THE WHOLE TRUTH

Daley has attempted to expose the shoddiness of the partial truths that make the great, grey front page of the nation's most prestigious newspaper. The scene is the Paris bureau of a nameless U.S. paper that, since it has a news staff of 4,000, can only be the Times. The Paris staff itself is rather small, only four reporters and twelve helpers, although what they are expected to cover is enormous. Excepting for new staffer, Walter Byrne Ard, roving entertainment and arts reporter, the staff fights daily to land on page one back in New York. Walter just wants to make the entertainment page, but his editor, Pulitzer winner Paul Pettibon, keeps sending him out on political stories Walter doesn't give a damn about. Also, Walter is having an attractive romance with a young innocent and this temporary Moscow assignment, etc., is just too much interference. Meanwhile, Pettibon's sordid romance with a secretary threatens not only his marriage but his job. Daley shows up the mystique of the dedicated reporter, the emotional dependency upon The Paper, the manna of a byline under a triple-deck front page head. Mercilessly, he reveals from the inside how the truth is inflated and distorted for the reporter's aggrandizement and job security. Daley's style is clean, his characters are fullbodied and the climax has both heart and verve.