I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think journalism is useful training for a writer in the way it takes the preciousness out of the pragmatic side of the craft.
Journalism, as concerns collecting information, differs little if at all from intelligence work. In my judgment, a journalist's job is very interesting.
I enjoy journalism; anybody does. You see the results immediately; you've got an immediate audience instead of having to wait for your audience as you do if you're writing a book, and you get a bit of money coming in, and you can see more clearly how you're paying the bills. But it's not a good position for the serious novelist to be in.
I have a journalism degree, but I'd rather be the person who is being written about rather than the person who is writing.
Journalism is a kind of profession, or craft, or racket, for people who never wanted to grow up and go out into the real world.
I had the traditional print view of TV journalists: Those are pretty people who get paid a lot of money and don't do any work. It turned out I was wrong.
The training of a journalist, of working with words for thousands of hours, is extraordinarily useful for a fiction writer.
There is a tradition that sees journalism as the dark side of literature, with book writing at its zenith. I don't agree. I think that all written work constitutes literature, even graffiti.
The dirty little secret of journalism is that it really isn't a profession, it's a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience and you're all set.
Journalism is literature in a hurry.