I actually think being the quiet, shy, type is an asset as a journalist. Everyone seems to think that the only way to get a good quote or response is to take the 60-minutes approach: corner the sucker, stick the microphone in his face and ask The Tough Question.

I have used that approach a couple of times in my career. But it does not work if you are going for in-depth reporting or a profile, even of a loathsome character.

I have actually found that holding back, being quiet works quite well. Some of my best material has come forth after a source or subject has said something and I fail to come up with another question. That is, an uncomfortable silence ensues. I fumble. I let the silence extend -- and then the source will blurt something out, elaborating on what they just said or taking the discussion to a new place.

Not only does that lead to good quotes, but it often takes the story in a direction you never imagined. It's my Miles Davis technique. He played with silence, after all.

Sam Fromartz

author: Organic Inc.

Thanks to this letter writer, and thanks to Cary for speaking from (my) heart.

"The arguments seem secondary to the tribal struggle." -- So much of journalism is, then, sensationalist babbling about irrelevant conflicts. So write about the tribal roots of the struggle. Listen to what people are really saying. Find out where Nazis and serial killers and people you can't stand are coming from. It's the next frontier of reporting.

Look into psychohistory, the study of historical motivation, and apply it to current events.

Finally, civility. If you are the kind of person who hates to be rude, you may just be the kind of person who can learn to ask difficult questions well, through empathy.

Thanks for putting a word in about being useful to others. As long as you are motivated by usefulness, you can have any conversation with anyone. It's what journalism should be about. Stick with it, Cary and LW.

-- J-School Misfit, Class of '92

dear lw, i loved your letter because i identify with it so much, and also because i want to encourage you. i could have written your letter 25 years ago. i was the world's biggest introvert. how i became a tough, hard-nosed investigative reporter is anybody's guess.

well, that isn't the type of journalism i do now, and hasn't been for some time. now i write about music. when profiling people, i still have to ask difficult questions from time to time, and i still have to deal with some people being unhappy about what i wrote, but i am immersed in a world that i love.

the first thing you should know is that many, many journalists are extremely shy. for some reason shy people are attracted to the field. it gives them a vehicle for connecting with other people, and without that vehicle, they would be so much more isolated in life. also, shy, introverted people make good reporters because they know how to step aside and let the people they are writing about take center stage. they know how to be unobtrusive and observant. shy, introverted people make very good reporters!

also know that journalism is a very broad field. there is all kinds of journalism. i was once offered the cops beat at a major daily in new york city and i turned it down. i knew i couldn't handle it. but at that same paper, i did just fine writing about travel and business, and even did a stint for a time as an editor.

then i spent years writing for magazines, everything from public policy analysis to profiles, to the outdoors. that's what is so great about this field: you get to reinvent yourself as much as you like. you can write about whatever interests you, no matter how much those interests change, because it's all the same skill set.

eventually i became a professor of journalism at a university, and helping my students find themselves as reporters was maybe the best calling yet. yet another facet of what is possible, what path you might take.

here is the key thing for a shy person to remember when they are doing a difficult interview: your role is to be a good listener. your purpose is to give your source the gift of being heard. do you realize how rare such a gift is? think about how rarely any of us are truly listened to. so give your sources that gift, and all good things will flow from that. even an introvert can do that well.

my original motive, the one that got me over the hump of my shyness, was to inform the public of what they need to know to set public policy. it was to uncover wrongs, to muckrake. but that didn't remain my primary motive. now i'd have to say it's more for the love of writing, for the love of good storytelling, and to share with others what i've learned, to touch others and uplift them. to give readers a gift.

i think cary's advice to develop skills that make you useful is excellent. be the person in the office who knows how to run the computers and can fix other people's problems with them. be the person who thoroughly knows the style book and can answer anyone's questions on style. be the person who is a crackerjack proofreader, who is always thoughtful and substantive in your suggestions when reviewing your colleagues' copy.

throw yourself into your curiosity, your passion for the human drama, and know that your career will evolve and change many times over the years. you don't have to have it all figured out right now.

best of luck.

I'm a writer in the wonderful (if not necessarily lucrative) position of being able to write entirely about a topic that I love. But I've been working occasionally with a man who was a career newspaper journalist and is now a corporate writer, and the insights he's given me into the world of newspaper writing have been disillusioning at best. Fortunately, he's not the only model, but some of the arrogant letter writers here bring him to mind. "John" remembers most about the first Earth Day in 1970 that "all of us reporters" laughed at the ridiculousness of the event and the people who were involved. He and "all of us reporters" would sit in a bar at the end of the day or week and laugh at the hunters and anti-hunters that they'd written about, the people belonging to unions and management both, the politicians and people who got involved in political campaigns and all the people involved in this or that movement. They'd laugh at people who lied to them and at people who were too sincere. It sounds like Jack and his buddies laughed at everyone, no matter what station in life, no matter what the story. Based on the stories Jack has told me, he and his fellow reporters put themselves in a separate universe from the people they reported on.

He revels in his ability to ask the tough questions, but somehow he apparently never got around to asking the easy ones--the ones that would have revealed both to his readers and to himself the essential humanity of his interviewees. Perhaps, had he been more interested in asking some of those easy questions, he'd have had the kind of insights that would have elevated his writing beyond that of a cynical hack, and he'd have finally gotten the recognition that he thinks he deserved but never got.

The paper he wrote for is mediocre at best, but cynicism and an ability to run in, ask an accident victim a few curt questions and run off to meet a deadline doesn't make a good newspaper writer. You sound like a human being who can write. And so if you decide that journalism really is for you, your writing will be informed by that humanity, and your readers will be lucky indeed.