From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in a strange case, the death of a man who is obsessed with Sherlock Holmes.

It was a real man who was interested in a fictional detective.

And the real man was on the trail of an extraordinary discovery.

This story, this real, actual story, not fiction, was the first piece that I read from David Grant in The New Yorker.

And really, how could you not want to read more?

After this opening paragraph that I will read now, Richard, Landslide Green, the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes, believed that he had finally solved the case of the missing papers.

Over the past two decades.

He had been looking for a trove of letters, diary entries and manuscripts written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Holmes.

The archive was estimated to be worth nearly $4 million, and was said by some to carry a deadly curse like the one in the most famous Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

End quote.

Well, I was hooked.

I wanted more.

And here's what has made David Grann so good.

His readers know the story is real, that he doesn't feel like he has to massage or invent or twist anything.

And that is because he is so thorough in his research that he is willing to wait years before some of his work sees the public.

His books have steadily become irresistible to Hollywood.

Most famously killers of the Flower Moon, but also The Lost City of Z, The Old Man and The gun.

Coming soon, I think.

The wager.

For journalists like Gary Craig, who has been on this show many times and joins me again today, David Grann sets a kind of standard.

He's old school.

He's all about shoe leather journalism.

He'll spend months on end just researching documents in his office.

Then he'll get out of the office and immerse himself in a faraway place, trying to track down more of the story.

I'm sorry to keep harping on this theme, but artificial intelligence cannot do what David Grand does.

Rochester will have a chance to hear more from David next week, when he kicks off the inaugural season of the Rochester Speaker Series.

We'll tell you more about that event coming up.

The series aims to bring writers whose work is central to the cultural and national discourse, and they got a good one.

We are thrilled.

First, though, he's with us.

We're joined by one of the great modern journalists, David Grann.

Welcome to the program, David.

Thanks for making time.

And thank thanks for such a lovely introduction and welcome in studio to Nancy Klotz, president of the board of the Rochester Speaker Series and co-founder.

You're just as excited, I think.

Is everybody here?

Welcome to you.

Thanks so much.

Absolutely.

Can you believe this is finally real?

You've been working on this for a long time.

We have been working for quite a long time, and we're thrilled.

And Gary Craig is with me as well.

I needed another journalist who can.

Who's really the David Grant of Rochester.

How would you take that?

That's high praise.

Thank you.

I can I put that on my tombstone.

Yes you could.

Let's put that right on your business card.

That's pretty good.

David is visiting next week as part of this, the Rochester speaker series, and the event is at Asbury.

First, it's Asbury, first day on connections.

The first hour we're talking about what's happening next Monday will next Tuesday, October 7th, 7 p.m.

at Asbury.

David will be speaking and, what do people need to know about attending next Tuesday?

Nancy.

So the program starts at 7 p.m., doors will open at 615 seating.

We are selling the tickets through our website.

Tickets are still available.

Seating will be first come, first serve and our website is Rochester speakers.org Rochester speakers.org.

David is the first and you can get information and tickets there.

So David, years ago I had a conversation with a nonfiction writer on the show who told me, you never want to let Hollywood get Ahold of your story because Hollywood can't resist inserting a love story or inserting, you know, a whodunit where it isn't, or something like that.

And, and this writer was saying, if you're really good, then the truth can be better than what Hollywood can create.

And and yet, here we are.

You know, a lot of people know your work, for years, but some people know your work through through the films that are based on your books, like killers of the Flower Moon.

And I wonder at this point, are you good with that?

Are you pretty proud of the products you've seen on the screen?

Yeah, you are pretty much given the story I was very early on was when you were a writer.

You know, you I don't even know who this quote is attributable to.

It could be false.

I've heard it.

To Fitzgerald.

I've heard it in, Elmore Leonard.

But basically, if you're the writer, you kind of go up to the fence and you chuck your manuscript over, and then you they throw the check over and then you leave.

But I've been I've been pretty I've been pretty lucky with working some of that, with working with some of the great, directors and, and screenwriters and the other two very different mediums.

And I do think you need to understand that, you know, when you're writing a work, a history or a work of journalism, or some piece of investigation, you know, what you write is dictated by what are the underlying materials?

If somebody says something, it has to have been said in a court transcript or a letter.

You you can't just make it up.

And there are places in books and works of history that you could never go.

I mean, you don't probably see a lot of, seen some works of histories that take place in the past because those people are documenting, those moments and in and in films, you suddenly have a real person, inhabiting, these people, and they are expressing, their innermost thoughts, even with just the blink of the eye.

They are conveying meaning and emotion.

But the important thing is, if you get it in the hands of the right people, like let's say Scorsese, and you could not have a better director than that in the world, that you both work towards the same truth, through your same medium.

And in doing that, you also bring more people to the story and these works of history, together and hopefully combined.

Well, I mean, I, I also think it's fascinating that Scorsese and I and I suppose based on the interviews I've read with you, not just him, but his production team were very, very keen on getting the little details right.

Not even just the big details, but the little detail, the lighting in a room and they would reach out to you.

But I mean, I as just a viewer and a fan, I respect their dedication to respecting your work enough to try to get those little details right.

And yeah, they really were.

They were extremely dedicated to getting the facticity correct.

