I'll admit it. I'm a huge gushing fan of Jimmy Breslin, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who recently returned to the New York Daily News after a long time away at Newsday. In these times of dwindling newspaper circulation, if anything can save the News, it's Breslin.
Throughout the 1980's I read Breslin's thrice weekly columns religiously. I'll never forget the one he wrote on his portable typewriter, while sitting in a lawn chair on a New York City traffic island. He wrote in defense of a homeless man, whom then-mayor Ed Koch had ordered evicted from that same traffic island. In his column, Breslin dared Mayor Koch to kick him off that island.
He returns now with a Sunday column, written in his eloquently readable style, with an emphasis as always on the ordinary citizen's point of view.
For me personally, Jimmy Breslin was an inspiration and an example of what good reporting should be. Without knowing it, Breslin motivated me to choose journalism as my college major.
With the return of Jimmy Breslin, the Daily News seems to recognize that a return to its true roots as a "Voice of the People" is the only thing that will save the sinking ship of mainstream media.
As an editor of the now sunk Miami News once told a rookie journalism class: "The role of the media is the same as it's always been: to keep the government honest."
Here is the Breslin link :
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/08/07/2011-08-07_2breslin07m.html
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