Description

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It is said that journalism is a vital public service as well as a business, but more and more it is also said that big media consolidation; noisy, instant opinions on cable and the Internet; and political “bias” are making a mockery of such high-minded ideals. In Backstory, Ken Auletta explores why one of America’s most important industries is also among its most troubled. He travels from the proud New York Times, the last outpost of old-school family ownership, whose own personnel problems make headline news, into the depths of New York City’s brutal tabloid wars and out across the country to journalism’s new wave, chains like the Chicago Tribune’s, where “synergy” is ever more a mantra. He probes the moral ambiguity of “media personalities”—journalists who become celebrities themselves, padding their incomes by schmoozing with Imus and rounding the lucrative corporate lecture circuit. He reckons with the legacy of journalism’s past and the different prospects for its future, from fallen stars of new media such as Inside.com to the rising star of cable news, Roger Ailes’s Fox News. The product of more than ten years covering the news media for The New Yorker, Backstory is Journalism 101 by the course’s master teacher.

About the Author

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Ken Auletta has written the “Annals of Communications” column and profiles for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of eight books, including Three Blind Mice, Greed and Glory on Wall Street, and World War 3.0. In naming him America’s premier media critic, the Columbia Journalism Review said, “No other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta.” He lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter.

Praise For…

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“Ken Auletta is the thinking man’s press critic, press historian, press observer, press guru. He brings his great knowledge, energy and authority to bear in Backstory. He is the best in the business. Period!” —Ben Bradlee

“The basic calling of the journalist is to report today what will be tomorrow’s history. None practices the craft with greater skill than Ken Auletta, and his specialty long has been the news media in all its forms—print, broadcast, cable and the Internet. In his latest book, the prolific Mr. Auletta takes us to the news industry’s back rooms, where we meet some of the noted actors in dramatic confrontation as the business executives and the editorial side try to toe, not always successfully, the thin line between profit and journalistic ethics. Auletta’s book is as up to date as a cable news banner and is an invaluable guide to the most important players in our information age.” —Walter Cronkite“With his latest book, Ken Auletta reaffirms his position as our nation’s leading chronicler and critic of the communications business— the liars and the truth seekers, the media moguls and the spin meisters, the old and the new. Auletta’s work focuses our attention on what’s so extraordinary about the news industry’s transformation in recent times and what’s so troubling.”  —Gay Talese