The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune (Alfred A. Knopf, 1986) by Richard Kluger: Massive, award-winning book tells the story of the newspaper that for decades ranked right up there with The New York Times in the scope of its news coverage – and was widely acknowledged to have been a better-written, livelier read than the Times.
Media Circus: The Trouble With America’s Newspapers (Times Books, 1993) by Howard Kurtz: An anecdote-filled look at a troubled industry by the Washington Post’s ubiquitous media critic. Kurtz focuses on a number of problems that have been eating away at the credibility and economic viability of the nation’s daily newspapers, from the incessant focus on sleaze and scandal to the ultimately destructive demands of labor unions. Written before the Internet revolution, the book is somewhat dated but worth reading nonetheless.
A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures (Simon & Schuster, 1995) by Ben Bradlee: Top-notch autobiography and insider’s view of Washington from the former executive editor of the Washington Post. Bradlee’s most revealing admission is that had it not been for the press (himself prominently included) covering up John Kennedy’s personal and political sordidness, Kennedy probably would have been impeached or forced to resign the presidency.
The Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the Village Voice (Scribner, 1978) by Kevin McAuliffe: Whatever one thinks of the Village Voice’s politics, there’s no denying the important place the weekly holds in the history of 20th century American journalism. This crisp account covers the Voice from its founding in the 1950’s to the beginning of its slow, steady (and still ongoing) decline in the mid-70’s.
Read All About It! The Collected Adventures of a Maverick Reporter (Summit Books, 1982) by Sidney Zion: More than a collection of essays and columns, the first part of the book is a hard-boiled memoir of the newspaper business in the 1960’s and 70’s, when Zion worked as a reporter in New York for the Post and the Times. The story of Zion’s role in the Pentagon Papers controversy – and the shabby treatment he experienced at the hands of A.M. Rosenthal and other Times executives – is worthy of a book in itself.
Theirs Was the Kingdom: Lila and Dewitt Wallace and the Story of the Reader’s Digest (W.W. Norton, 1993) by John Heidenry:With its blend of political conservatism, non-denominational religious inspiration, down-home humor and old-fashioned patriotism, Reader’s Digest was long scorned by the literary and academic establishments but loved by millions of readers around the world. This finely written yet exhaustively detailed account traces the Digest’s fortunes and tells the not always flattering truth about the people behind the publication.
Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics (Free Press, 1991) by Larry Sabato:Examines all the major (and some not so major) political scandals of the seventies and eighties and how they were covered by the news media. Sabato, a professor of government, interviewed more than 200 reporters and politicians in the course of his research.
Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time (Times Books, 1996) by Howard Kurtz: One of the surprisingly few good books to trace the growth of talk radio and TV shoutfests – and the best of the lot. Kurtz zeroes in on such phenomena as “The McLaughlin Group,” Phil Donahue and his ever-shriller television progeny, radio shock jocks, and household names like Larry King, Rush Limbaugh and Ted Koppel.
Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way (Random House, 1991) by Ken Auletta: The 1980’s were a time of turmoil for CBS, NBC and ABC, what with corporate takeovers, the rise of cable and the revolutionary impact on the nation’s viewing habits of a little contraption called the VCR. Auletta’s detailed recounting of those years makes this arguably one of the two or three most important books ever written about television.
The Powers That Be (Knopf, 1979) by David Halberstam: Twenty-eight years after publication, this still ranks as one of the best all-around histories of the American news media. Halberstam, whose writing style could be leaden at times – especially in a book exceeding 700 pages – compensates with an abundance of interesting anecdotes and insightful observations.
The House That Roone Built: The Inside Story of ABC News (Little Brown, 1994) by Marc Gunther: For decades ABC was an industry joke, a distant third to CBS and NBC in both prime-time programming and news coverage. Then the late Roone Arledge, who’d already made ABC into a sports powerhouse, took over the news operation in 1977 and took it to the top. A lively and insightful telling of that transformation.
Who Killed CBS? (Random House, 1988) by Peter Boyer: As ABC News moved upward in the 1980’s, CBS – the network of Edward R. Murrow, William Shirer and Walter Cronkite – headed in the opposite direction, thanks primarily to a misguided policy aimed at injecting more entertainment into news coverage. Add an unstable ownership situation, draconian budget cuts and the consistently weird behavior of Dan Rather and you’ve got all the elements for a fascinating story.
Tick…Tick…Tick: The Long Life and Turbulent Times of 60 Minutes (HarperCollins, 2004) by David Blum: The story of how “60 Minutes” blossomed from a poorly watched experimental program in the late 1960’s into an American media institution. The details aren’t always pretty, but that’s what makes the book so compelling.
It’s Alive! How America’s Oldest Newspaper Cheated Death and Why It Matters (Villard, 1996) by Steven Cuozzo: Whether or not one agrees with Cuozzo’s premise that tabloid journalism “put[s] the nation back in touch with itself,” this behind-the-scenes look at the ups and downs of the New York Post is informative and humorous.
The Kingdom And The Power (World, 1969) by Gay Talese: Published way back in 1969, the book remains invaluable for its inside view of the individuals who ran The New York Times for most of the 20th century (Talese was a Times reporter for many years). It doesn’t hurt that the author is an accomplished prose stylist whose work always sparkles.
My Times (Grosset/Putnam, 1993) by John Corry: A highly individualistic first-person account of one man’s life at The New York Times. Corry, a political conservative who wasn’t afraid of tilting against the Times’s liberal consensus, is also a superb writer and sharp-eyed observer who packs more relevant information into this slim volume than most authors would have managed in a book two or three times as long.
Fit To Print (Lyle Stuart, 1988) by Joseph Goulden: To date the only full-length biography of longtime New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal. Generally perceived as an unflattering look at its subject, the book offers a plethora of juicy tidbits about life at the Times from the 1960’s through most of the 80’s.
Behind The Times (Villard, 1993) by Edwin Diamond: Media critic Diamond, since deceased, wrote this book in the mid-1990’s, shortly after Arthur Sulzberger Jr. succeeded his father as publisher. Diamond’s writing tended toward the pedantic, but the book’s strong point is its examination of how the Times evolved as a newspaper and a business.
(Three other recommended books about the Times are Hard News (Random House, 2004) by Seth Mnookin, about the scandals that afflicted the paper during the Howell Raines era from 2001-2003; Without Fear or Favor (Times Books, 1980) by Harrison Salisbury; The Times of My Life And My Life With the Times (Random House, 1999) by Max Frankel; and The Trust (Little Brown, 1999) by Susan Tifft and Alex Jones, a detailed history of the Ochs-Sulzberger dynasty that owns and runs the paper.)
