Scrapbook Jottings–4

JFK killing wire copy: Associated Press story sent to newspapers through teleprinter sold at a New York auction in March 1997. Seven-foot paper roll of AP story, giving a moment-to-moment account of the first 90 minutes after the JFK killing (Nov.22, 1963, at Dalles) fetched $10,000, for a disabled Vietnam veteran Donald Zammit, who had found the wire copy in an envelope after his father’s death.

Newspapermen: Most of what they do is superficial, out of balance, prejudicial when they claim impartiality, and riddled with inaccuracies. They blame inaccuracies on an obsession with speed, which is used the way a cripple uses a crutch. Being slower, checking facts before they storm into print might be better public service. They are critics, self-appointed judges of everybody’s failings except their own. (Do not know who said this, where, when and in which context.)