There is no immortality for newspaper reporters.
One of them, Ben Hecht, addressed this matter in a short poem written long ago: “We know each other’s daydreams / And the hopes that come to grief / For we write each other’s obits / And they’re Godalmighty brief.”
There is no immortality for newspaper reporters but Deborah Cohen has done a remarkably powerful, enlightening and entertaining job of bringing back to life a quartet of long gone reporters along with dozens of other interesting sorts, in her new book, “Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War” (Random House).
