The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, Capote, and the New Journalism Revolution by Marc Weingarten Page B
Authors: Marc Weingarten
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Biography & Autobiography, Literary Criticism, American, Language Arts & Disciplines, Journalism, Mailer; Norman - Criticism and Interpretation, Wolfe; Tom - Criticism and Interpretation, Didion; Joan - Criticism and Interpretation, American Prose Literature - 20th Century - History and Criticism, Capote; Truman - Criticism and Interpretation, Reportage Literature; American - History and Criticism, Journalism - United States - History - 20th Century
Ads: Link
he served as an informal apprentice at the
Sporting News
. He loved the way the paper’s words were converted into print by the Linotype machine, and the emphatic clank of the typewriter keys. Felker also accompanied his father to St. Louis Cardinals games, where he watched the city’s baseball writers frantically tap out their deadline stories in the press box in time for the morning edition. He buzzed on the energy of reporting, its frenetic industriousness, and he knew he wanted to make journalism his life’s work.
Felker assumed that he would matriculate at the University of Missouri’s journalism school; three generations of Felkers had graduated from there. But his parents objected; journalism was not something that can be taught, they said, but was drawn from the raw material of life experience, and it was better to get a solid general education at a quality school. One day Carl came home bearing an armful of college catalogs and spread them before his son. Clay regarded them for a while, then chose the Duke catalog—mainly because it had the most graphically pleasing layout.
Felker entered Duke as a freshman in 1942 and made a beeline for the school newspaper, the
Chronicle
, where he landed a job as a reporter. In 1943 he enlisted in the navy, pulling double duty as the sports editor and contributing writer for the navy paper, the
Blue Jacket
. In 1946, a year after the war’s end, Felker returned to Duke and eventually assumed the editorial duties of the
Chronicle
. He imposed his will on the paper, increasing the frequency from weekly to twice weekly and taking on stories that had national import. In 1948 Walter Reuther, the powerful head of the United Auto Workers union, was shot in the right arm in an assassination attempt by an unknown assailant and taken to Duke University Hospital for treatment. Reuther’s hospital room was sealed off from the press; no one could get near him. But Felker wanted that interview desperately. He recruited fellow student Peter Maas, the editor of Duke’s humor magazine,
Duke and Duchess
, and an occasional
Chronicle
contributor, to get in there somehow and land the scoop of the century. But how to do it? Felker found a pile of textbooks sitting on a desk and handed them to Maas. “You’ll walk into the hospital with these books, and they’ll think you’re a student,” he told Maas.
The plan worked. Maas walked in without a hitch and found Reuther in an unguarded room, willing to talk. Maas got his interview, whichwas picked up by the Associated Press, and Felker’s reputation as a ballsy newspaper editor spread to other campuses. “Oh man, when Felker and Maas got that Reuther interview, we all knew about it,” said Robert Sherrill, who was writing articles for Wake Forest University’s paper
The Student
at the time and would eventually work beside Felker at
Esquire
. “That became a legendary story among college newspaper writers.”
The trajectory toward professional glory was gracefully arcing upward, but Felker’s career at Duke was jeopardized by a missed curfew. In the fall of 1948 he was kicked out of school for staying out too late with his girlfriend, Leslie Blatt, and found himself prematurely thrust into the marketplace.
Which turned out to be salutary, because it allowed Felker to get some real-world experience. Newly married to Blatt and scrambling for work, he found a job through a friend as a statistician for the New York Giants baseball team, where he and Blatt double-dated with the team’s star, Bobby Thomson. Felker also wrote stories for papers that didn’t have a traveling correspondent to cover the team, and he contributed to the
Sporting News
, writing the first major story about a young minor-league phenom named Willie Mays. Felker found that he was comfortable among baseball players; he radiated self-confidence and easy charm, and he found that it opened doors for him, endeared him to those in positions of power.
Felker eventually
Sporting News
. He loved the way the paper’s words were converted into print by the Linotype machine, and the emphatic clank of the typewriter keys. Felker also accompanied his father to St. Louis Cardinals games, where he watched the city’s baseball writers frantically tap out their deadline stories in the press box in time for the morning edition. He buzzed on the energy of reporting, its frenetic industriousness, and he knew he wanted to make journalism his life’s work.
Felker assumed that he would matriculate at the University of Missouri’s journalism school; three generations of Felkers had graduated from there. But his parents objected; journalism was not something that can be taught, they said, but was drawn from the raw material of life experience, and it was better to get a solid general education at a quality school. One day Carl came home bearing an armful of college catalogs and spread them before his son. Clay regarded them for a while, then chose the Duke catalog—mainly because it had the most graphically pleasing layout.
Felker entered Duke as a freshman in 1942 and made a beeline for the school newspaper, the
Chronicle
, where he landed a job as a reporter. In 1943 he enlisted in the navy, pulling double duty as the sports editor and contributing writer for the navy paper, the
Blue Jacket
. In 1946, a year after the war’s end, Felker returned to Duke and eventually assumed the editorial duties of the
Chronicle
. He imposed his will on the paper, increasing the frequency from weekly to twice weekly and taking on stories that had national import. In 1948 Walter Reuther, the powerful head of the United Auto Workers union, was shot in the right arm in an assassination attempt by an unknown assailant and taken to Duke University Hospital for treatment. Reuther’s hospital room was sealed off from the press; no one could get near him. But Felker wanted that interview desperately. He recruited fellow student Peter Maas, the editor of Duke’s humor magazine,
Duke and Duchess
, and an occasional
Chronicle
contributor, to get in there somehow and land the scoop of the century. But how to do it? Felker found a pile of textbooks sitting on a desk and handed them to Maas. “You’ll walk into the hospital with these books, and they’ll think you’re a student,” he told Maas.
The plan worked. Maas walked in without a hitch and found Reuther in an unguarded room, willing to talk. Maas got his interview, whichwas picked up by the Associated Press, and Felker’s reputation as a ballsy newspaper editor spread to other campuses. “Oh man, when Felker and Maas got that Reuther interview, we all knew about it,” said Robert Sherrill, who was writing articles for Wake Forest University’s paper
The Student
at the time and would eventually work beside Felker at
Esquire
. “That became a legendary story among college newspaper writers.”
The trajectory toward professional glory was gracefully arcing upward, but Felker’s career at Duke was jeopardized by a missed curfew. In the fall of 1948 he was kicked out of school for staying out too late with his girlfriend, Leslie Blatt, and found himself prematurely thrust into the marketplace.
Which turned out to be salutary, because it allowed Felker to get some real-world experience. Newly married to Blatt and scrambling for work, he found a job through a friend as a statistician for the New York Giants baseball team, where he and Blatt double-dated with the team’s star, Bobby Thomson. Felker also wrote stories for papers that didn’t have a traveling correspondent to cover the team, and he contributed to the
Sporting News
, writing the first major story about a young minor-league phenom named Willie Mays. Felker found that he was comfortable among baseball players; he radiated self-confidence and easy charm, and he found that it opened doors for him, endeared him to those in positions of power.
Felker eventually
Similar Books
