To practice journalism today ‘is an act of faith’: A chat with writer and FlatFest guest George Packer

For a long time, George Packer thought writing books was his only calling. But after moving to New York in his 40s, he sought a sister career in long-form journalism. He started as a staff writer for The New Yorker in 2003 and transitioned to The Atlantic in 2018, where he has been since. He writes about American politics, culture and foreign policy. 

He may be best known for his coverage of the Iraq War, which he later expanded into an award-winning book, “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq.” An author of 10 books, he juggles magazine-style writing with book writing, often using one to help the other. In 2013, he won the National Book Award for his novel “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America.”

The two-time Pulitzer finalist’s latest novel is “The Emergency,” a dystopian novel about a society that collapsed from boredom and loss of faith.

Packer will be the guest speaker at this year’s Flatwater Festival, where he will talk about the present and future of news with Flatwater editor Matthew Hansen. Learn more about the festival and buy your tickets here – there are only a few dozen left. All attendees will receive a copy of Packer’s new book, which Packer will be signing.

With many writers in your family, did you always know that you wanted to follow in their footsteps?

George Packer: Writing was all around in my childhood. Books were all around. I wanted to be a writer from about the age of 13 or 14. The only kind of writer I knew to be was a fiction writer. So it wasn’t for a long time that I discovered that nonfiction could be literature as well.

There have been times when I thought I shouldn’t be a writer, (that) I should just find something less painful to do, but it never lasted very long.

What’s the most influential book in your life?

GP: You can find a book at a certain young age that really changes your life and wakes you up to either a possibility of writing or of a point of view or a subject matter or to go off on an adventure. The book that did that for me was (George) Orwell’s book, “Homage to Catalonia.” When I read “Homage to Catalonia” at 23, I didn’t know anything about the Spanish Civil War, but I did know what powerful writing was. That book was for me the beginning of thinking about nonfiction as a path I could take.

What was your journey into journalism like?

GP: It was a very long and winding road to get to The New Yorker. I was a Renaissance studies major, and then I was a Peace Corps volunteer and then I worked in construction for four years or so while writing a book about my Peace Corps experience. I continued to pursue the dream of the novel, and I wrote two novels, and that took 10 years. And in terms of raw audience, it didn’t really do anything.

At 40, it was quite late in the day for me to move to a new city without a job and to hope that things would start to turn around for me, and they did. Now, why they did? Lots of luck, happenstance, meeting certain people (and) being given an assignment. Once Iraq started to become my beat, I just kept going, and The New Yorker liked it well enough to keep me. But a couple years earlier, no one knew my name.

What was your first piece of journalism?

GP: It’s funny because really the first piece of journalism I ever did was about Omaha. It was for a very short-lived magazine called Wigwag back in, like, 1990. They sent me out to write a profile of a guy named (former Nebraska State Sen.) Ernie Chambers. He was quite a character, and I spent a lot of time with him and wrote a long profile of him. And that was the first time I ever did long-form journalism, and then I didn’t do it again for quite a while. But Omaha was the scene of it.

What’s magazine writing like compared to writing books?

GP: I didn’t become a regular journalist as my profession until I was about 40 years old. That was partly by serendipity, by a lucky accident, and partly because I realized that the things I wanted out of writing, which was to write something memorable and worthwhile and beautiful, could be done in journalism, too. Part of journalism is just fairly routine. It’s: You get an assignment, you go out and report it, you come back and write it, and that’s kind of the pattern every time. But then every time, there’s something new that you have to learn.

What has your experience been like at The New Yorker and now The Atlantic?  

GP: My experience has been lucky. I’ve gotten to write for maybe the two best magazines in the country, maybe in the world. I’ve gotten to work for all these great editors, and I’ve also gotten to see how essential journalism is, especially at a time of threats to free speech from all sides, threats to journalism, threats to democracy. It’s been an incredible privilege to be able to do this for a living as a citizen and a writer, and to feel as if I am not simply serving time but I’m doing something that might have some relevance to essential things like freedom of thought and democracy.

Why do you choose to cover the stories that you do?

GP: Usually, either there’s a question I want to get an answer to or there’s something that’s made me angry that I want to draw attention to. For me, it’s always better if a story comes with complications without a neat partisan answer or an obvious moral. I’m not really a muckraker. I’m not the sort who sits down with a politician and pins them to the wall and squeezes all the ugliness out of them. I mean, I’ve done that, and it has its pleasures. But mostly, I like to be with more ordinary subjects, ordinary people who aren’t used to being interviewed and who I have to get to know because I don’t know anything about them.

What about this work gets you up in the morning?

GP: I think a feeling of anger at something that seems wrong or unjust to me is a big motivator. But so is a desire to make something of lasting worth and beauty to write. I feel like I’m finally learning how to do it in my 60s. That’s how long it can take. I mean, of course, I’ve been doing it for a long time, but certain things you just realize, “Oh, that sentence should be shorter,” or “That word is unnecessary,” or “That’s a sentimental phrase that you should avoid.” It’s a craft that just takes a tremendous amount of time. But to do it well, to have the pleasure of making something, like a piece of woodworking or something, is a big part of it for me.

What do you think is the future of journalism?

GP: It’s pretty sobering to think it might be (the end), because this is all I know. This is all I do. I’m not a podcaster. I’m not a video maker. I’ve done plenty of sitting in a TV studio talking, but that’s not where I think my strength is — it’s in writing and in reading and being read. It’s an act of faith at this point. I don’t have a technical answer for you. All I know is that to do it in our time is an act of faith. That there are still readers, citizens who understand the value of it and want it. I have to believe that or else I have to give up. That’s the end of the road if they don’t exist anymore.

What’s the importance of journalism to you?

GP: I would say there’s two sides to it, and at best they go together. One is to give citizens of a democracy what they need in order to be able to govern themselves, to put it in a simple way. What information do they need? What investigations have to happen? What pressure on people in power is necessary for democracy to work? And that’s where a free press is absolutely essential. And the other side is, can it continue to produce something beautiful, to use an old-fashioned term, or well-wrought or memorable? Something that’s going to stick with the reader (and) isn’t just going to go through like a quick TV hit but is actually going to sink in, continue to stir their thoughts, maybe change their thoughts, maybe have that particular power that a really good sentence can have.