Why contemporaneous records matter for future history

A probe into Gideon Haigh's worldview, someone I've anticipated interviewing ever since this podcast began. 

Some highlights from the podcast.

• On cricket: “Cricket marches backwards into the future — always haunted by its past.”
• On Warne: “He had perfect superficiality and the gift of putting everyone at ease.”
• On journalism: “Legacy media has become mindlessly negative. If they can’t own it, they destroy it.”
• On new media: “It’s amazingly empowering to write something and press publish — no intermediaries, no gatekeepers.”
• On India: “India has become the gravitational centre of world cricket — a nation full of gods, and some of them play cricket.”
• On memory: “Memory is a slippery thing — journalists are constantly trying to pin it down, trusting it when it suits us, interrogating it when it doesn’t.”

Gideon is a veteran journalist, author and the most eclectic cricket writer alive today. He has prolific output. He’s published more than 50 books and thousands of articles scoping a gamut of topics. Work, bureaucracy, the office, Australian crime, banks, business, scandals, cricket, cricket history, cricket politics, media, journalism, biography, memoir, and too many more to rattle off. 

Check out the video of this one (Spotify or Youtube). The decor is a very on the nose projection for Gideon's aforementioned interests. Lining opposite walls are two imposing floor to ceiling bookshelves eyeing each down for Gideons attention. Behind him a shrine to cricket and across from him a shrine to the rest. 

Gideon is also the co-host, alongside Peter Lalor, the wonderful Substack and podcast - Cricket Et Al. 

If you like Cricket than you’ll love Cricket Et Al.

... a few quotes from Gideon in the interview to leave you with.

• "I've always thought journalism was a great vehicle for curiosity"
• “Contemporaneous documentation — that which was created at the time — is the closest thing we have to truth.”
• “Part of the romance of archives is finding them — going to see the thing that no one else has looked at.”
• “We are too easily satisfied with low-hanging fruit. I believe strongly in delayed gratification.”
• “An inquest is like a lightning flash — it illuminates everything in its surroundings for a moment before vanishing.”
• “If the record spoke for itself, it wouldn’t need interpretation.”
• “A good historian has humility. They know they can’t tell the whole thing, but they do their best.”
• “It’s not imagination that’s rare, it’s perseverance.”
• “I’m interested in delighting readers, not just informing them.”
• “The minute I stop getting better, I’ll stop doing it.”
• “Journalism should be a vehicle for curiosity, not defensiveness.”
• “I’ve always thought the best journalism comes from knowing who really pulls the strings.”
• “The site, the Substack — it’s a hungry beast. It requires constant replenishment.”
• “I’m not just writing to be read. I’m writing to find out what I think.”
• “I dislike the term ‘non-fiction’ — defining something by what it’s not.”
• “Legacy media is in long-term decline. They can’t own new ideas — so they’d rather destroy them.”
• “The barriers to entry have never been lower. The barriers to making a living have never been higher.”
• “Cricket is a game that marches backward into the future — every feat echoes those that came before.”
• “Test cricket is romantic love; T20 is carnal love.”