I knew he would backpedal. Even as the words, “I’ll send you some of what I wrote,” came out of my mouth, I knew I would regret ever speaking them. It’s not something I regularly practice. Every journalist worth her salt knows better than to show an interviewee any part of the finished product. NOBODY likes the way they look on paper, I don’t care how talented the writer.
I had the courage to ask him about the gritty details, and, abashed as he was divulging them, he still gave me permission to use them in the story. But I sympathized with how sensitive the material was, so the human in me head-butted the hard-nosed journalist and offered to send him that part of the article to ensure he was comfortable with what I wrote.
Bad move.
I’m still editing the piece to his approval, though I’m certain he wants nothing more than to tell me not to write it at all. But I’m not letting him off that easily. Besides, I explained to him, I’ve already pitched it to the editor this way.
What did I learn? Check my ego. Because while I sincerely empathized with his uneasiness, I also felt very confident that he would be so impressed with the way I crafted his story he couldn’t possibly argue. He might even thank me for writing such an inspirational narrative. (His story is, by the way, very inspirational. It’s a shame he feels so uncomfortable with it.)
But as fate would have it, the editor has given me only half the space my story takes up. So the interviewee gets his way after all.
It’s probably just as good. Because, frankly, at 37 weeks pregnant the fight in me has all but left the building.
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