Backstory: Inside the Business of News

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Summary: insightful collection of articles
Review: Insightful collection of articles which explores the state of journalism by focusing on individual newspapers and news companies. Most of these articles have been published over the years in the New Yorker, but the collection gives a perceptive overview of the journalistic world that so influences public perceptions of world events.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the price of the paper
Review: Ms Noonan, as you may know, is a one-note thinker, writer, doer - marching like a zombie to the neo-conservative band and continually spitting its trite and mean-spirited rhetoric. This book is merely another case of same old, same old.

Rating:
Summary: Online reviews are worthless
Review: Read what is written below... enough said.

Rating:
Summary: Get Me Rewrite!
Review: This collection of articles, most originally published in The New Yorker, paint an interesting inside look at some of the more powerful big media players. Unfortunately, most of the material is outdated, having been superceded by events such as Tribune Co.'s acquisition of Times-Mirror, the forced resignation of Howell Raines at the New York Times after the Jason Blair scandal and the emergence of Fox as a one-sided cable news operation no longer bothering to masquerade as objective. Auletta stitches the pieces together with a few short paragraphs between each one, attempting to bring the reader up to date. Had he taken more than the few minutes of time which writing that material must have consumed and attempted to revise his old articles a bit more, the worth of his collection might have been improved. As it stands, it's already a period piece.