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Columns & Stories]
Veteran
reporter reminds all: Stay true to course
Andy
Thibault
Norwich
Bulletin
Article published
Aug 6, 2006
How
did an old-fashioned-reporter become known as the father of The New
Journalism, a title he disdains?
Access, details and good writing vaulted Gay Talese to the top of the
literary heap.
Talese got the access by being a great salesman -- of and for himself.
I imagine Talese approaching subjects. Open the door and you might think
you have a new butler. A well-dressed man of a certain style will let you
know how lucky you are -- perhaps in an unspoken and subtle manner,
perhaps not -- to have a great writer interested in the importance of your
life. Didn't know your life was important? Doesn't matter. He does.
I saw Talese explain his craft recently to students at Western Connecticut
State University in Danbury. I was struck by his forthright rendition of
how, as a young man, he got a job at The New York Times: A good friend was
a cousin of the managing editor.
Hustle is not one of Talese's favorite words. Yet, I see him as a great
hustler, someone who is relentless and gets the job done. Trying hard is
not enough. He hustled his way from being a copy boy to writing stories on
his own time and gaining a job as a reporter.
At Western, he shared the magic of getting his first Times story
published, without a byline. The 74-year-old author of best-selling books,
including "The Kingdom and the Power: Behind The Scenes at The New
York Times" and "Honor Thy Father," the inside story of the
Bonanno organized crime family, still gets excited about nuts-and-bolts
reporting. After the recent publication of his memoir, "A Writer's
Life," Talese said he has at least one more great book in him --
something he has been saying for about 50 years.
Talese spent six years getting to know the Bonannos. It's the kind of
reporting with details more commonly seen in novels, except these details
and scenes are not invented. Talese's classic 1966 Esquire magazine piece,
"Frank Sinatra Has A Cold," is studied by serious journalists
for its approach and depth of reporting. Many readers come away thinking
Talese interviewed Sinatra for the piece, but he did not. To get details
such as the interior of Sinatra's parents' house, Talese gained access to
just about everyone else on the singer's 75-person payroll, as well as
many of his friends.
If there's anything that makes Talese ill about journalism, it's the
recycling of pablum by reporters who act as stenographers for those in
power.
"If I were powerful, I would like to break up the Washington press
corps," Talese told The Dallas Business Journal. "I think the
Washington press corps is too central to the central government's
power."
Today's so-called journalists, he said, want to belong to the club.
Talese's pitch reminded me of why the basics are important: Hang out with
people, write simple declarative sentences, afflict the comfortable and
comfort the afflicted.
He prefers to tell history from the point of view of the commoner. His
book "The Bridge," about the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows
Bridge, focuses on unknown workers and their extraordinary daring and
accomplishments.
Talese the teacher has many lessons that serve today's reporters well.
Take heed.
Thibault,
author of "Law & Justice In Everyday Life" and a private
investigator, is a mentor in the master of fine arts writing program at
Western Connecticut State University, consulting editor for the literary
journal Connecticut Review and adjunct professor at the University of
Hartford's Hillyer College. His column appears Sundays. Web site: www.andythibault.com
Blog: http://cooljustice.blogspot.com
LINK:
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200608060405/OPINION/608060345&template=printart
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