Book TV’s coverage of a June 2018 interview with veteran New York Times journalist Seymour Hersh, discussing his book, Reporter: A Memoir, yields a video that is compelling almost to the point of exhausting.

No action-hero scriptwriter in Hollywood could set a pace as fast as Hersh’s mind, which can hyperlink from idea to idea a few times in the space of one sentence. His memories deliver a human context behind major national headlines. He clearly cares passionately, still today, about the news he’s describing. At one point, interviewer Paul Holdengraber, director of public programs at the New York Public Library, notes that Hersh described himself as an “aggressive learner,” and that fascination with facts definitely comes through. Also, part of the energy and suspense Hersh provides is his refreshing unpredictability, in which he criticizes President Trump sharply but also pulls no punches in critiquing the past behavior of Democrats and non-politicians. #DRIBDRAB *

The other riveting feature of this video comes from occasional quotes Holdengraber occasionally throws into the mix. An excerpt from early in the memoir reminds me of Pope Francis’ May 2018 message about journalism, about which I reflected in my recent book, When Headlines Hurt: Do We Have a Prayer? Hersh is recalling the different journalistic environment in and around the 1970s, when his editors allowed him to invest time and corporate money in digging for interesting, important stories and there was less competition from the endless punditry and round-the-clock news cycles of cable TV.

Today, he comments, “We are sodden with fake news, hyped-up and incomplete information, and false assertions delivered non-stop by our daily newspapers, our televisions, our online news agencies, our social media, and our president. Yes, it’s a mess.”

Hersh is quoted as recalling that people used to trust The New York Times on the basis of hard work and sound judgment that went into stories–even the stories that disturbed them or with which they disagreed. Nowadays, many news consumers trust only the news providers who hold perspectives with which they agree.

At another point in the discussion, Holdengraber quotes from Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Gravity’s Rainbow. “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”

Another quote comes from a 1946 essay by George Orwell: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”

A gadfly might say that the “post-truth” era had already begun in Orwell’s eyes.

You can make your own judgments about Hersh based on his reactions to comments like these and the many tales and insights he offers. You’ll find several points of intersection with the insights of Pope Francis from his message for the 2018 World Communications Day, about which I have written. These points include the need for trust and truth, a love of the role of journalism in empowering citizens, and boldness in seeking the truth while not feeling “possession” of the whole truth or contemplating its weaponization against “enemies.”

Reporter: A Memoir. * Didn’t Read It, But Did Respect the Author on Book-TV. #DRIBDRAB.