About Richard J. Tofel
About Second Rough Draft
“The newspapers are making morning after morning the rough draft of history. ”— George Fitch, The State [South Carolina], 1905
“A reporter is the man who blocks out the first rough draft of history. ” — Fitch, The Daily Quill, 1914
“News is only the first rough draft of history. ” — Alan Barth in The New Republic, 1943
“So let us today drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history that will never really be completed about a world we can never really understand” — Phil Graham, to staff of Newsweek, London, 1963
Second Rough Draft is a newsletter about journalism, usually about it today, sometimes about its future, often reflecting on its past. Thus, it is also often about history, frequently history as it relates to journalism, sometimes just American history for its own sake.
It is written by Dick Tofel, whose other writing on journalism is collected.