Christopher Maag

I'm an enterprise reporter covering the New York City region for The New York Times.What I Cover My job title, “enterprise reporter,” sounds nebulous, because what defines an enterprise story can be a little fuzzy. A good enterprise story shares some elements with investigative journalism, because both require deep reporting to dig up something new. But while investigative stories uncover information that someone in power hopes to hide, a good enterprise piece describes a phenomenon in our economy, politics or culture, ideally something no one has identified before. The writing should be beautiful. And since I write for the Times's Metro desk, the focus is on New York City and the surrounding area. In the midst of what's viewed widely as an immigration crisis, I interviewed researchers about the consensus among academics that immigrants bring net economic benefits to their destination cities and countries. I explored whether a novel intervention by New Jersey's attorney general can fix a police department that for decades has faced allegations of racist violence.My Background I've written for daily newspapers including The Seattle Times, national magazines like Fortune and Time, city magazines in Columbus and Philadelphia, wire services, weekly newspapers, alternative weeklies like Cleveland Scene, newsletters, and web startups including Credit.com. Before I joined The Times, I spent 10 years as a freelancer for the paper, mostly covering breaking news and feature stories across the Midwest. I also wrote for The Record newspaper in New Jersey, where I won the Banff Centre of Arts and Creativity Fellowship in Literary Journalism for my story on New York Harbor, and the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writing to investigate why diagnostic testing in the United States will likely fail during the next pandemic. I studied history at Grinnell College in Iowa, and journalism at Columbia University. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio. It's Maag as in Saab.Journalistic Ethics Like all Times journalists, I'm committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook. Practicing ethics in journalism has a lot in common with living an ethical life. Treat everyone I meet with empathy and respect. Start with a hypothesis, loosely held. When reporting blows my hypothesis to smithereens, I'm doing it right. Be skeptical, never cynical. If telling me the truth about something important might cause a person to be fired or physically threatened, it's my responsibility to protect their identity, while proving to readers that the anonymous source really exists, and that I really spoke to them. If I get something wrong, fix it. Contact Me Email: christopher.maag@nytimes.com FeaturedLatest