Ayub Nuri, from Fixer to Front-Lines Reporter

DATE August 9, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Ayub Nuri describes being a "fixer" for Western
journalists

DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily
News, filling in for Terry Gross.

When Americans see, read and hear stories from Iraq, they're usually unaware
that behind the reporting of Western journalists are a cadre of Iraqis who
have served as guides and translators for their stories. In the war zone,
they're called "fixers." Working at great personal risk, these Iraqis use
their language skills and knowledge of local cultural, politics and religion
to find sources for their Western colleagues and help them stay out of danger.
Our guest, Ayub Nuri, served as a fixer for Western journalists in Iraq for
three years. Over a time, he played a greater role in reporting and
eventually began filing stories under his own byline. Last summer, he came to
the United States to attend the Columbia School of Journalism, and he recently
wrote a story about his experiences for The New York Times Magazine.

Well, Ayub Nuri, welcome to FRESH AIR.

You write in your piece in The New York Times, you were born in 1979 and grew
up around war, through the Iran-Iraq war in northern Iraq. You were in
Turkey, hoping to get to Europe or the United States when the American-led
invasion was approaching in 2003, and you decided to return to Iraq. Why?

Mr. AYUB NURI: Because I thought the war would really end all the tragedies
and hardships in my country. That's why I decided to go back. At that time,
I was desperate for change. I was desperate to get rid of the regime that was
in Iraq because I lived all my life until 2003 under bombardment and war, and
the reason for all that was Saddam Hussein and his regime. So what I really
hoped and my only vision was a prosperous Iraq, a democratic Iraq and a free
country. It didn't cross my mind for a second what's happening now, at that
time.

DAVIES: You know, there is this term fixer, which refers to Iraqis who
assisted foreign journalists, and we think of them as needing translation but
it really goes far beyond that. What did you and other fixers provide for
journalists, besides translating conversations?

Mr. NURI: Yes, but before that I would like to say that to me and to, I
think, all the fixers in Iraq, the word fixer was new. We knew what the word
fixer mean because we all spoke English and we know that fixer is someone who
fixes something, but the foreign journalists, especially the American
journalists, were using the term fixer to describe us. And we thought we were
translators but they described us, or they referred to us as fixers. And what
we did for them was we booked hotel rooms for them, we found sources for them
to interview, and then we oriented the American journalists about the history,
the culture, the politics, and the society of Iraq, because we were all from
there. At the same time we sensed danger, we told them distances between the
cities. And after each interview we explained to them what the interviewee
meant by certain points and certain terms, so we were not only translating.
We were doing everything for them, and all they had to do was write their
story at the end of the day.

DAVIES: In the early months of the occupation, Western journalists were able
to move around Baghdad and in Iraq much more freely than they were able to
later when the security situation worsened. And during that time, I was
wondering if you could sort of describe, if you can, what kinds of cues that
you would pick up on the street that a Western journalist might not about, I
don't know, a checkpoint at an intersection by a militia or the atmosphere in
a neighborhood or at a religious rally.

Mr. NURI: That's a good question, because survival as a reporter in a
situation like Iraq or an environment like Iraq merely depends upon your
precautions and your knowledge of the country. It is very important. I've
survived until know by really taking precautions: knowing where I go, what
will I say, even what to dress and how to behave and how to walk in the
street. I have been in situations where somebody says a remark that smells
danger and I know if we spent more than half an hour or 15 minutes there that
he will provoke other people and there might be a mob.

It is very important. I've even sensed car bombs by analyzing the situation
before that, and it has happened a few minutes later. So it's very important
to see what people say, and you talk to a number of people--it has happened
many times. We were talking to a number of people and other people were
gathering around and they were exchanging remarks among themselves and saying,
`What is this person doing here? What should we do about him or her?' And
that situation I would quickly warn the journalist to leave the area.

DAVIES: I'd like to return to something. You said a moment ago that there
was one case where you actually sensed the danger of a car bomb, which turned
out to be real. Describe what happened. What cues did you pick up that made
you concerned about the potential of a car bomb?

Mr. NURI: This was just two days after the war started in March 2003 when
reporters were traveling around in convoys most of the time, like five or six
cars, and in each one of those cars there were two American journalists with
their local driver and translator. And one day we were going to an area. I
was sitting with two American journalists in the car, in the front seat with
the driver, and they were sitting in the backseat. One of the cars in the
convoy headed to an area that I knew really well and the foreign journalists
with me, they told our driver to follow the convoy. And I got really upset.
But before telling them that, I reached out for my helmet and my flak jacket.
They were surprised and they said, `Are you--you very rarely or never wear
your flak jacket and helmet. How come you are doing that now?' And then I
angrily replied, I said, `We are going to--I'm sensing some danger and that
area where we go fell in the hands of some local fighters under US
bombardment, and those who were defeated might fight back today in
retaliation, and I strongly advise you not to go there.' But they didn't
listen to me.

