Thirty years ago this summer, I began my career as a journalist. I was 20 years old, a middling student with a limited skill set. I had a decent social IQ—likely significantly higher than my actual IQ. I knew that listening was more valuable than talking—’80s Baltimore taught me that. I loved to read. And most importantly, I was insanely curious. But until that summer when David Carr hired me as an intern at the Washington City Paper, I had no notion that these elements could be forged into a career.
Imagine my amazement when I discovered that you could ask questions, diligently record the answers, synthesize them coherently, and receive money for your services. So much has changed about journalism since then, much for the worse. But still, when practiced at its highest level, it is a pure thing, one whose beauty is only limited by the curiosity of its practitioner.
I’ve been particularly curious about something for the past few years, and that is the relative ease with which victims become victimizers. (That’s probably why I can’t stop thinking about this incredible piece by Heidi Blake, published by our cousins at The New Yorker.) In that vein, I spent some time reporting and researching the forces that made Kamala Harris this country’s first Black vice president and brought her to the brink of the presidency itself. What would it mean to have someone who is the product of one of the great liberation movements of our time also be the face of foreign policy that has long been imperial? I tried to answer the question.
If anti-imperialism with a twist of Black feminism isn’t your bag (though it really should be), I have great news for you: Here at Vanity Fair, there are also others who are insanely curious and asking different questions. We’ve got Joshua Hunt looking into the Trump administration’s bizarre obsession with Greenland (still imperialism, I know). We’ve got Clara Molot reporting on media mogul Alex Cooper’s company, Unwell, and the apparent chasm between its branding and its practices. And we’ve got the great Karen Valby (of whom I’ve been a fan since her days profiling Jeannette Walls) reporting from Texas on the Guadalupe River flood last year.
It’s quite the lineup, and exactly what a magazine should give you: journalism from people who cannot believe they get paid to do this work and write and report almost—almost!—as if they’d do it for free.
P.S. Karen, it’s been years. First round’s on me.
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TA-NEHISI COATES,
SENIOR WRITER
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The author reckons with that question—and what it means for the 2028 election.
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When President Trump’s unwanted advances toward Greenland escalated into veiled threats of force, Joshua Hunt was there to watch distinguished members of the global news media slip and slide across frozen sidewalks as they covered a tragicomic attack on the world order.
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“I’m the biggest mean girl of anyone.” Over 40 sources have spoken to VF about Alex Cooper’s Unwell and the man calling the shots at the media empire: her husband, Matt Kaplan.
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Almost one year after the flood that killed 27 girls at Camp Mystic—and numerous members of the local Hispanic community—Karen Valby speaks with the friends and neighbors who sifted through the wreckage.
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From the December 2000 issue: Alan Greenspan’s official record, as he rose to near-mystical preeminence, shows how Washington can compromise even the most passionate of principles.
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