Jack Germond, a veteran political reporter, respected newspaper columnist and untelegenic TV commentator with a bald pate and a big belly, died earlier this week at 85. Germond, who covered politics for more than 50 years, was a journalist from the old school, and his passing reminds those of us who care about such things that the ranks grow ever thinner.
I met Germond while I was covering some long-forgotten story as a newspaper reporter in New Hampshire many years ago. We had a brief but pleasant conversation in which he struck me as tough and authoritative, but also gentlemanly and unaffected. It’s often been said that the people who are tops in any profession rarely display arrogance or an inflated ego, and Germond seemed to embody that in the world of journalism.
Here’s a link to Germond’s obituary from The Washington Post. It closes with this quote from Fat Man in a Middle Seat, one of his memoirs:
"It turns out that I have not made the world safe for democracy. But I have always argued that newspapers should not have any civic purpose beyond telling readers what is happening. If the political system is rotting away, as seems to be the case, it is our job to report it but not to make the repairs — except perhaps on the editorial pages, where they seem to think all things are possible."
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