They said, `We have to go. Everybody else is going there.' And I said, `Don't
follow those drivers or foreign journalists. They are ignorant to the region
but I know.' They ignored my warning and we went there. We got off the car
and we started to talk to some local people who were fleeing the area. And
throughout the conversation and the translation I was very nervous and angry,
so about, I think, 10 minutes later, we got back into the car to leave, and
the minute we got into the car with the rider, the two American journalists,
we started an argument. We were in the middle of this conversation when we
heard a really big bang, and it was a car bomb. It blew up exactly where were
three minutes ago and it killed about 14 people. One of the was an Australian
cameraman. He died instantly, as well as a number of local people. And then
our own car was scratched by flying shrapnel. And that was one incident that
I really sensed the danger and a car bomb, and it happened because of my
knowledge of the area and my analyzing what had happened the day before.

DAVIES: You know, you said earlier, also, that there were sometimes things
that you knew about the way you had to dress or the way you had to walk or
carry yourself to ensure your safety. Can you give us an example of that?

Mr. NURI: Yes. For example, last time I was in Baghdad was April last year.
I went to Baghdad and to the city of Qud. It is a two-hour drive south of the
city, south of Baghdad,to do some reporting on the sectarian violence and the
internal displacement: Shiite people being driven out of their neighborhoods,
and Sunni the same way being driven out by Shia militia. I went there and the
situation was really, really dangerous. I'm sure it is more dangerous now,
but it was very tense at that time. And in Iraq it's unlike many other places
where a war is going on, because in Iraq, you don't know your enemy. Your
enemy is everywhere. You might get caught up in a firefight between
insurgents and the Iraqi police. You might get caught up in a fire-fight
between American troops and insurgents, or you might be kidnapped by somebody
for ransom by somebody who doesn't like your religious sect or somebody who
doesn't like your ethnicity. The danger is everywhere and car bombs blow up
every day anywhere unexpectedly.

So I went there to do reporting, and I had my radio equipment, you know,
recorder, all the cable, and the microphone plus batteries and a notebook. I
cannot travel around with that bag on my shoulder because I don't want to draw
any attention. What if somebody wanted to look into my bag and see all of
this. It's not common. They say in a situation like this, `What would you
do? Why are you traveling with all of this?' And that certainly puts my life
at risk. So what did I do was I put all the equipment I had was inside a bag,
and then I would put the other bag, all the bag, inside a plastic bag to look
like grocery as if I am going shopping or as if I just came back from shopping
and before leaving my hotel room I was carrying the plastic, putting
everything into the plastic bag and going into the street. And I never took a
taxi near my office or my hotel room. I was walking a few hundred meters away
and then taking a taxi so that nobody knows where I was coming out from and I
didn't shave very often, like every two days. I did not wear very fancy shoes
or ironed shirt or any of these things because it is very important not to
draw attention and to keep as low-key as possible in a situation like that.

DAVIES: You know, you said that you grew up around war because there was the
long war between Iran and Iraq that you and your countrymen suffered through,
and most of the Western journalists, of course, did not grow up with war,
although many had experience covering other armed conflict. I wonder if you
think growing up around war gave you a better sense of judgment, either a
greater willingness to accept risk or better judgment about prudently avoiding
them.

Mr. NURI: I think it is a mixture of both because I lost my fear of war
after living almost all my life, almost one year after I was born war start in
Iraq and now so I'm not afraid of war at all. And there have been times when
one day I was with two American journalists and there was a firefight between
two different groups, a Kurdish group and an Arab group near Tikrit, Saddam's
home town. And as they started the firefight, the American journalists, of
course, they ran away and they hid behind a very high wall. But I was
standing up and I was trying to see who was fighting who and what's going on.
And they said, `Please, duck or put your--try to hide. It's dangerous.' I did
not care because that's how I lived all my life.

When there was bombardment during Iran-Iraq war, I, my brothers and my family,
everyone else in the neighborhood, would go on the rooftop of the house to see
which part of the city was being bombed, and sometimes the bombs were landing
near our house, but we didn't care. In that situation, that's how I felt. I
traveled around the country. I never cared about anything when I was on my
own. But when I was with the American reporters, I had to care about them. I
knew they were unfamiliar with a situation like that, and I had to really
travel or behave as they wanted me to to make sure they are safe.

