A Writers Life - Gay Talese
By Gay Talese C 2005
Alfred A Knopf publisher
excerpts from pages 190-191 hardback
"On those rare occasions when what we did was newsworthy but was also embarrassing to us, we could count on collegial coverage within the media, even from our journalistic rivals and the least discriminate of the tabloid columnists......We were courtiers, wooers, ingratiating negotiators who traded on what we might provide those who dealt with us. We offered voice to the muted, clarification to the misunderstood, exoneration to the maligned. Potentially we were horn blowers for publicity hounds, trial balloonists for political opportunists, lamplighters for theatrical stars and other luminaries. We were invited to Broadway openings,banquets, and other galas. We became accustomed to having our telephone calls returned from important people, and being upgraded as airline passengers through our connections with their public-relations offices, and having our parking tickets fixed through the influence of reporter friends who covered the police department. Whatever we lacked in personal ethics and moral character we might rationalize by telling ourselves that we were the underpaid protectors of the public interest. We exposed greedy landlords, corrupt judges, winders on Wall Street.
'There was nothing more perishable than what we wrote. This bothered me when I first joined the newsroom. As a Catholic, I had been conditioned to think in terms of the hereafter. Once as I sat sweating over a story, fearing that I might miss a deadline, I heard a veteran reporter calling to me from across the room: "C'mon young man, be done with it! you're not writing for posterity, you know." I did not know.... "
