John Q. Public

Conor profiles Greg Packer, the most often quoted man on the street:

Our "authentic" man on the street is in a sense our elitist notion of Everyman: he dresses sloppily, wearing rumpled tee-shirts and baggy, formless shorts as Mr. Packer does; he holds a bunched up newspaper, and speaks nothing like a spokesperson or a pithy sound-byte man, but punctuates his sentences with the ums and uhs of the American vernacular, imperfections reporters excise from Greg Packer quotes as a courtesy to our source and our readers.

The curse words that slip into Mr. Packer's sentences when he is exercised only aid his blundering seduction, which culminates in an uncanny ability to speak on any subject and articulate without fail whatever sentiment New York City reporters expect John Q. Public to express.

2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan