BRESLIN AND HAMILL: DEADLINE ARTISTS
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: Breslin is Jimmy Breslin, Hamill is Pete Hamill, and both of them are journalistic icons, specializing as no-nonsense, street-level, man-of-the-people chroniclers. Hamill eventually went from columnist to editor, helping to save The New York Post with what looked like imminent and unavoidable collapse in 1993. That was the last year I worked there as TV critic before shifting to The New York Daily News, and I remember a brief out-of-the-office meeting with Hamill at a local diner, as he was holding court planning to take over and save the paper, which he did. So I’ll recommend this documentary on that basis alone: These two guys exemplify what the best of tabloid journalism used to be, and still is, all about. For full reviews, visit All Along the Watchtower from David Hinckley, another tabloid veteran, as well as Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes.