Recently, I went what seemed to be about 17 rounds with a publicist seeking to place an appeal for an arts organization who objected to my calling the organization small and struggling, even though it is. I shouldn’t have gotten testy about this. One of the casualties of the pandemic has been my minimal patience. But as a journalist, I always object to publicists trying to control the story, and I was particularly rankled by her waving the dictionary at me via e-mail, as if I were some recalcitrant schoolgirl.
In the end, we achieved a kind of detente, but only because I decided the story was more important than my ego. It always is. Still, I was this close to telling her she used another word incorrectly. Why? Because I wanted to score a point. I wanted to win.
Read More