And you in your quest, you, you bring up a very funny story, which is so they would call me and I would show them historical records I had found.

And I had a video actually of, of, of one of the conspirators, the person who's played by, you know, DiCaprio in the film.

Ernest Burkhart and I have family that showed me a video of him, an interview with him as an older man.

And so I shared that with Leo.

So if you get some sense of who this person was here, the way he spoke, what he looked like, even though he was obviously a much younger, in, events that took place.

But, but the moment where they said, yeah, so what was the lighting like in this house?

And I, I really thought about it for a long time.

I saw the lighting in the house.

I'm looking around my room and my stacks of documents and photographs that I find, he says.

And, you know, I have no idea what the lighting was like in that house.

I mean, I knew they had certain power lines, but, but it was a question for them because they were, you know, it's a visual medium.

And so they needed to know what the lighting was in the house, but I laughed.

I said that when you're on your own, on.

That's such a great story.

I at least care that they care.

And and speaking of the communities that really care about getting it right, I have read the extraordinary story of what happened when you went to share your book and your research with members of the native community.

After killers of the Flower Moon came out, because you never know exactly how a community is going to respond to a a work like that.

It turns out, I have read that they invited you up to the communal house.

Can you can you describe that that scene?

Well, you know, so, you know, you look at a book, you really don't know if anyone.

And, I spent more than half a decade working on killers of the flower moon rocks.

And afterwards, I had spoken, to the to the publisher, and I said, well, you know, the one place I really need you to send me when the book comes out is back to these communities where all these people share with me the oral histories, so many Osage elders who entrusted me with their stories.

And first, they held a little event, in Fairfax.

It's, it's a small town, and, there's an old movie theater that's, you know, kind of boarded up.

That was from that period of the Boomtown, in the 1920s.

And they had an event there and so many Osage came and lined up, and I signed books for them for hours on end.

And then that evening they held an event for me up in Gray Horse, where they go to their dances at a community center, and they, you know, there were hundreds and hundreds of people there, and they presented me with a blanket.

And I really have never been so overwhelmed by a moment.

I don't think I'll ever have an experience quite like that again as an author, because, you know, it was a story and, you know, you work on a lot of stories in your life.

The killers of the Flower Moon are for listeners who aren't familiar with it.

You know, it's about the serial killing of members of the Osage Nation.

So their oil money, in the early periods of the 20th century, and it's a really sinister crime.

And so you feel a certain dirt and, and, and moral responsibility to hopefully get it right and to do justice to the people you're writing about.

So that experience, for me was unlike anything I'd experienced.

And remarkably validating for members of the Osage community.

And yet, in the last decade especially, I've seen more conversation both in the fictional and non-fictional spaces, and often in the the young adult spaces and a lot of different literary spaces about who should be telling, you know, whose stories you were occasionally asked yourself after that book came out, how you felt being a white writer, telling this very difficult and important story about the native community.

And, you know, obviously you've said you've worried about getting every detail right, particularly so when you're an outsider writing about a different community.

But what is your response to those who have argued that white writers should just leave it alone, should not attempt subjects outside their own identity?

So it's a really good question, and I think it's a fair question.

And here's I am someone as a writer and as a reporter.

No matter what you write on, no matter what you report on, by the very nature of the profession, you are asking people to share their stories with you.

They may be widows, they may be, people of different classes, different parts of the country.

They may be, people in, in, in France, of different cultures.

So the very nature of the profession requires you to report and to document and to ask people questions.

And I think it's less, exactly a question of whether you should do it, but how you should do it and should you be sensitive to it?

Can you be judicious to it?

But I also think the question is also partly a response to, for far too long, too many stroke, too many people were not able to tell these stories.

And that was a real, tragedy.

And a real problem.

And I think the answer to that is an age of delaying and fostering more voices, because there is no one definitive account of history, history we understand, and it grows by multiplicity of perspectives and sharing perspectives.

And my hope is if you read killers of the Flower Moon or you watch the movie, you may be so intrigued, and then you may go pick up a book by an astute writer like John Joseph Matthews or Charles Red corn, or the poet at least passion.

And and hear these other perspectives and these other writers who all have so much, to say, so I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, it absolutely does.

And I want to just again, salute the attention to detail and the devotion for your readers.

And then eventually, for those who saw the film to getting those details right, it reminded me for, you know, in a strange way, a conversation I had with my 13 year old son who recently he he's a big baseball player.

He loves the movie Moneyball.

But he said to me, he's like, dad.

I was looking it up.

And some of those baseball scenes then didn't exactly happen that way.

And he was like, why do they do it?

Like that on the screen?

I said, well, you know, they probably change the sequence because of Hollywood wanted a certain ending.

And he goes, yeah, but it was cool enough.

Like what happened with the Oakland A's was cool enough.

And, you know, it had me thinking, David, you know why?

Why do we tinker if the details are compelling enough?

Or maybe the better question is this do you think there is a responsibility, especially for filmmakers who are making films and stories that are based on real life stories, to not fudge it, to not rearrange it, to not insert drama, and to let the story as purely as possible speak for itself.

Yeah, I think it probably has some variety.

To that answer in that I don't think editing fits into any box.

And I think it also is important for transparency.

