Life and LettersLIFE AND LETTERS
I was witness to the making of a 'scoop' in 1936 when the
Spanish Civil War was on and the insurgents penetrated the outer suburbs of
Madrid.
In the dingy office of one of our revered Sunday
newspapers a drunken journalist sat before his typewriter and tapped out the
dateline…MADRID. ‘As I write this’, he typed, ‘I can hear the guns of Franco's
victorious troops entering Madrid. My hotel is.,. now coming under fire ...
and time is short.’
The following day the story appeared as a
front-page report from the battlefield with a streamer headline, reading
'Madrid Has Fallen: Of course Madrid did not fall for another two and a half
years.
At the Wednesday editorial conference the
editor greeted the journalist warmly— ‘A very near thing,’ he said, ‘suppose it had fallen,
what a scoop we would have had!’
- From Confessions of a Writer by Vincent Brame.
After the 1973 Middle East war Bernard D. Nossiter of the
Washington Post wrote: There is a singular frustration in covering a war
in progress. Nothing and no one is worthy of much belief and a reporter's own
senses—sight, smell and insight—are of remarkably limited use.
Three weeks of reporting from the Israeli side left me
more convinced than ever that journalism is much like firing a mortar. To get
anywhere near the target, you must first overshoot, then undershoot and
hopefully come close on the third round.' There are two ways of doing the job;
either sit in Tel Aviv to get the big picture or move out by press bus or
rented car for a limited glimpse of a fighting front. Both were splendidly
unsatisfactory.
-From Coups and Earthquakes: Reporting the World for America
by Mort Rosenblum.
Ever since I can
remember, our home has harboured a fourth child—I Dunno. Everyone sees him but me.
All r know is, he's rotten.
‘Who left the front door open?’
‘I Dunno.’
‘Who left the soap melt
down the drain?’
‘I Dunno.’
‘Who ate the banana I was saving for the
cake?’
‘I Dunno.’
Frankly, I Dunno is driving me nuts. He's
lost two umbrellas, four pairs of boots and a bicycle.
This morning at breakfast I said to my husband,
‘Who wants liver for dinner this evening?’
He looked up and said, ‘I don't care.’
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