On the strength of half-a-century’s work with newspaper people, I can confidently say that no cadre of that tribe is subject to greater superstition than Washington reporters. It seems a settled prejudice that all reporters, everywhere, are puffed-up Pulitzer-seekers and partisans in disguise, prostituting themselves for glittering prizes. Assuredly, journalists are no more immune to mean ambitions than anyone else. But I routinely challenge these skeptics to spend a night in a busy newsroom, or face a gruff copy editor of the old school (a vanishing breed, alas), and still believe that news is easy to cook, especially when it is big and breaking.
In fact, it is too often served raw. When this writer was a cub reporter in Charlotte, assigned to cover the nightly mayhem in the streets, I presented to the copy desk on one of my first days a piece about the “lacerations and contusions” suffered in a highway accident. “Sonny,” barked a hard-faced copy editor, “here in America we call ’em cuts and bruises.” I had stumbled unwarily into the hospital-speak of my sources.
Read Full Article »