So I think in killers of the Flower Moon, for example, given the historical significance, if you if you're writing about really one of the worst racial injustices in American history, you have, I think an extra burden, to, to facticity, you know, inevitably, if you are dramatizing scenes, you're going to have people saying things in dialog, that are matching that you have, I think, a much higher burden, to, to make sure you are precise and not fudging any of the major, factual occurrences for the villains.

What were their motivations?

I think that, for a film like that, you really do have a burden, which is why, and why I was so happy that Desi and the production team took down upon them and worked so closely with Osage community to get those things right.

There are other films that are more large and stories that are large, and I think we do have a certain degree of transparency.

That's okay too.

So I can't remember the opening line, but they made a film of a story I did called Old Man and the gun.

It was, I believe it was Robert Redford's last film who sadly just passed away.

And a wonderful tribute to his career was about this elder, bank robber who was robbing banks.

He's a stick up man even into the 70s is a hearing aid that was like a police scanner.

And he's also one of the great prison escape artists.

He would break out a book for, say, Quentin in a car, which he painted on the side.

Rub a dub dub.

And in that movie, I can't remember exactly what they wrote at the very beginning, but it said for the very beginning, he said, this story is something is almost true or half true or and they took some liberties and that was fine because their transport and I think it's also incumbent upon viewers, I think, to understand what these mediums are.

And, a film is not a work of history.

It can't be a work.

You see, just as a work of history.

It can't be, a film.

I mean, you know, the play Hamilton is wonderful.

But it's not going to be the same thing is true now.

Stuck.

And they have to be treated as separate mediums, that do these things differently or dramatize them differently.

So I think there's not one answer.

I think transparency is important.

I think certain stories really mandate, a greater faithfulness, to accuracy and then I think it's a transparency for the old man and the gun, as the director was.

And, I think that's okay, too.

I appreciated when watching the series The Great with Elle Fanning, the tagline was an occasionally true story.

So that was helpful.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So I think viewers, I think filmmakers should be transparent with viewers, and viewers need to be recognized.

The distinction I, I am sometimes, you know, a little bit why we live in such a visual medium and probably less of a literacy, medium in terms of books.

And, you know, if you were just getting your, your history from films and, you know, you're getting a very limited, view of, of history, but that's how most people do it.

Come on, come on, David, that's what I. That's what I'm worried about here.

Yes.

Yeah.

So yeah, we should be reading more and buying more books.

And Gary Craig, I'm not trying to just put an advertisement out for people like your work.

Thank you.

But, you know, your work could easily be movies and maybe will be.

Fingers crossed.

It's maybe on that path.

We'll see.

Exactly.

But I understand, you know, if you read killers of the Flower Moon, the film probably couldn't have been the book.

The film is really more of the the second part of the book.

And, but I get why I understand that.

But, Gary, I'm still much more wanting to see people actually engage with the literary source material.

Is that naive of me in 25, Gary?

I would hope not.

But, yeah, it may be.

Sadly, it seems to be the year David said that maybe, where more people are opting to get their information.

I have kind of a big picture question.

Yeah.

And, David, I don't know, this makes me weird or not, but you're one of the authors who, when I read your work, I read it with two bookmarks.

Robert Caro's another one.

And that's because I. I obviously mark where I am in the book, but I'm so just overwhelmed by the research, the documentation you get.

They also have one of the footnotes.

I'm constantly bouncing back and forth.

I know it's just told you sounded weird.

So I was like, who is the strange guy on the show?

But the hey, you know what?

I do it all the time.

I think, no, no, no, I, I read it.

You write fast history, you do that.

All of a sudden, that guy who was just doing it today because you're looking okay, where did this material come from?

And looking for clues and maybe insights, and maybe you want to go down that rabbit hole from the source material.

Yeah.

And and, you know, Caro's just sort of.

He's another one that.

Oh my gosh.

But it's somebody who, you know, does work in the nonfiction field.

I'm curious.

I mean, your research is so impeccable, so diligent and so thorough.

And then you do you manage to seamlessly pull it all together in these compelling narratives.

Do you prefer one part of that equation over the other, the research and or the writing, or is it just both pretty much the same to you?

Yeah, that's a that's a good question too, because, it would depend, you know, whether I'm dealing with human sources there.

I really enjoy the research.

And that can even mean when you go to an archive and you're meeting the people at the archive and guiding you to the materials.

There's so much of what we do as writers and researchers.

It's a fairly lonely process.

So sometimes that engagement can be so rewarding.

And like, for example, to us, a flower moon.

You know, for me, I worked at the book so long and the friendships and relationships that developed and that continue to this day were so rewarding to me.

And writing is interesting because, well, let me just add that then research.

I guess I never have said more answers, which is always a problem, especially when you're giving interviews.

I have answers with footnotes upon footnotes, but Oh yeah.

Yeah.

When you're doing research and this is, you know, this cannot be underestimated.

I mean, you will spend three weeks with your eyes watering, and you are and it is true, you know, you are just staring at old brittle documents and you're hard to read and much of it is unread, irrelevant, you know, description over and over again.

You know, the wind speed in a long book for the wage, or about the last book I wrote about, 18th century shipwreck, and then you might just suddenly come across some jam, some poems scribbled on the side of a log book or some description of during a hurricane around Cape Horn.

