watched this great doc about former Times columnist Robert Scheer

heres why i love documentaries: i always learn something.

biggest was i never knew he was the one who interviewed president jimmy carter in playboy when the former peanut farmer admitted that he has lust in his heart.

“And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, ‘I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.’

“I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”

– Jimmy Carter, November 1976

from a reporting standpoint it taught me this: you don’t have to have gotcha questions for people. if you are an interesting, educated, interested questioner, and you create a situation where the subject feels relaxed enough to let it all out, they probably will.

the film also talks a lot about the concept of selling out. even though it was originally presented as a 1960s fear, it’s def something i was highly aware of decades later in college. it was the worst thing you could do.

maybe it was the recession, maybe it was college debt, but i have never seen a millennial concern themselves with selling out.

their biggest goal is to be an influencer. ideally someone who receives boxes of goods from companies and films themselves opening them and becoming a human commercial.

if i was six figures in the hole at 23, id be day trading Supreme swag on ebay too.

today seems extremely far removed from what i saw in this doc.

remarkably so.

 

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