DAVIES: I have to understand this. I mean, you described a moment ago how,
when you were traveling in an area, you would be very careful to not appear
conspicuous, old shoes, you know, a day old beard, your great put in a plastic
bag which could have looked like groceries, so as to avoid the risk of being
identified and attacked. That you were very careful to avoid risk. Then you
describe a situation when two armed bodies are shooing AK-47 rounds, whizzing
through the area, back and forth at one another, you you're willing to stand
up in that case and try to identify the combatants and gather information, not
so worried about being harmed. Why is the second situation less risky?

Mr. NURI: Because, as I described earlier, when you know your enemy, you are
most of the time in a safe situation, because when there's a firefight between
two groups, you know who is firing upon who or who is shooting who, then you
know who is your enemy. You can, as a journalist, stay with this group. When
I was wearing old shirts, a day-old beard, and hiding all of my equipment in a
plastic bag, it was because I was in a situation that everything looked
suspicious and I was surrounded by invisible enemies. I did not want to get
really in trouble and I had to take my own precautions. But in other
situations, when there's a bombing or two groups fighting each other, you know
how to take your precautions. It's very different when you know your enemy or
when everything is clear before your eyes.

No matter how intense is the firefight or the two groups fighting, you at
least know the sides or where the fire is coming from. But in a situation
like Baghdad these days, everything looks peaceful. You go out into the
streets. It's quiet. There are not people fighting each other every moment.
But in an eye blink there might be a car bomb. In a moment, somebody might
pull up and kidnap you. The situation is very tense and the enemy is
invisible in Baghdad.

DAVIES: We're speaking with Iraqi journalist Ayub Nuri.

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: If you're just joining us, we're speaking with Iraqi journalist Ayub
Nuri. He assisted many Western journalists as a translator and source guide
during the war in Iraq.

You spoke earlier about the stress that you felt being responsible for the
safety of the journalists who worked with you and that other fixers felt,
feeling that it was really up to them to keep their foreign journalists safe.
And I wonder if you knew of situations where foreign journalists were harmed
but the fixers weren't, and they felt responsible or burdened or guilty
because they had somehow not met that responsibility of keeping their
journalist safe?

Mr. NURI: Foreign journalists have been killed along with their fixers. And
in many other cases, the fixer really has been hurt more than the foreign
journalist. And I know an Iraqi woman who was working with an American
journalist in Basra. They were both kidnapped in front of their hotel in
2005, and they interrogated them for a few hours, then they let them go in the
middle of the night. The kidnappers, or the insurgents, told the woman--the
fixer was a woman, and the American reporter was a man--they had told him to
run away and promise that he wouldn't write about the kidnapping incident.
But they had lied to them. The minute the fixer and the journalist had run
away, the insurgents had opened fire on them from behind and killed--the
American journalist was killed right there and the fixer was shot three times.
She survived and I speak to her. I've met her several times and she's really
regretful. She says that wishes she had died with him or she wishes she was
the one who died and the American reporter would survive.

DAVIES: Do you know of many cases yourself where fixers who assisted American
journalists were injured or harmed?

Mr. NURI: Of course. I know many fixers who have been kidnapped. And then
most of the time those people who kidnap a journalist and a fixer, they might
hate the fixer more because they say that if it were not for the fixer, a
foreign journalist from America or for any other country would not be able to
come to Iraq to travel around to do anything else. So they blame everything
in that case on the fixer and they hurt the fixer. They don't let him talk or
to say anything, and they will blame everything on him, for the journalist's
presence in the country. And in cases fixers have been hurt or been killed.
In Jill Carroll's case in Baghdad, when she was kidnapped, they killed her
fixer right there and they took Jill Carroll for a couple of months, then they
released her. But the fixer was killed the first moment. They sometimes hate
the fixer more than anybody else, or more than the foreign reporter.

DAVIES: You know, earlier in our interview you told us that when it was clear
that the American invasion was coming, that you welcomed it as a chance to
remove the horrors of the Saddam Hussein regime and bring a new day of
prosperity and democracy to Iraq. Looking back on it, were you wrong or was
the invasion mishandled? How do you look on that optimism now and the
judgment that you made then?

Mr. NURI: Yes. I think I was wrong. At that time I was only 24 years old.
I did not have any experience in politics or I did not have any experience in
living in an occupied country, and I was desperate for change. But a country
like America, the superpower of the world, with so many politicians from
different political parties, Democrats and Republicans, so many universities
and experts and scholars, things like that, they shouldn't have invested in my
desperation or desperation of a number of Iraqis who wanted change. They
should have thought about things and thought things over and analyzed the
consequences of the war. I just wanted war at any cost. But if the Bush
administration really had to listen to people and say what is going to happen,
and I am sure many people advised them not to go into war with Iraq but they
didn't listen. That's why I think I was wrong for being very optimistic about
a postwar Iraq.