They sent the scene, declined the mast because they couldn't fly their sails, because the sails kept blowing out.

And so the bodies, these, these kids climbed the mast and they clung to the ropes about 100ft high, using the bodies as concave sails while the ship rocked to 45 degrees.

And then you just like, oh my God, it's a part of the tedium that preceded that as part of the unbelievable, unfathomable joy, you know, which leads you then afterwards, to call your wife is really not that interested.

Anyway.

Do you believe what I just found?

This is incredible.

Well, you know, you're looking at killers of the flower moon and you're just going through these boxes.

And so you see, like these random documents, in a box in your, you know, going to the what is that?

And you realize it's, it's the secret grand jury testimony that's never been made public.

It's probably not even probably shouldn't even be in that archive.

And, and, but someone had just dumped it in a file and marked it.

Never.

It is.

And, and and it suddenly gives you such insights into the story, into the people writing about.

So, so there's a real mix in that of experience and the research and then writing.

Similarly, I will have, I'm not a completely natural writer, so I will have days where I just, you know, rewrite the same sentence or two sentences, and they are just utterly bewildering, belaboring, it's actually better where would be infuriating days where you end the day at dinner and your hours of your hours of work is completely disconnected from output.

And you just it's kind of, you know, almost every other job input clearly to the output.

But sometimes with writing there is no correlation.

And then you may have days where you just sit down for half an hour, you write 500 words, you're like, wow, this is really good.

500 words.

Am I done for the day?

So you have that real experience and I suspect, if you didn't have books, you wouldn't have the skills.

And the joys along the way.

I'm loving this process.

Conversation.

Gary.

Craig.

Oh.

Thank you.

Listen, I your and Gary's question is such a good one for for listeners who are just joining us.

David Grann is with us here.

One of the great American journalists who I met, I jokingly called Gary Craig, the David Greene of Rochester.

But in many ways, what both of you do so well is it's one thing to say, why are these grand jury papers here?

It's another to know how to find the human story in them.

It's another to say, I just went through a log book that's a mile long, and I went through all these diary entries, but I can find something that's going to make Nancy collapse.

Go!

Get out of here.

I've got to read more here that there's a real talent there.

And David is one of the best.

And Gary, you are outstanding in your own right.

And you've probably had grand jury papers shared with you when you shouldn't have had them.

Come on.

Yeah, actually, it's funny though.

What what David really made me think of, just in a very quick aside, was Heather Thompson, who wrote the Pulitzer winning blood in the water about Attica.

Yeah.

And she just happened to be given access at a clerk's office one day to all the grand jury minutes that had been kept secret forever.

She just got the right clerk.

It said, I'll go downstairs and looked at them and she got so, so, so yeah, sometimes that stroke of luck is everything that you need there.

Exactly.

And, let me just jump in and say, for listeners who are popping in here, you can see David Grand next week.

Nancy is are you excited about it?

Just making more excited for next week, Nancy.

Absolutely.

And we are just so thrilled to be launching our new programing with these kinds of remarkable writers, starting with David Gray.

And next week, the Rochester Speaker Series launches its inaugural season next Tuesday, eight nights from tonight.

It's, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, October 7th.

It's happening at Asbury first.

If you want tickets, don't just show up that night.

Get them in advance.

Go to Rochester speakers.org.

Did I get that right?

Correct.

Real speakers Rochester speakers.org.

David will be there for that.

After we take our only break of the hour, we're going to come back.

And, you know, he mentioned the wager.

I want to dig into some of the process here because if you watched CBS Sunday Morning or 60 minutes with David, he makes it seem like he's got these documents in his office, like I'm everybody's diary from the 19th century is just sitting in David Grann's off.

I gotta I want to know where he gets this stuff.

So we're going to take this short break.

We'll come right back with the author on connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Tuesday on the next connections.

Play therapy is a form of therapy for kids aged 3 to 10, and there's more demand for play therapy now than ever before.

We're going to talk about the reasons for the increase in demand for this kind of therapy from parents, but also from those who provide therapy sessions and who think it's the right fit.

We'll talk about how it works on Tuesday.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carrie Ola, Center, supporting residents to become active members of the community, from developing life skills to gaining independence.

Mary Carrie Ola, Center Transforming Lives of People with disabilities more online at Mary Carrie ola.org.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

You can tell a good of a researcher I am.

I got David Grand, the one of the best ever on the show, and I can't even figure out if the wager is becoming a movie.

So, so before we get into how we did some of the research.

David, can you update us?

Is Scorsese he doing your your book, The Wager as well?

You know, I certainly am hoping so.

These are, you know, movies and once joke.

My first book was called The Lost City of Z, and it was about these explorers who disappeared in the Amazon looking for, an ancient city, they called the city of Z in 1925 and half and say, getting a movie made, it's easier to find a lost city in the jungle than getting a movie made.

But, at a more at a less winding journey.

But, yes, I, I was thrilled after, what they had accomplished, you know, DiCaprio and Scorsese in the development of Killers and Flower Moon.

So I was thrilled when they were attached and, decided they wanted to adapt the wager.

And, I know they've hired a screenwriter, and I believe hopefully there will be a script, soon.

So, Fingers crossed.

