Nat Hentoff Quotes
Max Askeli started this very good magazine The Reporter. In fact, Meg Greenfield, who's now the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, was one of the star reporters there.
Quotes to Explore
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I'm a wonderful editor. That's what I do best. I know exactly what I want. If I have to decide whether to wear the red dress or the blue dress or what should I have said, I am constantly changing my mind.
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I'd be far too self-conscious and insecure if I suspected my editor might be a better novelist than I.
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I am a news presenter, a news broadcaster, an anchorman, a managing editor - not a commentator or analyst.
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When I was 21, I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for 'The Simpsons' who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life.
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I totally alienated some reporters as I retreated.
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The only people who say worse things about politicians that reporters do are other politicians.
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I wish I could have a little tape-and-loudspeaker arrangement sewn into the binding of this magazine, to be triggered off by the light reflected from the reader's eyes on to this part of the page, and set to bawl out at several bels: MORE WILL MEAN WORSE.
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Show me a contented newspaper editor and I will show you a bad newspaper.
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Rolling Stone magazine would not say anything positive about me, and they were the tastemakers at the time. There were people from the old guard who insisted I wasn't a real rock and roller. Well, O.K., fine -- I'm not a real rock and roller. You got me.
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Book writing is a little different because, in my case, my editor is a year younger than me and basically has the same sensibility as me.
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Being a good writer doesn’t make you a good reporter, it takes hustle.
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With the possible exception of God during the writing of the Bible, every writer in history has needed an editor. So do you.
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I never thought I was a libertarian until I picked up Reason magazine and realized I agree with everything they had printed.
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Criticizing reporters is like boo-ing at the Special Olympics.
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Clay Felker was then - he had - to his credit, he had created New York Magazine, which was the first of the city magazines that covered the city and gave all kinds of advice and all that sort of stuff. And there were copies all over the country by the time he left. He had, however, a view of journalism that was very much, I must say, like Tina Brown's at The New Yorker. You hit 'em hard, fast, give 'em something to talk about the day after the paper comes out, as contrasted with William Shawn, who gave them something to talk about two or three years from then.
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William Shawn took over The Voice and tried to turn it into New York Magazine - very glitzy covers that promised practically nothing in terms of what was inside, very rushed paper anymore. You - not very contemplative, thoughtful or whatever.
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The name Bei Dao was actually given to me with the help of friends. When we were publishing our unofficial magazine, Today, we wanted to avoid being harassed by the police so we were trying to think of names that we could use. It was done very casually.
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The Rockwell magazine cover was more a part of the American reality than a record of it.
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Reporters listen, photographers look. If you are doing your job seriously as a photojournalist, your sight must be the primary sense that you use at all times.
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We don't really need reviewers, just first-night reporters who will tell us faithfully whether or not the audience liked the show.
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I've forgotten many things, but I'll never forget a melody.
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The man of petty ambition if invited to dinner will be eager to be set next his host.
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If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you all the time.
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Max Askeli started this very good magazine The Reporter. In fact, Meg Greenfield, who's now the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, was one of the star reporters there.
