OUT OF EDEN WALK

Oliver Payne is Articles Editor at National Geographic, overseeing Paul Salopek’s online dispatches and print features, including The Wells of Memory, which appears in the July issue of the magazine.

How long have you been working with National Geographic magazine?

Since 1977. I started as a map researcher (I have a degree in geography). Left three years later and took a job as a text researcher with a book publisher. Returned to the fold of National Geographic two years later as a writer. I’ve been editing at the magazine since the early 1990s.

How long have you been working with Paul Salopek?

Since about 1992. He was then a caption writer for the magazine (we called captions “legends” until this year), which is good training for concision. I worked with him on his first feature, in October 1995, about Africa’s mountain gorillas. By then Paul was restless (yes, Paul has a restless gene). He knew he wanted the discipline of daily deadlines, so he left for the Chicago Tribune. A wise move: At the Tribune, he picked up a couple of Pulitzers and wrote magnificent stories from Africa and elsewhere, especially war zones. He kept writing for National Geographic, too, and I worked with him on those stories.

How does your editorial process for the Out of Eden Walk differ from other projects or features?

This is a first for the magazine, an extended parallel journey online and in print. Our print process is very rigid, deliberate, highly controlled. There must be a seamless meshing of the different elements: words, photographs, maps, and graphics (often video as well for the tablet edition). Many eyes on the words from beginning to end: text editor, top editor, copy editor, proofreader, among others. The long lead time because of the big print runs makes extreme forward planning essential.

Publishing Paul’s dispatches online, however, is as streamlined a process as it can be. There’s a minimal editorial staff: One NG word editor (me), one NG photo editor (Kim Hubbard), one contract video/audio editor (Adam Jefferson). Oh yes, and Amy Bucci, an NG digital expert who’s graciously available when I mess things up in the computer. It’s blessedly quick most of the time. The material is filed, and up goes the next dispatch, often on the same day.

A significant difference as well is that nearly all the photos for the dispatches are Paul’s. A writer responsible for pictures at National Geographic? — the very idea of it causes the blood to drain from photo colleagues’ faces. A few of Paul’s photos have been chosen for the Out of Eden Walk print stories, whose visual brilliance owes to long-time NGM contributor John Stanmeyer.

Did Paul suggest the subject of his latest article in the magazine or did you?

Here’s how it started, with this letter from Paul:

What is it like editing Paul’s words?

“One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity,” Samuel Johnson wrote in 1751. For Paul, haste is the enemy. His print stories, when he at last surrenders them to me, are perfectly conceived and expressed, logically structured, rounded, rich with imagery and meaning. All I need to do is thank him. He’s surprisingly quicker when writing posts for the website — tightly focused pieces on a discrete topic. I imagine those as mental skirmishes for Paul, whereas the magazine features, which demand an original narrative concept and analysis deriving from his reportage… they’re all-out war.

Do you have a favorite piece, blog post or magazine article that Paul wrote?

What kind of a question is that?! All of them. But seriously, it’s an impossible question, because Paul never lets his guard down in his writing. I especially like a piece he wrote for the magazine in June 2000, “Pilgrimage Through the Sierra Madre.” It’s the story of his 1,300-mile mule journey through the mountains of Mexico, in which he blended remembrances of his own past with revelations about a 19th-century Norwegian explorer, Carl Lumholtz.

Among the 76 dispatches Paul has filed since the walk began, I really can’t single out one as my favorite. I do like this one a lot, though: Goodbye to Banounah.

Why is it your favorite?

It shows Paul’s humanity, his love. I think of Paul as an ambassador for cultural understanding through his writing — and through his ethos.

What are the biggest challenges associated with this project?

All the demands on Paul, which impinge on his writing time and his mental energy. Logistical: route planning, diplomacy, finding walking companions and fixers — all these things are a time-suck, and for the most part only Paul can work them. Raising money: a constant worry and emotional drain. The inherent complexity of the walk: Paul’s many partners enrich the project immeasurably, giving it so much depth, but the multidimensional demands must have his head spinning at times. I try not to bug him too much. Editorially, the challenge now is to unify all the offerings of the walk, which have been presented separately in two web venues, under a single url. We need to give readers/followers, as Paul says, a “richer, deeper, more organic storytelling experience.”

What is your favorite thing about working with Paul?

His genius as a wordsmith. But it also has much to do with his grace. He’s truly a superior human being.