“Still, I prefer to think of all that the Newseum embodies—the sanctimony, the constitutional preening, the bogus intimations of danger, the religious veneration of saints and their relics—as a defense mechanism. Journalism, seen plain, is not a terribly impressive line of work. Some people do things, other people watch people do things. The news business is for people of the second sort. It’s a grubby game. What do journalists do? They call people on the phone, they ask questions, they talk, they type, they read newspapers and magazines and boring government documents, they type some more, they go to one place or another to look at something or other, they jot in their notebooks, they type some more, they think a little, they pause for a minute to sip coffee before they go back to typing. The dough’s not very good. The hours are erratic. Most of your colleagues are slobs. You’ll never have a proper office unless you become an editor. Your fellow citizens assume you’re an arrogant ass.”