Summary

The first essay in this collection is called “Alicia and the Underground Press.” Didion explains that the only newspapers in America which she finds to be remotely acceptable for her tastes are the “The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Free Press, the Los Angeles Open City, and the East Village Other” (33). Didion takes issue with all other newspapers because, in a misguided quest for ‘objectivity,’ they nevertheless neglect to inform the reader of implicit biases held by each paper’s writers. For Didion, then, a good paper is one which is open and honest about the biases of its writers, for it is only then that the reader can be fully informed enough to make their own decisions about the objective ‘truth’ of a matter. She says that underground papers in particular tend to...