When I was in the NYPD I was often interviewed, sometimes by a certain Times reporter who kept identifying me as a former Times sports reporter in Europe. That irritated me. I saw myself as a better and more real journalist than he would ever be. What about all those racing drivers and spectators I wrote about who kept getting slaughtered, the gored bullfighters, the intimate studies of boxers as tragic figures, some on the way down (Bobo Olson, Sugar Ray Robinson) or on the way up (Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali)? I saw sports, especially the blood sports, in a way no one had ever written before, or so I thought, and Europe gave me the chance to write about it my way. What about the political stories I also wrote, and the refugee stories? What about the war in Tunisia I was sent to? I covered stories in 16 or 18 different countries. So yes, to be repeatedly put down by that guy irritated me. To that extent, though I never felt the need to invent stories about myself, I could empathize a bit with Brian Williams. I did want to be taken seriously by peers, and by the public. As for the NYPD, I thought I was doing public service, which hardly anybody else bothers with, and in addition it was the greatest journalistic coup of my life. No other reporter/writer had ever before been so high up for so long so deep inside the biggest police department in the biggest city in the country--and during such a violent and vulnerable time. I did not last long, one year and seven days, but when I came out I had a theme and knowledge that would keep me busy in novels and non-fiction for most of the rest of my life. A good journalist is someone intensely curious about other people, and about parts of the world and events occurring therein that no one else knows about. And at times he is willing to risk his life, if need be, to get the story. I'm not sure Williams qualifies, according to my definition, though in Iraq apparently he wanted to.
To my observations yesterday about Brian Williams, and as an answer of sorts to Jane Gross's query about my time as a high police official, I append the following.
When I was in the NYPD I was often interviewed, sometimes by a certain Times reporter who kept identifying me as a former Times sports reporter in Europe. That irritated me. I saw myself as a better and more real journalist than he would ever be. What about all those racing drivers and spectators I wrote about who kept getting slaughtered, the gored bullfighters, the intimate studies of boxers as tragic figures, some on the way down (Bobo Olson, Sugar Ray Robinson) or on the way up (Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali)? I saw sports, especially the blood sports, in a way no one had ever written before, or so I thought, and Europe gave me the chance to write about it my way. What about the political stories I also wrote, and the refugee stories? What about the war in Tunisia I was sent to? I covered stories in 16 or 18 different countries. So yes, to be repeatedly put down by that guy irritated me. To that extent, though I never felt the need to invent stories about myself, I could empathize a bit with Brian Williams. I did want to be taken seriously by peers, and by the public. As for the NYPD, I thought I was doing public service, which hardly anybody else bothers with, and in addition it was the greatest journalistic coup of my life. No other reporter/writer had ever before been so high up for so long so deep inside the biggest police department in the biggest city in the country--and during such a violent and vulnerable time. I did not last long, one year and seven days, but when I came out I had a theme and knowledge that would keep me busy in novels and non-fiction for most of the rest of my life. A good journalist is someone intensely curious about other people, and about parts of the world and events occurring therein that no one else knows about. And at times he is willing to risk his life, if need be, to get the story. I'm not sure Williams qualifies, according to my definition, though in Iraq apparently he wanted to.
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Perhaps all he ever wanted to be was a top flight, real journalist, and to be considered one. A brave and honest one. (Feelings I have had myself.) Instead he became famous and rich as a newsreader. All he is, and sees himself as, is a newsreader. And he knows this is the way other journalists, real journalists, see him. He (and other anchors as well) is not one of them and is not respected as one of them. Hence he "conflates" his Iraq story. Getting shot down makes him real, to them and to himself. Well, to them anyway.
Obituaries: In the newspaper business, obituary writing is serious stuff usually, but The Guardian has just run an amusing takeoff on obits--thank Jane Smiley who posted the link a few hours ago. As an ex obit writer myself, it caught my attention, made me remember my days in the Times newsroom on West 43rd Street. The daily paper was 96 pages then, more than twice as thick as now, and there were always many obituaries, unlike now when three seems to be the limit. We, the reporters, were regularly assigned to write them, mostly of people not dead yet, some of whom failed to die for months or years in the future. Every public figure, especially the very old or very sick--that is, judged by the editors about to cash out--got an obit written in advance, and ex-presidents and the like merited pre written obits that would fill an entire newspaper page when the time came. These were updated regularly and were even kept in type up in the composing room ready to go, sometimes for years. The Times was nothing if not prepared. Because all of us were assigned to write obits from time to time they were much on our minds and during slow news days some of our number amused themselves by writing their own obits, or the obit of the guy at the next desk, and some of these went into the files for possible future use. Certain reporters came to specialize in major obits, wrote them beautifully and became somewhat famous. Alden Whitman comes to mind. The rest of us got assigned smaller, last minute things on lesser figures who, even as we wrote, were cooling out fast. I spent most of my six years on the Times as a correspondent in Europe and, briefly, North Africa, only the last four months in New York in the newsroom, so I only got to write one obit. It was about a man famous for being Greta Garbo's escort. I had never heard of him, and it's hard to believe he would not make the cut today. I only had an hour to write it. I phoned frantically around trying to find out who he was, trying to find people to say nice things about him. I never got through to Greta and couldn't wait for her, so I can't regale you with that particular anecdote. But I have sometimes wondered if she ever read my piece and (like all writers) what she thought of it.
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