And one other thing is that, at this moment, I'm not blaming everything on the
Americans in Iraq. There is sectarian violence that the only responsible
people are the Shiite and Sunni groups, the militia groups in Iraq who are
directly involved in the sectarian violence in killing people, in driving
people out of their neighborhoods. And the political parties in Iraq who have
formed the Iraqi government are also behind the sectarian violence and they
are not loyal to the cause of Iraq. The war made all the Iraqis know who is
truly working for Iraq and who is not.

DAVIES: Well, Ayub Nuri, thanks so much for speaking with us.

Mr. NURI: Thank you.

DAVIES: Ayub Nuri lives in the United States, where he's completed studies at
the Columbia School of Journalism. He hopes someday to return to Iraq and
work as a journalist.

I'm Dave Davies and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

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Interview: Matt Weiner discusses new AMC show "Mad Men" and
his writing career

DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, filling in for Terry Gross.

A new TV series generating buzz Thursday nights on the AMC channel is set in a
1960 Madison Avenue advertising firm. It's called "Mad Men" and it takes us
to a time and place where men in suits and Brylcreemed hair ruled the
workplace, fueling their long hours with martinis, cigarettes, and
Alka-Seltzer. They made their living figuring out what made Americans buy
stuff. In this scene, ad man Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, is talking to a
waiter, played by Mark McGann, about why the waiter smokes Old Golds instead
of the brand of Draper's client, Lucky Strikes.

(Soundbite of "Mad Men")

Mr. JON HAMM: (As Don Draper) What is it? I mean, low tar? Those new
filters? Why Old Gold?

Mr. MARK McGANN: (As waiter) They gave them to us in the service, a carton a
week for free.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) So you're used to them, is that it?

Mr. McGANN: (As waiter) Yeah, a little habit.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) I could never get you to try another brand, say my
Luckys?

Mr. McGANN: (As waiter) I love my Old Golds.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) All right. Well, let's say tomorrow a tobacco
weevil comes and eats every last Old Gold on the planet.

Mr. McGANN: (As waiter) That's a sad story.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) It's a tragedy. Would you just stop smoking?

Mr. McGANN: (As waiter) I think I could find something. I love smoking.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) I love smoking. That's very good.

Mr. McGANN: (As waiter) My wife hates it. Reader's Digest says it will kill
you.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) Yeah, I heard about that.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. McGANN: (As waiter) Ladies love their magazines.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) Yes they do.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Singer: (Singing) Just want a little laugh...

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: A scene from AMC series "Mad Men." Our guest is Matt Weiner, the
series creator, executive producer, and writer of several episodes. He spent
four years on "The Sopranos" as a writer and executive producer, where he
earned Emmy nominations for his writing, including his work on the final
season. I spoke to Matt Weiner about creating "Mad Men."

Well, Matt Weiner, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Why was this a particularly interesting moment for American advertising?

Mr. MATT WEINER: Well, it's interesting for American advertising because
it's sort of seen as--1959 is actually the beginning of what's seen as the
creative revolution, and it begins with Doyle Dane Bernbach's ad for
Volkswagen, which is "Think Small," which had a very--first of all, it was
done by Jews and Italians, which was not the mainstream in advertising.
Advertising was about selling you an idealized version of yourself, and
suddenly there was this very subversive joke basically about advertising. It
was graphically different. It spoke directly to the audience and it said,
`Yeah, we're trying to sell you something. Isn't that funny? Why don't you
buy it?' And the directness of that appealed to what I think is, you know,
what's always there in American culture, which is a subversion, a sense of a
problem with authority. And once that became part of the fabric of the
culture--and that ad was very successful--by 1961, '62, almost everyone was
doing that. And what we see is advertising right now, these sort of joke ads
that say, `I'm selling you something' or something that's--I mean, advertising
has always been part of humor. When advertising itself becomes part of that
and mostly fueled by a--I would say non-white--even though these people are
white--but a non-white-shoe advertising firm attitude about it, that really
was the beginning of the creative revolution. And it took a long time for
people to get on board with it.

DAVIES: You mentioned something about white-shoe advertising firms. What are
they? What did you mean by that term?

Mr. WEINER: White shoe advertising firms, I mean, it's the establishment of
advertising, which is the big agencies and the sort of--what we usually see
the '50s represented by is this advertising that's now seen as very kitsch,
which is a women in the kitchen trying to get the latest technology, the man
coming home with the hat on. The "Leave it to Beaver" sort of image was
promoted by a certain kind of advertising agency, which were the ones that are
mostly successful. They had just all become publicly traded. There had been
a huge boom in it with prosperity and available dollars. This image is what
was being promoted.

