The Truth of What Happened: In Conversation with Ted Conover

In this episode, Switchyard magazine editor Ted Genoways speaks with award-winning journalist Ted Conover about his book Cheap Land Colorado, set among the rural poor in the San Luis Valley, and his style of investigative reporitng, known as "immersion." By spending months or even years with the people he is writing about—working alongside them, living with them—Conover comes to understand his subjects as few journalists do. That style, however, also raises thorny questions of objectivity and truth-telling, especially when Conover is writing about people who are suspicious of the media and believe that all reporters are biased against them. In this conversation, Conover explores these contradictions with sensivity and depth.