Well, I wanted to learn more about how you wrote the book, and it's called The Wager A Tale of Shipwreck, mutiny, and murder.

And CBS news shows your home office, where you're leafing through this ancient ship log with handwritten notes that are not easy to make out.

And you said that you came across the story and found it interesting, as if you could just come across that story.

I mean, I'm sitting there thinking like, how did you come across this in the first place?

Where are you looking?

How did you find this?

David?

You know, it was funny.

I finished killers of the Flower Moon and I had spent, you know, more than five years working on a project, and then you.

And then I did something small to change the magazine.

But then I for the New Yorker magazine.

But then I was kind of like, what's going to be next?

What's the next book?

And I, I did that thing where, you know, I built it just so I tend to be just so model obsessed and so consumed.

One project that I really struggled to see, the outer world.

I mean, I don't tend to not shave and clean my office.

I probably smell, sadly, to the rest of my family members.

And, and so when I finished that, Joseph, I mean, I remember just kind of sitting at my desk and I still had a lot of those, all those records kind of stuff going around.

And I just kept kind of thinking, what's next?

And after several weeks, I felt like I just kind of stared into space, waiting for a deadline inspiration.

And finally I was like, yeah, this is never going to happen if I don't, you know, become active.

And so I started to think, well, what would interest me?

And I kind of did various subjects as all that's kind of an interesting subject, and it's just kind of a strange form of rebellion.

And it takes place in the military here.

A military is designed to impose order, but suddenly there's a rebellion within it.

So is it some form of extreme outlaw or is it there's something kind of unjust in a system that may justify the mutiny.

Do you see those scenes play out in literature as I started researching mutinies and, you know, I ended up online in a religious archive that had a digital scan of a document from the 18th century, was in this Old English, the, s were S's and it was from a midshipman of His Majesty ship, the wager.

And at first I thought, oh, this is kind of entangled prose, but I kept pausing of some of these descriptions.

You know, this the perfect hurricane, or describing the madness and the scurvy that they had suffered, and then the breakdown of order on the island.

And I, I then gradually realized that this account kind of holds the hints or the details of one of the most extraordinary sagas of human survival and mayhem that I'd ever come across.

And then to top it all off, and I looked up through the author, was it said John Byron?

And I said, well, who's John Byron?

And it turns out he would be.

He was he would become the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron and Lord Byron's poetry.

Don Julian is greatly influenced by the very account I was reading.

So, that was where it began.

What a great story here.

And I regret to say I'm going to read an email from a listener, and we're going to keep it tight, because I regret to say that in just a few minutes, we are going to have to break from our coverage, because NPR is offering special coverage from the white House, where President Donald Trump is holding a briefing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

That's starting in just a few minutes.

So before we have to close a little early with David and just leave you hanging until next week, John in Pittsford said, I tore through David Grann's entire body of published work after finishing the wager.

I'm pumped.

He's coming to Rochester.

Can the speaker series talk about the vision for the series, and how can people support it to revive book talks in Rochester so briefly?

You got about a minute here?

Yeah.

Up.

Absolutely fabulous.

And we are thrilled to be beginning this speaker series and bringing these kinds of big names, bestselling authors to the Rochester area for more information about supporting us, you can find that on our website.

We're looking for volunteers, people who are willing to spend time.

If you would like to do that, offer your talent as well as any kind of fundraising assistance is greatly appreciated.

So I hope that helps.

I think that definitely does, John.

I hope that answers your question.

Gary, you want to see the book talk World revived here, don't you?

Come on.

Oh, yeah, I would die this.

I was so excited when I found out about, you know, what was going on here.

One, just that we're bringing these great authors to obviously, David Grant, who might be a huge fan of, but, it's so nice.

I mean, you know, we've had events like these before, book talk, Rochester's Arts and lecture series, years before that brought just marvelous, marvelous speaker.

So this is the ground floor.

I know, but I bet it's just going to keep building.

So I'm very excited about it.

So here's what we're going to do.

I just want to make sure everyone is set for this.

I want to hear David's got to know this too.

We're going to briefly break in about two minutes.

It's going to be a very short break for people who are listening on the website.

And we're going to be recording for the podcast.

We're going to send the NPR portion of our platforms off so you can hear the live news conference there has been some talk of negotiations regarding Gaza.

I don't have any news to break for you there, but the president and the Prime Minister will be speaking, and you're going to hear that what we are going to do is after we catch our breath very briefly, we're going to continue and we'll go right through the the rest of the hour because we're going to be on podcast, we're going to be recording.

There's all kinds of different platforms we're on.

That's why we're on all these different platforms.

So we don't have to stop with David.

I just want our listeners to know that on the NPR platforms.

That is going to be the plan here.

If you're just joining us, we are talking to the great David Grann today.

One of the great American journalists is joining us this hour.

He is coming to Rochester next week for the inaugural season of the Rochester Speaker Series.

Their first event is next Tuesday, October 7th.

It happens at 7 p.m.

at Asbury First United Methodist Church, Asbury.

First is hosting, and unlike the event last hour, that is it.

Asbury next Monday night, this one you need tickets for and they recommend you get them in advance.

You can do that at Rochester speakers.org.

Rochester speakers.org is the website.

You'll also see they have a spring event that is coming as well.

