Abstract
In an interview with Bill Hagerty, the playwright and former newspaperman talks about his journalistic upbringing, whether he could have been successful in Fleet Street and his view of the modern newspaper industry: "There's a line in Night and Day people are always quoting or misquoting - "I'm with you on the free press, it's the newspapers I can't stand", and because it's the only line people remember, they assume it's my entire view of newspapers. But... the good stuff is still good. I admire huge amounts of it, mostly people who go out there and file a story. From the very beginning I've admired foreign and war correspondents, all the way back to Sefton Delmer and Noel Barber, all the way forward to Robert Fisk. I don't give a damn about Fisk's so-called bias, I'm a thinking animal, I can deal with it, I can read round him - the point is it takes courage to be out there and get the story."
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