In the 1920's V. S. Pritchett enjoyed a brief stint as a reporter with the Christian Science Monitor. The experience proved less enjoyable for Pritchett's editors.

In 1922, Pritchett was sent to cover the war in Spanish Morocco. "Any enterprising reporter would have gone into the hills to interview the Moroccan leader Abdul Krin, but not me," he recalled. "The idea filled me with horror and I vigorously abstained. All I heard was a lot of gunfire in the evenings, but it was a lovely country."

[Pritchett (who once skipped the resignation of a Cabinet minister because he "counld't see how it mattered") later admitted: "I simply didn't know what news was... Even now I don't know what news is."]