Not too many Americans know this. More of them are convinced of Oliver Stone's version of the Kennedy assassination than the one provided by the Warren Commission. History as written by Hollywood studios has spawned a generation tormented by conspiracies. But this new genre, not content with the knowable, now threatens to erode the distinction between the reporter's art and art itself. Where the facts do not suffice, the drama is insufficient or the story does not have a neat beginning, middle and end, then poetic license is invoked.
Interior monologues proliferate and the subjects of stories become characters in morality plays.
And I am left to wonder how much longer they will be able to recognize the line that separates what is and what is not. At its core, the blurring of the line reflects a desperate search for audience by both the bearers of news and the tellers of stories. But there is a price to be paid for such an audience. It is credibility, no longer the ultimate coin of the realm, but a cheap token to be traded in for a bit part in a flick. He is the 1997-98 William Randolph Hearst Visiting Professional at the University of Maryland's College of Journalism.