What Gay Talese has to teach us in an age of social media
In the age of the Internet and social media, we鈥檝e grown accustomed to idea that everything a celebrity does or thinks or experiences is news.
But in 1966, long before Twitter, Facebook, and TMZ documented a star鈥檚 every move, Gay Talese grabbed national attention by telling the world that Frank Sinatra had a cold.
Or so we鈥檙e reminded in 鈥淗igh Notes,鈥� a new book that collects the best of Talese鈥檚 journalism from more than six decades at the keyboard.
Talese rose to fame in the 1960s as a pioneer of New Journalism, a style of reportage in which the writer didn鈥檛 so much chronicle his subject as inhabit it, braiding a narrative from copious observation, immersive detail, and long-form storytelling. Talese鈥檚 topics have included gangsters and boxers, baseball players and newspapermen,聽 engineers, bridge builders, and restaurateurs.
But nothing Talese wrote has become as durably remembered as his 1966 article for Esquire, reprinted in 鈥淗igh Notes,鈥� called 鈥淔rank Sinatra Has a Cold.鈥� The magazine had sent Talese to Los Angeles to profile the singer, who through his publicist declined to be interviewed, claiming he was under the weather with a cold.
Whether it was really a cold 鈥� or cold feet about speaking to the press 鈥� that kept Sinatra away from Talese, the writer couldn鈥檛 say. But instead of giving up and leaving town, Talese continued the assignment without the singer鈥檚 direct cooperation, learning what he could about Sinatra from watching him closely and interviewing those around him.
The result was masterful, revealing Sinatra in a way that a conventional interview could not 鈥� for the simple reason that sometimes, other people know us even better than we do.
The story, widely anthologized, is often used in writing classes to illustrate how much can be learned by carefully watching and listening, even when a subject seems, at first glance, not very promising.
鈥淔rank Sinatra Has a Cold鈥� has become so iconic, in fact, that Talese wrote a later piece, also included in 鈥淗igh Notes,鈥� that explains how he pulled the piece off. In 鈥淥n Writing 鈥楩rank Sinatra Has a Cold,鈥欌�� Talese details the research that went into the assignment. He stayed in Los Angeles several weeks, 鈥渞an up expenses close to $5,000, returned to New York, and then took another six weeks to organize and write a fifty-page article that was largely drawn from a two-hundred page chronicle that represented interviews with more than one hundred people....鈥�
Now that the media universe has splintered and the economics of journalism has changed, few magazines would be willing to finance the travel and legwork needed for a piece like 鈥淔rank Sinatra Has a Cold,鈥� Talese tells readers.
鈥淭he road has become too expensive,鈥� he writes with an almost audible sigh. 鈥淭he writer is home.鈥�
鈥� Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana, is the author of 鈥淎 Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.鈥澛犅犅犅犅犅犅犅犅犅犅犅犅犅犅�
