Word: salesmen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
DIED. Miriam Ottenberg, 68, investigative journalist for the Washington Star (1937-75) and winner of a 1960 Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles exposing the crooked techniques of used-car salesmen; of cancer; in Washington, D.C. Ottenberg would often impersonate a typical consumer, expose a fraudulent business, and then write about the laws that were instituted or adapted as a result. Said Robert Kennedy when he was Attorney General: "I sometimes think she is the secret head of the Justice Department...
DeLillo's salesmen carry more than lethal baggage, however, and they are more than walking editorials against fanaticism on one border and imperialism on the other. The author's main weapon, and his most formidable defense, is the word in description and dialogue. As Axton finally ascends the Acropolis, a pilgrimage he formerly dismissed as touristy, he speaks the author's mind as well as his own: "I move past the scaffolding and walk down the steps, hearing one language after another, rich, harsh, mysterious, strong. This is what we bring to the temple, not prayer...
Variety hews more closely to accepted journalistic standards than the Reporter. When Variety moved offices in 1972, outspoken Editor Thomas Pryor literally had a wall constructed between the business and editorial areas to discourage advertising salesmen from trying to influence coverage of their clients. "If you print something worthwhile, you get respected," says Pryor, 70, editor since 1959. "If you don't, you become a house organ." In fact, while both papers yearn to be taken seriously as tough, independent journalistic enterprises (and both have shown grit and knowledge in covering events like the ouster in July of embattled...
Then factory hands and clerks stream back from the beaches and backyards to their lathes and typewriters, and salesmen hit the road again, knowing that their customers will once more be at their desks rather than on the golf links or tennis courts. Everyone, from the executive suite (indeed, the Oval Office) to the grocery checkout, tries to read the early signs to divine what is likely to occur in the months ahead. The chief questions: When is the economic recovery coming, and how strong will...
...investors clamored for more stones, companies sprang up to meet the demand. Ignoring business practices that were transplanted from Europe a century ago, young salesmen began marketing the gems as investments, not jewelry. Some of the new firms used hard-sell, boiler-room techniques. Customers buying a stone were given a certificate that theoretically verified its worth by attesting to its color and brilliance. The largest firm in the field was International Diamond Corp., which in its six years of existence sold 250,000 stones. IDC buyers received a promise that the firm would help resell the stones and were...