The 'i' Character In Journalism Is Almost

A Lawsuit Is To Ordinary Life What War Is To Peacetime. In A Lawsuit, Everybody On The Other Side Is Bad. A Trial Transcript Is A Discourse In Malevolence.

The Writer, Like The Murderer, Needs A Motive.

There Are Good Photographers Who Might Elevate Themselves To The Ranks Of The Great Simply By Burning Most Of Their Work.

Biography Is The Medium Through Which The Remaining Secrets Of The Famous Dead Are Taken From Them And Dumped Out In Full View Of The World. The Biographer At Work, Indeed, Is Like The Professional Burglar, Breaking Into A House, Rifling Through Certain Drawers That He Has Good Reason To Think Contain The Jewelry And Money, And Triumphantly Bearing His Loot Away.

The ‘i’ Character In Journalism Is Almost Pure Invention. Unlike The ‘i’ Of Autobiography, Who Is Meant To Be Seen As A Representation Of The Writer, The ‘i’ Of Journalism Is Connected To The Writer Only In A Tenuous Way—the Way, Say, That Superman Is Connected To Clark Kent. The Journalistic ‘i’ Is An Overreliable Narrator, A Functionary To Whom Crucial Tasks Of Narration And Argument And Tone Have Been Entrusted, An Ad Hoc Creation, Like The Chorus Of Greek Tragedy. He Is An Emblematic Figure, An Embodiment Of The Idea Of The Dispassionate Observer Of Life.