Books like Paper Losses — picked by fans

As a former professor of sociology and media studies at the University of Virginia, I was (and, of course, remain!) interested in the history of communication. In this book, I discovered the backstory to the creation of well-known documents that fueled the American Revolution and fostered lively debate in the ensuing decades.

I also enjoyed reading about writers, publishers, and printers (often, one and the same) whose literary works raised mudslinging to an art form and deepened divisions that threatened to upend the grand experiment of democracy in its infancy. But somehow, the incendiary press of the late eighteenth century became “the basis of a humane and enduring society.”

This is primarily the story of three newspapers--James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald, Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, and the merged paper under the ownership of diplomat and politician Whitelaw Reid and his heirs, including his daughter-in-law, Helen Rogers Reid, a firecracker of an executive and woman about town. But it is also a comprehensive story of New York newspapering from the 1830s to the 1960s and about the city and country that served as the focus for news coverage during those decades. It is a poignant tale of soaring triumphs and ultimate decline as new challenges beset the newspaper business and even large cities could no longer support multiple papers.

No other magazine ever burst upon the national scene with as much financial and editorial force as Life, founded by Henry Luce in 1936 to exploit the new technology of high-shutter-speed cameras that could capture events and activities like never before. Luce’s vision (actually, it came initially from his future wife, Clare Boothe Luce) was to stir the human spirit with photos of sports stars in action, the magnitude of huge structures such as the Grand Coulee Dam, a baby being born, the agony of war. With such photography mixed with probing and discursive long-form journalism, Luce transformed American magazine journalism--and got very, very rich in the process.

Before Life there was the Saturday Evening Post, a roaring success capturing the spirit of Middle America at a time when Middle America defined the cultural ethos of the nation. But by the late 1950s the potent reach of television advertising undermined the general-interest magazine business model, and the Post slipped into an inexorable spiral of decline that its top executives could never quite handle or even understand. There’s plenty of pathos and human drama as they struggle with forces beyond their control. 

This cover completely drew me in because the typewriter, cityscape, and WWII airplanes all show an urgency and a story just waiting to be told. Cohen writes about prominent WWII foreign correspondents, including Dorothy Thompson and Frances Fineman, who travel the world in search of the latest war update. It was certainly not as easy to get from country to country back then—especially across vast oceans—so I really appreciated their determination to travel. 

First published in 1990 – based on a series of articles originally written for The New Yorker, this book is a warning to true crime authors the world over about the morality of reaching out and writing with and about murderers. 

The journalist in question is Joe McGinniss and the murderer is the former Special Forces Captain Dr Jeffrey MacDonald who became the subject of McGinniss’s 1983 book Fatal Vision. Is it ethical to collaborate with someone who has been accused of murder? What are the pitfalls that need to be managed? And, at the end of the day, who is conning who – the journalist or the murderer?

Journalism takes many forms, and this readable study by a journalist-turned-academic examines some of the more alternative styles and outlets that operate beyond the corporate mainstream media industries. Alternative they may be, but the projects studied by Forde produce proper journalism rather than the uninformed commentary or aggressive shouting adopted by some who like to style themselves as ‘alternative media.’ None of the journalists she interviews would see themselves as heroes but, by defying the odds to produce independent reporting in the cause of social justice around the world, they engage in countless small acts of heroism every day. 

It’s clear that in this book, we are in the hands of master writing teachers. Miller and Paola’s guide will help any writer, but particularly a beginning writer, find their way into a fruitful writing practice. The book contains essays on craft, inspiring examples, and writing prompts that are sure to launch readers into their own stories.

Though this book is specifically geared toward nonfiction writers, a writer of any genre will find useful and encouraging nuggets of wisdom here. 

At the end of a busy day, which is always almost 12 hours long, it is often difficult to wind down, and a David Gemmell book with its inspirational lessons was always perfect until the books ran out. Rereading them can only be done so many times, and reluctantly, I decided to try one of the two books he wrote in a genre I am never usually interested in.

Many people forget that he used to be a journalist and wrote two books that draw on that experience, but this one is by far my favorite. The PR blurb fails to mention that at the heart of this story, it is about propaganda in the media, and Gemmell is a master storyteller. His journalism experience makes it highly authentic in his portrayal of local journalism struggling to survive, and if you are a Gemmell sword and sorcery fan, you will… show more.

A highly perceptive if rather depressing examination of how the British media works, how expensive investigative journalism has largely given way to opinion columns and trivia about so-called celebrities, how stories are often not stories, how papers dress up partisan opinion as fact. In short, an exposure of the falsehoods, distortion, and propaganda that have corrupted the media. Nick Davies was a journalist at the Guardian.