YouSaid · the spoken record

Sally Quinn

lines on the record: 124
first: 2017-09-27
most recent: 2017-09-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And it works to this day. And then Dorothy McCartnell, who was another women's reporter, but who had covered the State Department, she was the first woman who'd ever covered the State Department. And she was fantastic. And she took me to my first party and we walked in and Dorothy turned to me and she Tiny little white haired old lady. I mean, and she turned to me and she said. I just have one piece of advice. I love all these one piece of advice. Yes, one piece of advice. And she said, always have a drink first before you. So she would head over to the bar and she would order her doubna on the rocks and she would knock it back and then she would hit the road. Go for it. That's fantastic.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, you have to cover parties the same way you would cover the police, the way that we would cover crime Just remember one thing there's always a victim and there's always a perp. You know”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“God knows people were smoking dope reporters smoking dope outside the you know and so the first day I was there I showed me a desk and I was seated next to Phil Casey who was an old gruff gnarled city reporter who'd been covering police for 30 years but he was a brilliant writer great writer and Ben had moved Phil Casey into the women's section as one of the first style reporters of course everyone was horrified and shocked and were you know fainting and so I sat down next to Phil and there I was and I was wearing white gloves at the time oh no oh yes ladies wore white gloves I wore white gloves to my interview with Ben I mean not when I was typing and so Phil said to me listen kid I just got one bit of advice for you and he said”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But really boring and flat. And Ben just said, you know, we're going to make that, we can't do this anymore And so he changed it. So half the people there were men and half were women. And he said, you know, let's get the real story here. Let's just, and he hired somebody to cover Woodstock. He had hippie reporters and mm-hmm.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Visceral kind of writing. Ben started the style section about two months before I came to work there. So he had totally redesigned the whole thing. It used to be four and about women and there were all these society reporters and it was all about teas and parties and the great hostesses and this sort of thing. And it was very genteel.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot of it's not digitized. Well, I write very quickly. Yeah, that's true. You know, I think a lot of people are a lot of pe”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whatever. Yeah. But sort of sociological study of what's going on in Washington now. I'm thinking of doing another one now about the atmosphere in Washington and the Trump administration. And sort of trying to analyze how things have changed.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So the profiles were one thing, and I also thought that that was a good way to understand the people who were actually running the country. And then I would cover events like I would cover conventions and that sort of thing, and I would go and I would sort of walk around, I would sort of write about the big picture, what was going on, the sort of zeitgeist, what people were feeling, what were thinking, what they were saying. And in Washington, I would do these overall. I don't know whether you'd call them sociological tone poempon.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I mean, nobody ever questioned the fact that I'd ever misquoted them. I mean, I just simply wrote what they said. But people did say things to me that they were later sorry for.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They didn't like that. Yeah, yep, yep, you know. The greatest compliment anyone paid to me was Henry Kissinger when he said, Maxine Cheshire, who was our gossip columnist, makes you want to commit murder and Sally makes you want to commit suicide”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, one of the things that my political coverage, well, I did two things. One was I did a lot of profiles. Right. And the profiles were, I mean, when you talk about people saying that I was mean, I would go out and I'd interview somebody and then I would write what they said. Right.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't mess up. No, because then there goes the dishonest media and the enemies of the people. And so we've got to get it right. And that's why I think the level of reporting now is better than it's ever been.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And therefore, you know, it's up to all of us to get it, get the story. And so there's people back and forth tweeting each other's stories from both papers and congratulations. That's just the papers.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Certainly at the Washington Post and the New York Times, and those are the two newspapers I have experience with. I've never worked for the Times, but half my friends are there. But I think if anything, the quality of journalism has gotten better. I mean, I think I've just been amazed at how fantastically well the post and the Times have done in this last over this last election and through the beginning of this administration. The accuracy, and of course, everybody now is so aware that you have got to, I mean, Ben's motto was get it first but get it right. And so there's this kind of interesting friendly competition between the posts and the times, where obviously they want to get it first, but we have to get it right. But the other thing is that people are, it's like we're all in this together because we're all enemies of the people.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you have to react to it. But the other thing is you've got to get it right. You've got to get it right quickly. You don't have time for all the editing that we used to be subjected to. And so going back to covering parties, it's kind of like that, where you're going out and you're getting quotes from all these high-powered people, and then you've got to call it in and it goes right into the paper. But, you know,”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's just the tools. I completely agree with you. And on some level, what we're doing today, because it used to be that you'd have a deadline of 7.30 at night, and then later for the later edition, 10.30, 11, something like that. And then you were sort of off for the rest of the time. And now it's every minute, you know, because you write a story, it goes up immediately.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I did. Elizabeth Bumiller, who's now the bureau chief of the New York Times, when I went to New York to be the CBS Morning News anchor, the first network woman anchor in America, they said, you can't go unless you find a replacement. So I went up to New York to the Columbia Journalism School and I interviewed all these journalists, Elizabeth was the star. So I hired her and brought her back to Washington to cover parties. She told me the other day, she said, all my friends were saying, I can't believe you're going to, you know, you went to Columbia Journalism School, you're going to cover parties. And she said, you know, it was the best training I could find.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the other thing is that you're at night and the deadline, you know, you have to call the story in. So you have to dictate the story. You don't get to sit down and write it. And you're on deadline. So it's fantastic training.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After eight o'clock with a drink in their hand. And it was incredible. I mean, people used to come, so then I would have reporters come to me and say, are you going to this party tonight? Henry Kissinger's going to be there. Would you make sure that you ask him such and such? So then I started doing political profiles and ended up being more of a political reporter.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that, of course, if you cover parties in Washington, it's not really a social deed. It's a political beat because all of the people that you're covering are people who are in the administration, the Congress, the Diplomatic Corps, the military. And I found that I never went out to a party before. I hit the national desk and the foreign desk and said, what do you need to know? And a lot of times I would break stories because I get people to say things over a cocktail that they wouldn't say interviewed.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I said, this is great, it's wonderful. But still I went down to meet with Ben, and thinking that nothing would come of it. And we had this fantastic Conversation. And we were very playful with each other. He was 20 years my senior and he was the editor of the Washington Post and I was this kid. But I was sort of, we were sparring with each other and we had this really sort of connection. And he seemed to like that. And at the end of the interview, he said, can you show me something you've written? And I said, well, I've never written anything. And he said, well, nobody's perfect. You're hired. And the next day I went out and started covering parties. Right.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was But then a couple years later, Ben, I got a call one day and I had just tried out for the play, and Ben called me and said, I'm looking for somebody to cover parties because at one point I had been the social secretary for the Algerian ambassador. And would you like to come and interview me? So I said, yes. And as I was about to leave, I got a call from the director of the place saying, congratulations, you've gotten the part. Oh, wow.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I had majored in theater at Smith College, and I'd had all these different jobs. And suddenly I decided I would go back to the theater. And so I went and tried out for this play called Joseph Heller's Play We Bombed in New Haven. I tried out for the lead. Meanwhile, I had met Ben Bradley when I had been hired by the editor of the editorial page, Phil Jaylin, to be his secretary. And he had taken me in to meet Ben, and I was just, of course, immediately dazzled by the sun god. It was dazzling. And the next day, Phil Jelin fired me because he said I was too overqualified. I couldn't type and I couldn't file.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I started at the Washington Post almost 50 years ago. And it was sort of an accident because I was sort of floundering around. I didn't have a job. And I was almost 29 years old. I was an old maid is what we called it in those days, a spinster.”
2017-09-27 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT