Italy Strikes Again - in Cleveland... Not so Fast

Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli has won another battle against an American museum, this time without lawsuits, press conferences or photo ops. The Italian culture ministry announced today that the Cleveland Museum of Art will return 16 pieces of disputed artworks from its permanent collection. This is all a bit cloak and dagger: the museum is entirely mum on its website, and so far Italy has not said which pieces will be returned. The vaunted sculpture of Apollo Sauroktonos, the lizard slayer, acquired in 2004, that they claimed last year?  Their glorious Lucanian crater, acquired in 1991? Still a mystery. The museum collection is temporarily closed anyway while undergoing a major renovation, scheduled for reopening in 2011. Perhaps the museum thought this was a good time to make a deal; perhaps Italy was beginning moves to start another lawsuit, as its representatives have often said in the press without specifying the target. In any event, it is the first major movement on restitution since the settling of accounts with the J. Paul Getty Museum last summer, and the exhibit of returned artifacts in Rome early this year. Rutelli is stepping down and being replaced by a new culture minister, Sandro Bondi. It remains to be seen whether he will be as aggressive in pursuing restitution of artifacts as his two predecessors. UPDATE: Cleveland has just released a statement saying that it was surprised to hear this, and that it is in fact incorrect. "While the Cleveland Museum of Art has held discussions with Italian officials over the past year with respect to works in our collection, no agreement has been reached, nor has the Museum agreed to transfer any objects to Italy," said the statement, released at 4 pm EST. So it seems that the above is premature. Stay tuned for clarification of this muddy matter.

A Good One Goes

A word to remember my dear friend, Joan Goodman, a talented journalist who died in the early hours of today, of cancer. She was 80, but - until recently, anyway - she looked and seemed more like 65. For 35 years, Joan was one of the foremost practicioners of the premiere form of Hollywood journalism in the modern age: the celebrity profile. She wrote, at length, mainly for British broadsheet papers, but also for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, American Film and countless other outlets of the long form. Celebrities loved her. She had an unusual spark, an immediate likeability, and a decency that radiated outward to celebrities and told them it was safe to talk. She told me that she started writing on a lark, when Woody Allen met her on the street with some mutual friends. He invited her to write about him, just like that. There were lots of episodes in Joan's life like that. Paul McCartney invited her to follow him around for days in the 1980s, and one result was a celebrated account in Playboy in 1984. I met her when I moved to Hollywood and was doing research on the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. She was the first to tell me, on the record, that she would never have dreamed of being part of the group, since she was a serious journalist. We hit it off from there. Many years went by and I didn't hear from Joan again until shortly before leaving The Washington Post for the New York Times in 2003. Typical Joan; she generously offered me her old notes on Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was then running for governor. He'd spoken a lot to her, on tape, about his past indiscretions (also for Playboy). We renewed our friendship, and it was only then that I learned that she'd battled cancer. I also learned that she'd lived several interesting lives. Early on, as the child of wealthy New York political poobahs; Franklin Delano Roosevelt used to come by the house to consult with her father. Amelia Earheart (yes!) was her brother's godmother. She went on to marry Lawrence Goodman, the ABC News producer for Howard Cosell; they travelled the country following sports stories. She remembered flirting with Mickey Mantle at spring training early on. She raised three kids, and only then began a career, in midlife, as a journalist. Sadly, Joan's work predates the age of the Internet, so  there is little of her prolific work on line. But I'm here to tell you: the world is a sadder place without her. RIP, Joan.

Joanna Connor's Story

I am currently writing a story for Los Angeles magazine about a serial rape case, so I was naturally drawn to this story about a rape. But it is no ordinary story, and it is no ordinary telling. Joanna Connors, the longtime film critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has reached deep into her writer's soul and found the courage to explore the violent rape that happened to her 30 years ago. She shares her struggle to understand what that violent act did to her, and has the rare compassion to travel deep into the world of her attacker. Connors tells this story in a five-part series in the Plain Dealer - and I should add that I've never seen anything of its kind in my hometown paper - that combines a reporter's candor with the intensity of direct experience. It is journalism at its bravest, bestowing the gifts of understanding and insight. At left is Connors visiting the gravesite of her rapist, David Francis. The photos by Lisa DeJong are also outstanding.

Update: The Onion Speaks

And this just in, from The Onion:

"Dying Newspaper Trend Buys Nation's Newspapers Three More Weeks

WASHINGTON—A recent glut of feature stories on the death of the American newspaper has temporarily made the outmoded form of media appealing enough to stave off its inevitable demise for an additional 21 days, sources reported Monday. "People really seem to identify with these moving, 'end-of-an-era'-type pieces," Washington Post editor-in-chief Leonard Downie, Jr. said. "It's nice to see that the printed word is still, at least for now, the most powerful medium for reporting on the death of the printed word." Downie added that the poignant farewell Op-Ed he recently penned was so well received that he will be able to hold onto his job for up to six more days. "

The Future of Journalism

I’m at a very lively conference probing the future of journalism and technology, at the headquarters of Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, California, NewsTools 2008. The talk here has been of democracy and widgets, citizen journalism and Twittr, sputtering newspapers and algorithms. At a very popular discussion group the question was: “Who’s gonna pay the journalists?” An excellent question. Everyone wants to know what is the business model that will allow journalism – a core element of a democracy – to continue. (Note to six months ago: who’da thunk The New York Times Sunday circulation would drop 9 percent in that time? And the daily 5%? LA Times daily down 5%? Read it and weep.) Here are a few comments and concerns from the people thinking about journalism that matters, and how to recreate the environments for it to thrive: “We are living in fractured world. Journalism is a process, not product. We don’t need to float journalism organizations, we need to float journalists.” Or: “We can’t expect large national organizations to coalesce until we figure out the model.” “Remove the journalist as filter – let people tell their own stories, in their own voices. That allows the community to say, ‘what do I want to know from this person?" Pictured above is Eduardo Hauser, founder of the DailyMe.com, a website that is about to launch in earnest that will allow readers to create their own news experiences by choosing subjects, writers, predilections, among some 2,000 sources. He even pays those sources to license their material. The talk here is about sharing technology and content, engaging citizens, and what software lets you do that. The focus is on everything from covering niche subjects, investigative work, foreign freelancing networks, and local news. From the sound of things, journalism has a future; these are some of the people seizing the opportunities to find it. Thanks to the folks at Yahoo for hosting, and to the folks from University of Massachusetts' MediaGiraffe Project for organizing.