One dinner. Four journalists. And you. Whom do you choose?

Bradlee.

Ben Bradlee.

(Not picking on you; it's been wrong on this thread a number of times.)

And anyone who hasn't read his memoir should run right out and pick it up.

Amazing life.

 

How did this thread go on for this long, and there's been no mention (at least one that I see) of David Halberstam?

 

Mark Twain.
Jim Murray.
Edward R. Murrow.
Kurt Vonnegut.

 

I didn't see it as voting for the Hall of Fame, just journalists I'd like to meet who'd be interesting together yet not wind up throwing food at each other.

 

True, Frank.

I wasn't thinking of one group that would be interesting together -- good reporters love talking, get four of them together, and they're bound to mesh somehow. I was thinking of four journalists who have seen/reported on almost anything.

Halberstam's breadth of knowledge, spanning from Summer of '41 to the Belichick book, would qualify him for my table.

Others:
-- Dick Schaap
-- Grantland Rice
-- A tough one for me ... Will McDonough, just for the Boston influence.

 

Edgar Allan Poe
Upton Sinclair
Rick Rielly
Hunter S. Thompson

 

Dick Schaap
Jerry Izenberg
Christine Brennan
And it may be a stretch, but since he did write a couple of books, Arthur Ashe

And the only words I may say all night are hello and goodnight.

 

I'd take my chances with these four guests ...

21
BYH
Joe Hirsch
Gary Smith

 

Bob Woodward
Rick Bragg
Lewis Grizzard
Tom Higgins

 

Dan Jenkins, Furman Bisher, Dick Schaap, Chris Jones. Pitty-Pat's Porch in the ATL. Juleps on me.

 

Yeah, but would Bragg show up or just send someone else to the dinner to take notes? And I'd worry about Woodward starting a good story then stopping explaining that his publisher told him to save it for the book.

 

Hemingway, Thompson, Lentzner, and our boy Jonesy.