The Wall Street Journal's "five best books" series moves on to the subject of journalism. With a marked American bias, obviously, Ed Murrow's broadcast scripts heading the list:
1.In Search of Light, edited by Edward Bliss Jr.
2. Not So Wild a Dream, Eric Sevareid.
3. A Child of the Century, Ben Hecht.
4. The Front Page, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
5. Sarajevo Daily, Tom Gjelten.
No room for Scoop??? Two other must-reads that come to mind, also about the working lives of foreign correspondents: William Shirer's Berlin Diary and Phillip Knightley's The First Casualty. The first volume of Shirer's memoirs, covering his journeys from Paris to Afghanistan and beyond, is worth digging out for its glimpses of a lost world of telegrams, ocean liners and a drunken Scott Fitzgerald gatecrashing the copy desk of the Paris Trib. (The accounts of the first live shortwave radio link-ups from Europe are gripping, too.)
The best-ever line about working in TV news, especially in pre-digital days: "like writing with a six-ton pencil". I'm sure I came across that in one of Godfrey Hodgson's books, but I haven't been able to trace it.
Comments