Calvin Trillin has reported serious pieces across America for , covered the civil rights movement in the South for , and written comic verse for . But one of his favorite subjects over the years—a superb fit for his unique combination of reportage and humor—has been his own professional environment: the American press. In , Trillin gathers his incisive, often hilarious writing on reporting, reporters, and their world. There are pieces on a legendary crime reporter in Miami and on an erudite film critic in Dallas who once a week transformed himself from a connoisseur of the French nouvelle vague into a fan of movies like . Trillin writes about the paucity of gossip columns in Russia, the icebreaker he'd use if he met one of his subjects socially (e.g.: “You must be wondering why I referred to you in as a dork robot”), and the origins of a publication called Uniting all of this is Trillin’s signature combination of empathy, humor, and graceful prose. is an invaluable portrait of one our fundamental American institutions from a master journalist.