Sometimes if you want a job done right, you just have to foul it up yourself.

Whenever I hear some bore from the press corps claim he became a reporter because of Woodstein and Bernwood I know he’s an ass. If had to name the one journalist who has inspired me more than any other I would say Carl Kolchak, from the television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Outfitted in a seersucker jacket and a jaunty straw hat, Kolchak, artfully depicted by the underrated actor Darren McGavin, would investigate the paranormal with shabby panache.

Kolchak (from the episode Mr. R.I.N.G.): "I don't know when exactly I was in this office last. Someways, it seems like I never left. But no, that's not right. For at least a few days I was away, far away, in the hands of men with no faces and no names. They broke me down, broke my story down, telling me how it hadn't happened the way I claimed. At least, that's what I think they did, between injections. Memories fade fast enough without chemical help, but if I don't tell this story now, I don't think I ever will."