The Elements of Story
Field Notes on Nonfiction Writing
Chapter One
The Cadillac Man
The Sunday Business Section of the Times deals only with
business, the economy and personal finance, which makes
its Op-Ed page the province of fairly arid subjects.
During my years as the editor of that page in the early
90's, its top five topics would probably have been
downsizing, re-engineering, emerging markets, the
federal deficit and global business transparency (don't
ask). Pretty abstract stuff, but the upside of this
abstruse field was this: If a writer or editor learned
to put a human face on a piece about the federal
deficit, he learned to put it on anything.
That is what happened to me. One of the other big
business stories of those days, the decline of brands,
is a good illustration of my experience:
Cowed by the recession of the early 90's, Americans grew
reluctant to fork over extra cash just for the privilege
of buying a product with a brand name. Business
executives reacted fast, slashing prices on their big
brands and offering cheap, no-frills, brandless products
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