14 Didion's vision is clear and her use of language correspondingly vivid. She enables her readers to see. One might say that it is tendentious to argue for a particular view of journalism by pointing to the achievements of Joan Didion. There are at least three answers to such questions. But before answering them, it is necessary to do some owning up.
Journalists work under varying conditions and deadlines.
Some have much more time than others. But more to the point, just as the imaginative gifts of poets and novelists are unequal, so too are the imaginative gifts of journalists. Some are much more creative than others. Some are artists, which means they can invent with the invention, and some are bureaucrats, which means they can reproduce the invention without inventing. But all are imaginative in the sense in which Oakeshott uses the word.