The Kingdom and the Power: Behind the Scenes at The New York Times: The Institution That Influences the World by Gay Talese

Author:Gay Talese [Talese, Gay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780679644736
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-08-13T23:00:00+00:00

It was the general consensus on the eighth floor that the news reporters on the third floor, with some exceptions, were artless writers who lacked the organizational ability and reportorial depth to produce Magazine articles, and as a result a large percentage of the regular contributors to the Sunday Magazine were outsiders, free-lance writers and authors, or politicians and statesmen whose views Markel shared, or whose friendship he was cultivating: in either case, though the politicians and statesmen often required the help of a “ghost” on the Sunday staff, their articles were printed. But the reporters on the third floor who submitted Magazine articles received no such assistance or consideration, and those who had difficulty writing the way that Markel wanted them to write, or who would not conform to his viewpoint or approach on a particular subject, either grew to resent him or to merely refuse to accept future assignments from him.

In 1957 Markel was paying only $300 for a full-length Magazine article, and the money was not worth the aggravation of his criticism or his continual requests for revision. Meyer Berger refused for years to write for Markel. So did Brooks Atkinson. One reporter, Robert Plumb, who did accept an assignment, had it returned to him five times for rewriting. Finally, Plumb gave up—and, taking a pair of scissors, he cut his article into small strips, tucked them into an envelope, labeled it “The Robert Plumb Do-It-Yourself Kit,” and sent it back to Markel.

Markel was disappointed by this and similar reactions to his demanding nature. He could not understand why some writers would object to rewriting—after all, he thought, it was for their own good as well as the Magazine’s. His role, as he saw it, was that of a taskmaster, and they were to meet his standards. If they would follow the outline that he gave to them before beginning to write the article, an outline that set forth the thesis and the points to be covered, there would be little difficulty; but too often, he felt, they did as they pleased, ignored his outline, and then blamed him for being too rigid, too systematic. He was systematic, he conceded, but he saw this as a necessity, and he was no less demanding with his gardener at home than he was with his makeup editors at the office. To see one seed sown out of line was intolerable for Markel. He was offended by an overdone piece of toast, a misplaced memo, a slow-moving cab driver, a busy phone when he wanted to reach someone. He demanded aisle seats near the front of all Broadway openings, and refused to wait in line to see a new film, and consequently attended only previews. When there were no reserved seats for the preview of Marilyn Monroe’s Let’s Make Love, Twentieth Century-Fox allegedly assigned two office boys to occupy a pair of seats in the Paramount loge from 5 p.m. until the time of Markel’s scheduled arrival at eight-thirty.

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