Slate, where I began my first journalism internship almost exactly three years ago, laid off four staff members yesterday: Jack Shafer, Tim Noah, June Thomas and Juliet Lapidos. While I worked with all four of them in some capacity during my time at Slate, I spent the most time with Shafer.
There’s certainly a lot to say about him (see here, here and here), but I’m not going to say any of that. I met Shafer as a 21-year-old at her first journalism internship in the big, scary city of Washington, D.C., during the 2008 presidential election. I was young, impressionable. And an impression he certainly did make.
A few days after I started, he invited me for coffee by asking, “Do your parents let you drink coffee?”
They did, even though I didn’t. He bought me tea instead. At Slate in those days (god, how old do I sound?), it was all about coffee, Chop’t salads and the occasional Krispy Kreme box brought in by John Dickerson after a long stretch on the campaign trail.
Shafer and I worked together on a few projects that usually involved me doing some sort of LexisNexis research on an obscure term, but it was his presence in editorial meetings that I remember most. Never one to give up without a fight and always willing to play devil’s advocate, he’s the kind of guy you need in a newsroom full of opinionated journalists. I think it was even him who dubbed me Slate’s “office hipster” during one.
After I completed my internship and went back to Missouri to finish school, I would occasionally send him links to stories I thought he’d be interested in. One such story was about a New York Times piece on how teenagers were hugging to say hello. Sounded to me like one of Shafer’s “bonus trend” stories, so I sent it to him.
“Wouldn’t it be better if kids slugged each other?! Good to know that I’ve infected your mind,” he replied.
And I’m definitely glad he did.
ABBY CALLARD 