The news is staged, anticipated, reported, analyzed until all interest is wrung from it and abandoned for some new novelty.
Journalism is in fact history on the run.
Editors may think of themselves as dignified headwaiters in a well-run restaurant but more often [they] operate a snack bar . . . and expect you to be grateful that at least they got the food to the table warm.
Just to be seen strolling to or from a helicopter on the White House lawn, shouting an evasive answer to Sam Donaldson, must seem to the Reagans not quite satisfactory enough of a 7 PM presence, and this inane scene certainly galls the press.
To the public, the press is not David among Goliaths; it has become one of the Goliaths, Big Media, a combination of powerful television networks, large magazine groups and newspaper chains that are near-monopolies.
