Jimmy Breslin – Old Time Reporting

Just in time to be too late, I have a good question to ask at reunions, which are pretty much over for the year. Anyway, the question is — instead of the stupid-sounding “What are you doing?” meaning, “Where do you get your money?” — I suggest, “What are you reading?”

Ask me that question at any one time, and I’m likely to say Livy’s History of Rome, Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods (a best-seller in 1942), old copies of American Heritage, and, my current favorite The World According to Breslin.

While big-city daily reporters are transcribing police reports, Breslin is talking to the people who saw the guy get killed.

It’s a weird old-timey thing you see in the old movies. They used to call it “reporting.”

Breslin is one of the last practitioners of this ancient art.

Imagine going out in search of news when you can get the whole story over the phone or just publish press releases that get delivered right to your door!