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Journalist or Gang-banger?

  2. superkiy
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This guy embedded himself in a Chicago crack-dealing gang for seven years and wrote a book about it. According to the NYTimes review, he was a bit more than a passive observer, and actually participated in some of the gang's illegal activities. Does the journalistic merit of that kind of access trump the pain and suffering he might have helped bring into the world? Or is this guy completely out of line?
superkiy

7 responses // Journalist or Gang-banger?

  • That's what it means to be a real journalist; someone who can get into the grit, someone who can get to the bottom of any matter, and someone who learns from doing and can report back to the world on it!

    Kudos to him for being a real journalist!
    woodywoodbeck
  • After reading the whole NY Times article, the reviewer seems to diss him a lot for what he's done. Mr. Grimes also does a good job dismissing the issues of inner city life altogether, since J.T.'s life is a much too common story. It's easy to critize from an outside perspective, but no one tries to look at it from the inside out.
    That's exactly what Venkatesh did, immerse himself into the ganglands of Chicago to further understand the culture. It is highly possible that there is valuable information inside this book that could put an end to gang mentality. I appaud his bravery and journalistic integrity, he risked his life for seven years to get this story.
    lifestudentno83
  • This is really interesting. Has anyone else read "Freakonomics"? There's a chapter all about this guy and his research that basically shows how being in a gang isn't so different from working in a large corporation, at least not in terms of the psychology of the economics that underpins both those worlds. The guy wasn't a journalist - he was a sociology doctoral student at the time he did the research. I can't wait to read this.

    Can someone post the link to the NY Times article? Thanks.
    OpenCircuit
  • i have mixed emotions about this.... yes i believe this is probably an authentic journalistic endeavor but if he were doing illegal activities and got caught would our legal system look at it that way and let him go?

    The police do these kinds of things but if they are caught they are doing it under a legal mandate....
    mpegcto
  • I suspect that the whole "did he cross the line over to the dark side" / "darth vadar in the hood" line is one of the fancy publishing industry marketing strategies... No doubt when you read it he never shot anyone, sold anyone drugs or anything like that. He probably lent someone his mobile one day and some whizz at the publishing house saw a way to get people talking.

    Like we are.

    Damn, I hate it when that happens.
    OpenCircuit
  • Cant wait to read his *study*. Wonder if he wrote it on a 6 day coke-binge. "Shit thats why i started dealing coke...Get me a pen Tyrone!"
    Social_Fuzz
  • Don't know if you're aware of this, but Venkatesh is a contributing statistician/sociologist/economist to Steven Levitt's very readable and captivating econ book entitled FREAKONOMICS. http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Revised-Expanded-Eco...
    dkincheloe

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