TMV frequent Guest Reviewer Dan Schneider has a fascinating, in depth interview with journalist Pete Hamill on his own website. Here’s THE LINK TO IT and how it starts:
DS: Pete Hamill, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for The Dan Schneider Interview series. The very purpose of this series is to combat what I call the ‘deliteracy’ of current and common culture, i.e.- the active dumbing down of art and discourse. Nowadays, many magazines that used to interview people of substance and ideas would rather speak with the latest pop babe of the month, or the current politician whose garbage is grabbing the most headlines. Additionally, even though most of this world’s information sharing is done online- not via tv nor radio, the Internet has become the largest haven to the Lowest Common Denominator- and a Lite version of the LCD, at that. Most websites, if they want articles on any subject, demand that the articles be about five or six hundred words, claiming that web surfers will not read longer pieces. I disagree with that claim, and cite my own popular personal and non-commercial website, Cosmoetica, as proof that it is wrong.
We seek to raise discourse back to the level it was, in the days when figures as diverse as Phil Donahue and William F. Buckley were on the air, not the Tucker Carlsons nor Oprah Winfreys. Before you, we have interviewed National Book Award-winning fictionist Charles Johnson, philosopher Daniel Dennett and this month we turn to you, Pete Hamill, a reporter, newspaper editor, and fiction writer. But, before we delve into the recesses of your mind and memory, there will be people who stumble upon this website and page, and click to check out what you have to say. Could you please give a brief syllabus of who you are, what you do, and what your goals as an artist and journalist are?
PH: That’s almost impossible to do in any brief way. I’m a son of immigrants (Catholics from Northern Ireland). I’m the oldest of their seven children. I’ve been a professional writer since June 1, 1960, when I first went to work as a newspaperman. I’ve published 20 books, including ten novels. I’ve covered wars and politics and murders and sports. Stating a goal would sound pompous, and I have no slogan posted above my desk. As any writer grows older the goals are always shifting. But I suppose that in my journalism and my fiction, I’ve tried hard to make the world more human.
There’s a wealth of info about writing, novels, his views on political correctness and the current state of U.S. affairs.
And there’s this GEM about the changing culture at newspapers:
DS: I mentioned Jimmy Breslin, and- other than yourself, he’s probably what most non-New Yorkers stereotypically envision as a hard drinking New York newspaperman. He’s also a fellow Irishman. What has been your relationship with the man? Are you friends or rivals? What scoops has he beaten you to, and vice versa? In your memoir, A Drinking Life, you speak of your battle with booze. Is this vice even more pervasive in the journalism biz, or is it the ‘curse of the Irish’?
PH: Jimmy and I are friends for 40 years, but I don’t see him much, because I don’t see many people very much anymore, particularly from the old days on newspapers. He was a great columnist, who re-invented the form at the old Herald-Tribune while I was still a daily reporter at the Post. In my mind, we were never rivals. I didn’t think about “scoops†much, so who the hell can remember now? But when one of the young guys attacked him 20 years ago in print, I went to the man and said: “When Breslin is gone, it will be like 300 people left the room.†Now, Breslin too has given up his daily column, and it’s like 300 people have left the room.
By the way, I have been off the booze for 34 years now and for the past fifteen, at least, Breslin hasn’t been drinking either. Neither of us could have done as much work as we did if we were Stage Irishmen. In our early days, the culture of drink was part of newspapers, a leftover from Prohibition and the Depression. Newspapermen (and women) then were paid very little money, and lived bohemian life-styles. Then in the 1970s, the Newspaper Guild finally got reporters the money they deserved. One result: they became middle class. Many moved to the suburbs, and a lot of laughter came to an end.
And he gives some peppery takes about the political scene, such as:
DS: What do you see on the horizon in the 2008 Presidential race? Is a Rudy-Hillary rematch a foregone conclusion? Will the Democrats ever take back Gracie Mansion? And what of Michael Bloomberg taking an independent run at the White House? Has he been a distinct improvement over Rudy? And, do you think Rudy’s, and his former law firm’s, shady financial dealings in pre-apartheid South Africa will come back to haunt him?
PH: Ah, hell, this could be an essay. And it’s too early to even think about. A few weeks ago I briefly turned on the Republican debate. They looked like they had been assembled after a RICO indictment. And they were discussing EVOLUTION! Eighty years after the Scopes Trial? Where the hell was Mencken when we needed him? I turned the TV off and started reading a book of essays by Michel Leiris. I AM uneasy about Giuliani with nuclear weapons…
Read it all.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.