Big Think: Gay Talese talks boozing journalists at the New York Times

American journalism pioneer Gay Talese describes the tobacco-filled and liquor-drenched newsrooms of The New York Times in the sixties.

In the rest of his Big Think interview, Talese pulled back the veil on many of our beloved establishments. Love, he surmises, is too vague and intangible to have any weight in matrimonial bliss. Similarly, sex , for all of its ‘mating game’ prominence, is far too akin to ordering fast food to hold any lasting value. Talese also shared his thoughts on the decline of journalism - blaming, among other things, the tape recorder - and explained why a childhood spent eavesdropping on old ladies helped to prepare him for a writer’s life.