And then again came something that said, `Guess what, we know your life isn't
like that. We know you're not Ozzie and Harriet, Here's a car for you.
Here's a, you know, `Avis, we try harder. You don't have to be,' you know,
`We're number two.' `You don't have to be Jewish to eat Levy's rye bread.' All
of these ads were done with a sense of humor. It says we know you're not
Ozzie and Harriet, but the image of Ozzie and Harriet was promoted by
establishment corporate gigantic ad agencies.

DAVIES: And Sterling Cooper, the ad agency that's the center of...

Mr. WEINER: Yes.

DAVIES: ...this series. Is that a white-shoe firm?

Mr. WEINER: It is a white-shoe firm. It's a third-tier firm. And I think
as the show progresses, people will realize that they--I mean, dramatically
it's more interesting. They're pretty much on the wrong side of everything.

You know, one of the things I'm interested in is this white male dominance of
the marketplace, and this kind of white tiger that's disappearing. And
they're either going to have to to get on board or not get on board. But
they're not one of the big agencies. I think people think it's BBDO or
something like that, but it's actually much smaller than that.

DAVIES: And did you find ad men from this era to talk to and reminisce about.

Mr. WEINER: I have since I wrote it. I wrote the script seven years ago,
and I really had a hard time finding any human beings who had been there who
wanted to talk to me, mostly because a lot of them were dead. These are very
hard-living people and that's what was so appealing about it. Now, since
then, I've run into people--although most of them started in '62, '63, '64.
What I have found is a lot of women, because I think there was a huge influx
of women coming to New York in the late '60s to be secretaries and to find
their way.

And I've contacted a lot of--a lot of those people have contacted me and I've
got--the reports I gotten about what's there has been amazing.

DAVIES: Let's listen to a cut from the first episode.

Mr. WEINER: Sure.

DAVIES: And this is one where there's sort of two parts to it, and at the end
of it, I'm just going to explain it.

Mr. WEINER: Sure.

DAVIES: I mean, what we hear is the central character of the series. His
name is Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm. And he's sort of lecturing one of the
junior members of the firm, Pete Campbell, who's played by Vincent Kartheiser.
And one of the things he's lecturing him about is the way this character, Pete
Campbell, had just spoken to a new secretary, who's played by Elisabeth Moss.
So it begins with this character Pete Campbell sizing up a new secretary.
Let's listen.

(Soundbite of "Mad Men")

Mr. VINCENT KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) Where are you from, honey?

Ms. ELISABETH MOSS: (As secretary): Ms. Deever's Secretarial School.

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) Top notch, but where are you from? Are
you Amish or something?

Ms. MOSS: (As secretary): No, I'm from Brooklyn.

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) Well, you're in the city now. It
wouldn't be a sin for us to see your legs. If you pull your waist in a little
bit, you might look like a woman.

Ms. MOSS: (As secretary): Is that all, Mr. Draper?

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) Hey, I'm not done here. I'm working my
way up.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) That will be all. Peggy, right?

Ms. MOSS: (As secretary): Yes. Oh, and it's time for your 11:00 meeting.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) Oh, and sorry about Mr. Campbell here. He left
his manners back at the fraternity house.

(Soundbite of typing)

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) She's a little young for you, Draper.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) The future Mrs. Pete Campbell's a very lucky
woman. When's the wedding again?

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) Sunday. Did Ken tell you about the
bachelor party tonight?

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) He sure did.

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) So do I get first crack at her? Word is
she took down more sailors than the Arizona. Heh heh.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) How old are you, Pete?

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) I just turned 26.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) I'll bet the whole world looks like one great big
brassiere strap just waiting to be snapped.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) You are good with words, Draper.

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) Campbell, we're both men here so I'm going to be
direct.

Mr. KARTHEISER: (As Pete Campbell) Christ, are you already sleeping with
her?

Mr. HAMM: (As Don Draper) Advertising is a very small world. And when you
do something like malign the reputation of a girl from a steno pool on her
first day, you make it even smaller. Keep it up, and even if you do get my
job, you'll never run this place. You'll die in that corner office, a
mid-level executive with a little bit of hair who women go home with out of
pity. You want to know why? Because no one will like you.

