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February 1995 -- Dinner -- Mortons, Beverly Hill, California: I was invited to have dinner with Robert Sheer and Narda Zacchino of the Los Angeles Times, along with George Stephanopoulos and his brother. I sat next to George. He gave me one of my first lessons in how stories are created about our times and about the people who lead us:
"Clinton’s gonna win in ‘96 because that’s the best narrative."
To me, it seemed early to predict such a thing, but I was all ears.
"A narrative abut a guy who is falling and pulls himself up is a good narrative. What the press wants is the most interesting narrative."
I had never thought that our reality was so dependent on narratives. I was hoping that who won had to do with voters. But given that there aren’t so many voters, it may be that we need narratives to create a certain fiction.
-- Anna Deveare Smith, Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics
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