And just briefly in 22nd here.

Nancy, what's who's the spring speaker?

Brit Bennett 7 p.m.

also a Tuesday night at Asbury.

And we are equally excited to have her with us.

All right.

So that is happening again.

What's the date on there?

It's Tuesday, April 21st, so we'll talk in the spring as we get closer to that.

But this is going to be a multiple speakers a year or two for John and Pittsford and those who are enthusiasts of David's work in the literary world.

This is a brand new series and they're very excited to see you there.

And if you love this kind of stuff, show up.

That'll encourage them to do more so you can see David.

So let's do this.

Let's get you to NPR live coverage.

If you're listening on NPR platforms, if you're with connections, hang here right now on the NPR platform over to the white House with President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Okay.

And now we continue on the other platforms that we're on here.

Hey, that's the world that we're living in now, multiple platforms.

And and we've been talking to David Grann about process, about the work of journalism and what it takes.

And, and I, you know, I know that listeners hear me ask about this a lot, but, David, I got to ask you about the idea of where we are going with the technological impact on our lives.

And essentially, we had someone on this program saying recently that the work that people like David does is probably a waste of time.

It's inefficient.

David takes years to research documents, years to put this process together.

And I could just collate that for you.

I could search those documents a lot faster than you can.

David Grant.

And if you if you put in 8 or 10,000 words of a manuscript and you're hitting writer's block, I can finish it for you.

And, you know, I mean, it can I understand that?

It can.

I wonder how you feel about using technology in that way.

David?

Yeah, I you know, I'm a dinosaur.

And, but, and it's always on the worst person to ask because I almost don't even understand modern means of technology.

I was the last person to use text.

I mean, if I didn't have children, and I finally programed my phone so that when they text me their little names of pop up, I. I would have been, bewildered.

Technology.

The world was me.

And I'm sure I will be of enormous help in many ways.

I will say I just, you know, in some ways, I really am doubtful that it can completely replace humans.

And I'm hopeful that there are still roles for humans in this world.

You know, part of it is, you know, in many of the documents I obtained or they're not, I would say the majority of them are not on the internet.

I mean, you could have just scrubbed them.

I mean, you know, do documents for killers of firemen were packed in boxes that probably hadn't been looked at for, you know, close to a century, similarly, would wager.

I mean, most of the records I looked at, you know, had probably not been pulled out of archives for, you know, several centuries.

So I don't really know how I would be able to access them.

And I do think, like from the little bits I've seen of I, you know, you know, I sometimes use it as a Google search, like it's kind of a high end Google search, but, you know, there's a sort of commonality to it.

A kind of, an average, so it's very fast and effective.

But, you know, I, you know, I mean, I'm sure I May 1st day die, but and be proven wrong.

But, you know, when I can write like William Faulkner, I mean, then then then maybe we can have a conversation.

But I just think there are human voices in human AI that are able to put together language in so many original ways that some scrubbing or some averaging out of some algorithm is never going to generate.

So perhaps if you want a really quick memo or an email, I might work.

But, I still think there will be a role for human originality and, that human touch, at least I am.

I am I am hopeful that that is the case.

What do you think, Eric Craig?

Well, you know, returning to something David said earlier, he's talking about when you do that, you know, that sort of, you know, the sluggish work of research and then suddenly that nugget jumps out of you.

You hear somebody perhaps written, handwritten in the margins of the document.

I mean, oftentimes in court records, footnotes have the most interesting information.

And I just don't know.

I mean, maybe we'll be that point if, you know, I can perhaps compile and, you know, sort of narrow the what you're working for, working with.

But I don't know if we're at a point where I can find and recognize the distinction of those nuggets and how important they are to storytelling and narrative.

I your thoughts, David, I don't know, but that's just my sense, you know, that that would be my inclination, too.

I mean, there is something about having so, a human touch of experience, of empathy and sympathy and passion.

I think that we interact with documents, and research.

We're meeting people to document things.

I just don't.

Most machine can quite do that or pick up on that.

And so, I still think to, you know, be, a space.

I mean, I think, like, you know, like I said, you know, some people show me that, like, way to memo or something, and I'll be very generic, but that comes across.

But is anyone going to be, you know, there there are just some wonderful writers and voices and there's there just seems like a kind of, it's a, it's a, it's a word algorithm.

And so it's just the kind of the middling of everything that's out there, as opposed to the power of a distinct human voice.

So I'm hopeful that those voices, will still be heard and we will not all be, replaced by machines.

I'm sure at one point, maybe very effective for for bits of research and, and and finding things.

But again, much of what is found in human knowledge, is not or on the internet, it's, it sits in archives, people's houses and it's, it's interior or other human beings.

And that's put reporting is it's gathering those stories.

So then once you document that, then maybe it goes into the AI machine.

But it wasn't there before.

Yeah.

Gary Craig, I'm curious to know if if you feel like you could use it to make your life more efficient.

Part of why I ask right now.

Gary's.

Yeah, I know that the youngest journalist journalist in their 20s, as you and I once were in, some point in time, you know, I want to share this.

Not at all to disparage, I really don't.

This is not meant to disparage.

This is meant to be an honest look at the challenge of being probably a very underpaid journalist in this country.

You're 23 years old.

You're 24 years old.