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: And that's from the AMC series "Mad Men." It's created by my guest
Matt Weiner. I just love that scene. There's so much going on there. Well,
you know, one of the things going on there, of course, is this raw ambition.
Everybody wants everybody else's office. But it's that lecherous sexism in
the office that really jumps out at you, I mean, the kinds of things that you
would really never hear these days. And when you write scenes like this,
you've got to take your own post-Anita Hill consciousness...

Mr. WEINER: Right.

DAVIES: ...and make this dialogue believable. How do you do it and how do
you know you're not taking it too far?

Mr. WEINER: I think that the conversation is derived from the same kind of
conversation we have now. You know, men do speak this way to each other.
They may not be as succinct and witty as these people are, but what I love is
what Don is saying to him is, `This is an office and you are behaving badly
for your goals of achieving success at this office, and you're talking about a
woman's reputation.' And they're all very, very, sort of moral stances as
defined by that period. A woman's reputation. Your reputation here. You
know, what is "The Death of a Salesman"? `He was liked, but not well liked.'
These are all these standards of how to behave in a business environment.

And at the same time Don is saying, like, you know, `You're never going to
have sex in the future because you're being inappropriate.' He's not saying
anything about what he thinks of women, or how women are to be treated, or how
they're to be treated in his personal life. And what I really try and do is
just think about--I tried to be honest and have people speak to each other in
a frank manner. There's so much lying that goes on in this environment, and I
love the concept of the audience knowing something about a character that the
other character in the scene doesn't know, and that's just a dramatic
construct.

Pete has a line, this anti-Semitic slur that he says that's, you know, very
glancing, but if you're Jewish very specific. He says, `Adding money and
education doesn't take the rude edge out of people.' And that's something I
overheard in my life. You know? That's not old. So what I try and do is
have people say things in as frank a manner as possible, and the attitudes
being that men somehow--white men view themselves as "us." I think every group
views themselves as us and everyone else is "them." And there's a security in
that. And every comment on every other group, every denigration is really
delivered with a kind of kindness, with the kind of pity for the fact that
that group does not understand what we are up to.

DAVIES: Did ad executives really have, you know, bottles of bourbon on their
credenza and open them up at 3 in the afternoon? Is that a myth?

Mr. WEINER: Here's where--this is not a myth. It depends on who you talk to
and it depends on the agency. I have had--I can name names of people who have
seen this and said that that there is not enough drinking. There was a
wonderful e-mail that I got. Bob Levinson, who's at ICM, was at BBDO in 1960
on the Lucky Strike account, and I was terrified to talk to him after he say
the pilot. And he said, `Do you have a time machine? How old are you? Where
did you get this?' And he gave it to someone he'd began working with, Brandon
Stoddard, who eventually became in charge of ABC, I think, and the e-mail
said, `Look at that. Remember us? The secretaries. The drinking. The
smoking.' He says, `God, I wish we were that smart.'

So, and then there's another group of people who are so--it's funny. I think
George Lois, who is such an icon of advertising. Of course, his impact was a
couple of years after this, but he's been so brash about saying a couple of
things about the show. One of them was, why didn't anyone come to him to do
the show? And the other one is is that we changed the world and there's this
sort of like brashness about it and how shallow they look and this hucksterism
and this Hollywood image. And, honestly, when I read his letter about the
show, I thought, `Oh my God, you're confirming everything I thought about the
the personality of the person that does this.'

DAVIES: Wow.

Mr. WEINER: You know? I find that I've anecdotally heard people say, like
Jerry Della Femina said to me, `There's not enough drinking in it.' And it
honestly depended on who the person was. And when you hear the stories, they
definitely had all their meetings in the morning. They definitely went and
got drunk at lunch. And when I say "they," it's not everybody but it's a heck
of a lot more people than do it now.

DAVIES: My guest is Matt Weiner. He is the creator of the new AMC series
"Mad Men."

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: If you're just joining us, we're speaking with Matt Weiner. He
worked for four years as a producer and writer on "The Sopranos." He is the
creator of a new series on AMC. It's called "Mad Men."

Let's talk about your visual approach to this series. I mean, it looks
different. How do you create the visual look of the series?

Mr. WEINER: Well, it was a conscious decision because I wanted to do the
period, but I didn't want the audience to have any moment of abstraction. I
didn't want to shoot it in black and white. I didn't want to glamorize it. I
wanted it to feel like we were in that space and that the people would be
real. And the first thing that happened was the ceiling, making sure that we
saw that ceiling, because that ceiling exists in all of our workspaces right
now, and I thought that was something that would...

DAVIES: Now, you mean the ceiling in the offices?

Mr. WEINER: The ceiling in the office itself. It's just...

DAVIES: Describe it. Yeah, yeah.

