Reporters now are better educated than the crowd I knew when I broke in. We still had guys shaped by Prohibition and the Depression, so the news business still had badly paid people who loved it for the life, because every day was different.

Things that happen every day are, frankly, what we in the news business aren't good at covering because there is no one day in which they are news.

In the '70s, the newspaper guild managed to get people paid what they were worth, but the reporters suddenly became middle class. It's much more respectable, more uptight, and everyone speaks in guarded tones. And the writing isn't as good. We always had guys who were failed poets and failed novelists who did it to eat.

Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.

Every day I try to push the boundaries, and it's paid off.

It's an ordinary day for Brian. Like, he died every day, you know.