I submit as a law of editorial physics that the author’s desire to include a fact in her narrative is directly proportional to the effort she expended to find it out, not to its relevance..
Editor: Betsy, this paragraph about how the congressman won a Boy Scout merit badge for whittling doesn’t really seem like something we need right here. Or anywhere.
Betsy: But I got that from his old troop leader! The guy wasn’t even in the phone book – I found him living in a mobile home at the end of a dirt road. It was a sweltering day, I interviewed him in Spanish…
-"When Journalists Become Authors"
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