Watched a fascinating HBO documentary last night on what used to be called “New Journalists.” It focused on two New Yorkers, Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. I was particularly struck by Breslin–not necessarily an admirable person, he was a brilliant writer and, even better, a brilliant reporter.

Two examples from JFK’s assassination: While the pack of print journalists hunkered down in front of Malcolm Kilduff for the announcement and followup details of the president’s death, Breslin tracked down the ER doctor who’d tried to keep Kennedy alive. The story even included the sandwich the doctor was eating when he was called to Examination Room 1, and Breslin’s description of Jacqueline Kennedy and her stoicism there is some of the most brilliant writing I’ve ever read.

Example #2: On the day of the funeral, Breslin looked around and realized he was one of 3,000 reporters covering the funeral procession. He broke away, sped to the cemetery, and found the man who was digging the president’s grave. It was, the man said, an honor, for which he was paid $3 an hour. Breslin’s story about the gravedigger somehow crystalized the entire nation’s grief.

The two journalists were a study in contrasts. Breslin agonized over every word. Hamill, like me, wrote rapidly and his New York “Times” pieces–on politics, on social justice, on the civil rights movement–still have a kind of shimmer to them today.

While Breslin was fond of the companions he’d immortalize in “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight”–button men, professional arsonists (!), mob lawyers, gamblers–Hamill was dating Shirley McLaine and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. His best work–on his own alcoholism–was yet to come then, in the early 1970s.

He’d almost quit writing in 1968, when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. He’d made a mistake, he said. He’d gotten too close to his subject. Bobby’s death nearly killed him, too.