You just want to work.

You'll take a job anywhere.

No one wants to pay you.

Newsrooms are shrinking.

They're cutting staff.

Now people are talking about AI doing the work instead.

And, you know, I've met 20 something reporters in this town who don't know the difference between a grand jury and a jury.

I'm not meaning to disparage them.

That's stuff you have to learn by doing.

And if you, you know, if you didn't care about, if you didn't learn about that grown up, you got to learn it somewhere, I get it.

But they're very people are very green.

And now their bosses are thinking, well, maybe we don't need you.

Maybe the work can be just as good.

And the work that David has been talking about and the work that you do, Gary, is the kind of work that you can't just collate this data and then have a story.

It's recognizing what the story is, what the human story is.

What does this note in the margins mean?

What does that footnote in the grand jury notes actually tell us about something?

I don't think an AI is getting better.

I know it's getting better.

I'm not naive.

I still don't think it can do that.

And my worry is we're going to convince ourselves that it can do enough to replace more journalists and more writers, and we're going to be really bereft of smart process in the future.

What do you think, Gary?

I hope not.

I mean, it is for some, an easy out.

I mean, I will use sort of the, the, the Google I sometimes as David was speaking, but but to me it's almost like using what Wikipedia.

I still check the sources.

It may give me the.

Usually the information I find is Wikipedia.

Oh, there you go.

But it's exactly I mean it is a roadmap oftentimes to to the better sourcing.

I mean there's all the sources hopefully at the bottom of the article.

And so that's, I mean, I really hope we're not heading down that road.

And it was both worked with young journalists.

And I think it's the work load that can be overwhelming.

But they still I think, want to do it the right way.

Well, David, your mother was the CEO of a publishing company, and the one piece of advice she gave you was don't become a writer.

And today, with the way technology has affected our culture, I wonder if that advice is good advice for young people.

I don't really give to listen.

I always joke that, you know, my mom my whole life, you whatever.

If you don't become a writer because you just so it is a very challenging life.

She's a very pioneering woman.

She was the first female editor in chief of, you know, major publishing house and, and, was kind of the first woman at various stages in her career, but she'd always said, yeah, whatever you do, David, just don't become a writer.

I think she just thought it would be a hard life.

She's like, you know, go get a career, you know, become a lawyer or whatnot.

And, of course I always joke.

I said, you know, just to prove a wrong, I became a lawyer.

And, I mean, I became a writer just to prove it wrong.

But, you know, I you do point, and I don't want to be pollyannaish.

Because I do think what you have identified is some serious time.

And I think it goes beyond I mean, I think the, the, the problem is the death of the underlying resources to pay for journalism and because what we're talking about is information that is often unknown.

It's information that is not already been done.

I mean, and so the loss of local newspapers, both that training ground, but also that coverage, that accountability that takes place.

So, you know, Washington, D.C.

is still getting its coverage.

Paris is getting its coverage.

New York City, the stock markets, they're getting their coverage.

But there are so many other places that are no longer getting that accountability.

There going to be a great time to be a corrupt, local official because, you know, remembering when probing an agency isn't going to find that information for you.

It involves real shoe leather tracking of people who don't want to talk.

And that's what accountability is.

And I think we shouldn't forget that.

And I think that to me is is is the real, scary prospect is how do we remain, a city rooted in facts.

We have systems that we can agree upon.

What the facts are.

We may argue over the policies.

That's that's healthy.

And we remain a society that has democratic accountability.

Well said, Gary Craig, how many times have you been to Attica or Attica?

Oh my gosh.

I mean, I've been to the ceremony outside the prison.

And numerous times I've been inside the prison interviewing, you know, the incarcerated folks there, maybe a half dozen, maybe more.

Yeah, here's here's part of why I ask that.

You know, David has talked in his work, whether it's for the mutiny, Lost City, whether it's for killers of the Flower Moon, the value of.

Yes, spending months, maybe years pouring through document.

Gary, as you probably have for a lot of your reporting, your articles, your books.

But the value of being in the place as the writer who's going to be the voice of telling these stories, what did that do for you at Attica?

Gary?

Oh, I've you know, it's in Attica especially, but I've been into a number of prisons.

And I to this day will say, there's very few feelings better than being able to walk out and hear the doors close behind you.

I mean, it's just in just in the same day you entered, you mean?

Yeah.

People talk about the honorary country club prisons.

I did, you know, the loss of freedom.

I don't know if you can ever call it a country club situation, but, Yeah, that's it.

It does resonate with you when you're leaving it.

It sort of gives you a sense.

Do you think you could have written the way you've written without ever having been there and, no, no, David, what about you?

I mean, occasionally you get out and you readers think that you are this this sailor and polyglot and world traveler, and you make yourself be that for your work.

But what's the value in being in the place where you're trying to track down a story, or understand a person?

You know, like just, you know, for example, would wager I, you know, spent two years in the archives.

You know, if anyone takes one look at me, you know, old, half blind, you know, full back, would be like, you know, that's where you belong.

And just looking at records, and yet, you know, I decided to simply, you know, how could I really understand these people unless I wanted to.

How could I corroborate their journals?

And I could see the island myself.

So, you know, I got this, captain to take me to the island.

