![]() ![]() The “first rough draft of history,” as with mock-humility serious journalism is sometimes styled, can easily be corrupted by all sorts of institutionally embedded problems, not the least of which is the journalist’s belief that second-raters are people he has had no previous occasion to take notice of.Ĭorresponding problems may afflict later drafts of history as well. ![]() Those of us who look to responsible journalists and to their daily and weekly product for our bearings in this confusing world must on this account learn to tread carefully. After all, anything that increases the value of publicity increases the power of people who give and withhold and traffic in publicity, such as themselves. It should surprise nobody that journalists should put such nonsense about. The moral we are asked to draw is: the best defense against being a suspected second-rater is to become a household name. There were no household names” among these members of Congress. ![]() Members of the committee are characterized in the documentary by narrator Charles McDowell as “obscure members of Congress, partisan politicians, suspected second-raters.” This description, says the Times reviewer, “is not uncharitable it is realistic. In my New York Times this morning there is a review of a televised documentary on the House Judiciary Committee impeachment proceedings of ten years ago. ![]()
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