David Halberstam
David Halberstam
David Halberstamwas an American journalist and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, and later, sports journalism. He won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964. In 2007, while doing research for a book, Halberstam was killed in a car crash...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth10 April 1934
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Late in his career, when the L.A. Times started pursuing him in its new incarnation during Watergate, it was one of the great 360-degree turnarounds.
He knew that in film there was power, and he was the man working the film, and he knew he was good at it.
I read that piece and thought, 'I'm getting out of here,' ... I'm getting out of daily journalism because this is a level way above what I and everybody I know has been doing, and I want to try to do something like this. It's a very influential piece.
I have no doubt he would have been a huge success no matter what he put his mind to,
If you're a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong, that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring.
I am made nervous, as someone who works in the same vineyard, by the idea of inventing himself as a fictional character, ... It seems unnecessary. It seems taking a major liberty. And the problem with it is if you invent the fictional character and you take this liberty, then the reader is going to think what other liberties?