Freelance Investigative Journalist Who is Convinced Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington are Satan

By Nate Thayer

October  23, 2013

I was invited to speak in a couple of weeks at a conference on the new-fangled world of the tatters of credible journalism at Columbia University. The topic: how to come up with a viable business model for the new world of digital journalism.

First, they invited me for the three-day conference in NYC. I said: “Sure, I assume all expenses are paid.” They said yes. Then, it turns out, that doesn’t include eating food and transport from the train station to the hotel or between the conference and the hotel in NYC for three days, which, anyone who knows NYC, knows easily can run several hundred bucks at hotels and restaurants and taxi cabs etc. I then retracted my acceptance to speak at said conference. They then came back to me and said they would make an exception, and pay all my actual expenses. We are not talking any speaking or appearance fees.

We have been corresponding on the necessary details.

From today:

They asked for a bio and a pic for their publicity efforts: I sent them the standard self promoting, more than slightly embarrassing pabulum:

“Hi K,

Here is a brief bio and attached pic. You can feel free to edit the bio with abandon. It is longer than you will want, I am sure:

Nate Thayer is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. he spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent, much of that based in Asia with the Far Eastern Economic Review, and currently specializes on North Korea. His work has been published in several hundred media outlets worldwide, and he has been on staff or long-term contract with a number of media organizations, including the Associated Press, the Phnom Penh Post, Agence France Press, Soldier of Fortune magazine, the Washington Post, and Jane’s Defence Weekly.

Thayer’s reporting has earned him “The World Press Award’, the “British Press Awards Scoop of the Year Award”, and the “Francis Frost Wood Award for Courage in Journalism”, given to a journalist “judged to best exemplify physical or moral courage in the practice of his or her craft.”

He was the recipient of the “Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) “Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting of the Year.” Upon awarding Thayer the ICIJ Award, the judges noted: : “He illuminated a page of history that would have been lost to the world had he not spent years in the Cambodian jungle, in a truly extraordinary quest for first-hand knowledge of the Khmer Rouge and their murderous leader. His investigations of the Cambodia political world required not only great risk and physical hardship but also mastery of an ever-changing cast of Political faction characters.”

Thayer was given a prestigious “Peabody Award”, broadcast journalism’s highest honor, and was the first person in 57 years to turn it down because of unethical practices of the American broadcast industry, saying: “I in no way want my name associated with such egregious violations of journalistic and professional ethics.”

Thayer is also the recipient of “The Overseas Press Club of America Award” and the “Asian Society of Publishers and Editors Award for Excellence in Reporting.”

Thayer was also honored with the Johns Hopkins SAIS-Novartis Award for Excellence in International Reporting.”

He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by The Wall Street Journal.

He was a visiting scholar at the Paul H Nitze School of Advance International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

He can be contacted at [email protected] or 443 205 9162″

The nice woman who is organizing said conference replied: “Thanks Nate, this is great. Whittled down to a paragraph, but tried to include the main highlights. Could you please let me know what your “title” is? I.E. what should we put in the program?

Thanks so much,
K”

I replied: “Hi K,

Freelance Investigative Journalist or Freelance Journalist or some such thing. Starving Investigative Freelance Journalist, Formerly Quite Financially Well Off Investigative Journalist Now Living Below the Poverty Line. Pissed Off Investigative Freelance Journalist, Freelance Investigative Journalist Who is Convinced Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington are Satan, Freelance Journalist Deeply Disturbed by How Few People Appear to get That Quality Journalism is Dead”…..feel free to play around with any related variations…..”