

Speaker: Mark Leibovich, Staff Writer, The Atlantic

Summary, transcript and resources: https://nationalpress.org/topic/keepi...

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