Mal educato

For the FT, Rahul Jacob has tea with Miss Manners (a.k.a. Judith Martin).

An interesting thing I did not know:

Martin worked at The Washington Post for about three decades, starting in 1958 initially doing clerical jobs. Later, her reporting duties included covering embassy parties and social events at the White House. Well before Watergate brought the Post and the Nixon White House to loggerheads, Martin’s coverage of Julie Nixon’s wedding to David Eisenhower in 1968 irritated that excessively controlling administration. The Nixon White House gave journalists credentials to attend the reception but then cordoned them off in a room far from the party, asking them to make do with briefings from a staff member and write the story as if they had been at the party. Instead, Martin slipped by the security with the bridesmaids. A few years later, the Post was asked by the White House not to assign Martin to cover Tricia Nixon’s wedding. The Post’s executive editor at the time, Ben Bradlee, refused and the paper declined to cover the event.