Mr. WEINER: It's a drop ceiling with fluorescent lights in a pattern, and
there is more venting in it now. There might be some fire safety that there
wasn't at that time. But what you see is the typical office park insurance
company ceiling, which is a drop ceiling with acoustic tiles and
checkerboarded with fluorescent lights. And obviously you don't see this a
lot on TV because it's very hard to shoot and because fluorescent lights
create a--they require a lot of color corrections. But once the production
designer and I had agreed that it was about the ceiling, and we had a director
who was really into low angles, Alan Taylor, our commercial sensibilities sort
of overlapped at Hitchcock, and we both sort of said, `Let's take advantage of
all this.' Then it became a matter of creating the period in a realistic way.
And that means, that when you do 1960, someone did not go out to a store and
buy everything that day. The women's clothing is not from Vogue magazine
1960, because it wasn't available to regular people until 1962. Couture, you
know, takes a couple of years to filter down. The hairstyles and so
forth--you can't just look at a bunch of magazines. So if you were doing
2007, you can look around and see there are people dressed from the '80s.
There are antiques around. There's furniture. There's--everything that went
on beforehand is existing at the same time.

So Peggy is wearing a dress from the early '50s, and the hairstyles are
different on different women. And then, of course, I felt that television and
movies, in particular, the glamour--besides having everything from the same
period, is usually about a kind of cleanliness, and some of that comes from
the fact that it's very expensive to put in the detail that you need. So I
immediately said, `OK, you look at a picture from a Herman Miller catalog of
one of these offices.' The desks still exist. They're available at Staples.
We put these desks in. You never see any of the wires from the telephones and
the typewriters and the lamps because when you take a picture, you don't want
to see that. Well, you see all that in this. You see the full ashtrays
everywhere that we grew up with. You see sweat stains and wrinkles and hair
out of place. You see clutter. You see personal items. You see bowls of
candy. You see everything but gum stuck on the bottom of the shoe.

And I told you I wrote this seven years ago. And one of the things that AMC
gave me complete creative freedom, but one of the things I added to the
script--other than that I shot the script I wrote back to then. One of the
things I added in the pilot was this moment when Don looks up at the ceiling
and sees this fly in the light fixture, and I know that some people see it as
symbolic thing that he's trapped and he can't come up with an idea. And
that's wonderful but honestly, as wonderful as that is, my intention really
was to say, `There is a fly in the light fixture and that fly is not period.'
There are flies in the light fixture now, and for a moment you get a sense
that this world is real.

DAVIES: You know, I feel as we conduct this interview we should both be
smoking Camels or Lucky Strikes. Because, I mean...

Mr. WEINER: Yeah, I know.

DAVIES: The film is suffused with cigarette smoke, as life was in the 1950s,
and in particular Jon Hamm, the lead character, handles it so effectively.
It's almost as if the cigarette is a character in some of his scenes. Did you
have to teach actors how to handle cigarettes, as these folks do? And is
there a health issue? There's just so much smoke on the set.

Mr. WEINER: Well, first of all, they smoke herbal cigarettes. And there
were a couple of actors who smoked when we began who no longer smoke. And I
think herbal cigarettes are unpleasant but they are not addictive and OSHA--or
what used to be OSHA--it's approved in the workplace for them to smoke these.

I do not advocate this in any way. And I actually, from a creative
standpoint, do not allow anyone who has never smoked in their life to smoke on
the show because you can tell immediately. It just feels like this sort of
awkward prop and if feels, you know, and of course, actors love to have the
business and love to smoke and love to have it in the scene, for emphasis or
whatever. But Jon Hamm was someone who had been a smoker at some point in his
life and he got exactly what it was. And there were some lines in the script
where, you know, where it says he has a cigarette because he needs it. It's
an addictive behavior, like drinking. It's a consolation, you know? I
remember watching Gina Rowlands in "Gloria" and there's a moment where she has
a cigarette after the tension ends, and you just look at that and say, `Oh,
that's what it's about.'

DAVIES: Right.

Mr. WEINER: `I need my medicine.' And so it's not just some habit. It's not
just some prop. It's actually part of their personality, and there is a lot
of smoking. I don't find that there's any more smoking than there was in my
life growing up, but I do try and write it in. I don't just let people come
in and light up cigarettes because it's part of the scene. The prop master
doesn't walk around beforehand handing out cigarettes to everybody.

DAVIES: Matt Weiner is the creator and executive producer of the AMC series
"Mad Men.'

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: My guest is Matt Weiner. He is the creator of the new AMC series
"Mad Men.'

You worked for four years on "The Sopranos." And if I've heard this right, you
actually got the job on the "The Sopranos" because you sent David Chase this
script that you had done years ago for "Mad Men."

