Hello Sweetheart Get Me A Rewrite cover
Hello Sweetheart Get Me A Rewrite
by A. A. Dornfeld, Tom Vickerman, Archibald Leckie
Description: The fascinating, often hilarious, story of the world's oldest continually-running news agency, training ground for hundreds of successful writers, among them Mike Royko, Seymour Hersh, Kurt Vonnegut and Charles MacArthur
ISBN: 0897332628
Found in 1 comment on Hacker News
Buy on Amazon
We may earn a commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Not ready yet? Get weekly book picks.
Animats · 2025-08-01 · Original thread
Reporters used to start at something like the City News Bureau.[1] For a century, the City News Bureau covered local news for Chicago and sent it in to the local newspapers. Lasted until 2005. Young reporters started there, covering every police station, every major crime, every major fire, every major trial, and getting the facts right, or else. The bureau`s unsentimental motto: ”If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

We need that again. As I point out occasionally, read news, and ask yourself which stories started out as a press release. For the City News Bureau, nothing started as a press release. They had people pounding the streets of Chicago for a century. Today, the pundit to reporter ratio is far too high.

There's a great book about the Bureau, called "Hello, Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite". (by Dornfield, not the one by Sears, which is something else entirely.)[1]

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/1990/06/20/if-city-news-burea...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Hello-Sweetheart-Get-Me-Rewrite/dp/08...