[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: What makes you believe as a reporter that you can get to the bottom of any story?
Chip Jacobs, Author/Journalist: I don’t believe that. I don’t think I can get to the bottom of any story but I think if you listen well and you show empathy and you’re not just out for the most sensationalized side of the story, you can get closer to the bottom, yeah.
What is the truth? I mean there’s three three sides to it:
-Your side;
-The other guy’s story (side) and then;
-The truth.
But the truth is it can be hard to know what the truth of something that happens is unless you really just are…I don’t know, omniscient. None of us are, so I don’t think you can get to the bottom of a story. You can sure dig out a lot.
Film Courage: Can you explain further? How do you have a story? How do you know that’s the final story?
Chip: I think you have a story after a while just by instinct and you know there’s something here…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Chip Jacobs is a bestselling author and journalist. His latest book is the Kafka-esque, true-crime caper The Darkest Glare: A True Story of Murder, Blackmail and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles, which Kirkus Review praised as “engrossingly bizarre” and “entertaining.” Jacobs’ previous book was his debut novel, Arroyo, historical fiction set around construction of Pasadena’s mysterious Colorado Street Bridge in 1913. It was a Los Angeles Times bestseller, a CrimeReads most anticipated book, and a medalist at the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Before them were the biography Strange As It Seems: the Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler (an Indies Book of the Year finalist) and the environmental social histories The People’s Republic of Chemicals and the international bestselling Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles (the latter two with William J. Kelly). He has also contributed pieces to anthologies, among them the bestselling Los Angeles in the 1970s: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine and Go Further: More Literary Appreciation of Power Pop. His prize-winning reporting has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Daily News, CNN, The New York Times, Bloomberg, L.A Weekly, among others.
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