Mr. WEINER: Yes, the script was two years old when David got it and he
finally saw it. And a week after he got it, I was in New York on the show.
And he was a tremendous fan of it and he still is. He's been very supportive.

DAVIES: Well, you know, it's interesting. One of the things that occurred to
me as I watched "Mad Men" is I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to like Don
Draper, the lead character, or not, and it struck me that's certainly true of
Tony Soprano.

Mr. WEINER: Well, isn't that wonderful that David was able to create
emotional complexity because that's the way reality is. And honestly, I'm not
here to reaffirm our sense of ourselves. I'm here to be entertaining and show
a person that I hope that we identify with because they're conflicted, because
they behave sometimes in unpredictable ways, because they're selfish. It's a
lot of negative qualities, and there's also--there's a lot of humor. You
know, irony is like not commercial on some level but it's so satisfying, so I
like to think that, if you don't know whether to like him or hate him, it's
going to keep you interested in him, because in the end that's how you feel
about yourself.

DAVIES: is there an episode or a scene from the "The Sopranos" that you
particularly relish and love.

Mr. WEINER: Oh, there's so much of it. You know, what happens is is you
start to like the things that others like. You know, there's things that are
particularly satisfying because they've gone over really well. But, you know,
there's a scene--I wrote this episode "Luxury Lounge," which is the one where
Lauren Bacall gets punched in the face. But there's a scene with Artie Bucco
and Tony when, in a strip club where Artie starts talking about how Tony can
have sex with a stripper and he can't, and there's this moment of reality
that's underlying it where you just get the idea that these are real people,
and not everyone can be Tony Soprano, and that on some level, even though
Artie is 40 years old, he's just realizing that life isn't fair. And that to
me was one of the more satisfying things.

And obviously anything where Edie and Jim are together, anytime they have an
argument, it was an opportunity for me to exercise, you know--everytime you've
had a fight and you walked away and say, `Oh, I should have said this, I
should have said that.' Well, when you have a couple of weeks to write a
scene, you can have them. You know, there was a scene in one of the episodes
in this last season where she throws a Lladro at him, and he says to her,
`When I'm gone, you can live in a dumpster for all I care.' And there's just
this cruelty to it of sticking pins in each other that we do to people we love
because we're hurt, and that's been satisfying.

DAVIES: You know, in the four years there, I know that you worked as a writer
and producer on "Becker," the CBS series.

Mr. WEINER: Yes.

DAVIES: And then you worked on "The Sopranos," which is, you know, become an
iconic TV series. I mean, one of the most widely acclaimed in the history of
the medium. And I assume that you grew professionally. I'm wondering how
"Mad Men" is different than it would be if you hadn't had that experience on
"The Sopranos." Do you think that that work brought something to the project
now?

Mr. WEINER: Well, you know, I did write the pilot before I was on "The
Sopranos," but "The Sopranos" had been on the air for about six episodes, and
there were two things that I got from it. One is that David Chase was a hero
to me because of his age and where he was when this happened. The second was
that there was such depth and complexity to the show, and at the same time it
was so commercially successful. The idea that the public really did want to
see something good was very contrary to the attitude in Hollywood. And I
thought, `Well, you know, this antihero, Tony Soprano, who I identify
with--and I don't murder people--if I identify with him then I can support an
antihero.' And that creatively was right there. Not only as inspiration of
David's success but also the content of the show. And then, of course,
getting on the show and seeing how the sausage was made. What I really
learned, first of all, you got this incredible experience of having someone
like David Chase tell you that you're a good writer. Which, to me, that
confidence is something that cannot be replaced. That was an amazing
experience.

The other thing is to see, without revealing the process too much, but to see
the idea of really trusting your imagination, and hoping that if you believe
something and you think it and you present it in a responsible but
entertaining way, that the audience will get it. That they're not stupid.
You know, the attitude in network TV, they used to talk about this guy named
Timmy, that whenever you--or a two percenter. Any joke that you did that
someone didn't get had to be cut, and anything that mentioned numbers or that
was complex or anything like that, `Timmy doesn't like that. Timmy won't like
that.' And when I was on "The Sopranos," what you got right away is everything
you thought that they were doing, they were doing. David viewed himself as
the audience and the people in the room, and if we liked it and understood it,
that's what we did.

DAVIES: Well, Matt Weiner, thanks so much for speaking with us.

Mr. WEINER: It's been a pleasure, Dave.

DAVIES: Matt Weiner, his new series "Mad Men" airs Thursday night on AMC.

You can download podcasts of our show by going to our Web site,
freshair.npr.org.

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