It was a kind of crazy trip, which I look forward to talking about.

And next week when I speak.

But.

And and it's not in the book.

I mean, I didn't write about my own journey, but it informs everything I wrote about.

I mean, it just gave me the sense of how bereft that I am in this.

Like how cold it was, how windswept it was.

And I finally could kind of go and see storms and get a better sense of what these seamen were describing in their journals, you know.

And so there is something about communing.

I almost like to say, with the people you are writing about, so you can understand.

Well, I mean, it was the author, Jeff VanderMeer, last week on this program, said he was reading, a work of fiction by an author who he said clearly has never been in a dry well.

And he said, I've been in a dry well.

Your descriptions are not cutting it, buddy.

Why did you not just take the time to figure if you're going to write all this description, you know, and yet we had a good laugh about that.

But you never have to wonder what a great journalists work like Gary or like David if they're faking it or if they're stretching.

I mean, it is so hard to do this work and to stretch it out over years to have editors who are willing to give you the time.

And, Gary, I'm sure there have been times where people say, well, you're on deadline, we need this piece by Wednesday, which is why you're retired now and you're your own boss.

And I still have deadlines.

I don't know how that happened.

You're terrible.

It.

I keep telling you.

I keep telling you.

You're so bad.

It was terrible.

But I just, you know, as we get ready to wrap here, I just want to salute the value for readers like me of the work of people like Gary and people like David, because it is increasingly rare.

And it's possible.

We'll look back at this conversation.

People will say, well, that was quaint.

You were worried that something was going away and it never went away.

We saw the value of it.

We preserved it.

Or, you know, we're on the precipice of something that makes me very uncomfortable.

Nancy, how do you feel about that as a reader?

I just am a huge fan of both nonfiction and fiction.

For the compelling worlds you're able to enter.

Well, I mean, I think that's Well-Said and David teased a little bit that next Tuesday he's going to be talking about process, about maybe a little bit of how the mutiny came together.

And it's a great chance for, for our listeners to be part of the inaugural event and the Rochester Speaker series.

Rochester speakers.org is the website.

Tickets are available.

They would love for you to get them there.

You're going to be there.

Gary.

Craig oh, yes, I'll definitely be there.

Okay.

Yeah.

And anything you want to ask David before we go here, it's sort of a I don't know if it's a narrow question, or maybe it's just, So reading the wager, one of the themes that sort of evolves is obviously sort of the hubris of imperialism as you're reading it.

I really going off track here, I know it, my apologies, but but I'm curious.

I mean, obviously that settled with you and your research.

When you see that theme, do you decide to make sure that it's obvious in the writing or just the storytelling in and of itself is going to make it obvious, if that makes sense?

It.

Yeah.

So what's interesting is almost everything I write about, I think I can go beyond almost every everything I write about.

I know virtually nothing about these subjects.

When I begin, I knew nothing about maritime life in 1860.

I had never heard of the murders of the Osage, until I learned about them.

And so when you research these stories, I often don't know what the themes are or what they're fully about.

And I never want to impose those themes on them.

So hopefully the themes that emerge from the stories, or that are being drawn, that are, are natural outgrowth of the story.

And so the story itself speaks sometimes as a writer, you make sure they're being underscored to some degree so that the reader gets them.

But they should always be, you know, I can always tell if somebody is kind of imposing a theme upon a story.

And, and, and I think that is part of the journey.

When you write about real stories, you don't know always where the story will end or what it's fully about until you get there.

And there's powerful themes and there's powerful twists.

The journey astonish you as a writer fully has the same effect upon the reader.

How's that?

Gary?

I love that answer.

I've got a I want a tape of all of this so I can use this so much great stuff here.

And David, you've been very patient, kind of hanging with us on a day where we've had some twists and turns.

I want to thank you for that.

And I just want to ask you before we go here, people can find your work on Amazon.

Do you like them to find it in different places?

Where do you want people to engage with your work?

You know?

Well, I'm always a fan of local bookstores because we need to support them.

So, I love any of the local bookstores in Rochester.

Great.

Amazon is great.

Barnes and Noble, you know, anybody who wants to support books that I'm down with and we are collaborating with Book Eater to, sign copies available for pickup at the event next Tuesday night, October 8th, 7 p.m.

at Asbury.

Signed copies will be there and thanks to Book Eater for that.

I'm I'm not thanking them.

I'm not affiliated with this.

I don't have to thank them.

I'm saying I think I'm just saying I, I love local bookstores, too, and I, I like to shout out for that wonderful atmosphere.

They do great work.

Really, really important in this town.

David Grand, thanks again for your generosity, for your flexibility.

We will see you in Rochester.

And congratulations on what is continues to be an outstanding career.

Thank you all so much.

It's a pleasure.

Great conversation today.

Thank you Gary Craig, it's always great to see you.

I always love coming up and you're boosting my ego to usher.

I know the David Grand of Rochester.

You're going to put that on.

That's a little much.

What are you going to give me?

What's going on?

I just go, oh no, don't even answer it.

Don't say it, don't do it, don't do it.

Whatever you're thinking.

I like the way you went to business card.

I went to tombstone with some fancy gloves.

Good luck with the speaker series.

Thank you so much.

Oh, great having you.

All right, everybody, thanks for listening.

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