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Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life
"Sullivan remains the critic American journalism requires, a veteran practitioner with street cred, still in touch with the ‘unaccountable joy’ of reporting and writing that continues to draw talented young people to the field.” ―Steve Coll, The New York Times Book Review
Sullivan began her career at the Buffalo News , where she rose from summer intern to editor in chief. In Newsroom Confidential she chronicles her years in the trenches battling sexism and throwing elbows in a highly competitive newsroom. In 2012, Sullivan was appointed the public editor of The New York Times , the first woman to hold that important role. She was in the unique position of acting on behalf of readers to weigh the actions and reporting of the paper's staff, parsing potential lapses in judgment, unethical practices, and thorny journalistic issues. Sullivan recounts how she navigated the paper’s controversies, from Hillary Clinton's emails to Elon Musk's accusations of unfairness to the need for greater diversity in the newsroom. In 2016, having served the longest tenure of any public editor, Sullivan left for the Washington Post , where she had a front-row seat to the rise of Donald Trump in American media and politics.
With her celebrated mixture of charm, sharp-eyed observation, and nuanced criticism, Sullivan takes us behind the scenes of the nation's most influential news outlets to explore how Americans lost trust in the news and what it will take to regain it.
Sullivan began her career at the Buffalo News , where she rose from summer intern to editor in chief. In Newsroom Confidential she chronicles her years in the trenches battling sexism and throwing elbows in a highly competitive newsroom. In 2012, Sullivan was appointed the public editor of The New York Times , the first woman to hold that important role. She was in the unique position of acting on behalf of readers to weigh the actions and reporting of the paper's staff, parsing potential lapses in judgment, unethical practices, and thorny journalistic issues. Sullivan recounts how she navigated the paper’s controversies, from Hillary Clinton's emails to Elon Musk's accusations of unfairness to the need for greater diversity in the newsroom. In 2016, having served the longest tenure of any public editor, Sullivan left for the Washington Post , where she had a front-row seat to the rise of Donald Trump in American media and politics.
With her celebrated mixture of charm, sharp-eyed observation, and nuanced criticism, Sullivan takes us behind the scenes of the nation's most influential news outlets to explore how Americans lost trust in the news and what it will take to regain it.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published October 18, 2022
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December 7, 2023
Too many journalists couldn’t seem to grasp their crucial role in American democracy. Almost pathologically, they normalized the abnormal and sensationalized mundane.-------------------------------------
These days, we can clearly see the fallout from decades of declining public trust, the result, at least partly, of so many years of the press being undermined and of undermining itself. What is that fallout? Americans no longer share a common basis of reality. That’s dangerous because American democracy, government by the people, simply can’t function this way.My parents were both readers, which should come as no surprise. Mom, a homemaker, consumed a steady stream of mysteries her entire life, as least the part of it that included me. Dad worked at night, but would set aside some reading time every day, particularly on his days off. He was not much of a book reader, though. His preferred material was the newspaper. Well, newspapers. There was a flood of them coming in, the New York Post (pre-Rupert), the Daily News, The Herald Tribune, The Mirror, the Telegram, the Times. Not saying that we had all of these coming in every day, but all were well represented. And if you wanted to see what he was reading, it was not hard to figure it out. Next to his living room easy chair there was always a stack. If it were books, today, we would call it a TBR. But the stack had a life of its own, and a sorting that was inexplicable. He must have read a fair bit as he kept the pile from overwhelming the room, hell, the entire apartment. I cannot say that I was a big news-reader as kid. More sports than anything. I wanted to keep up with the teams I cared about, the baseball Giants, the Yankees, and eventually the Mets.
Margaret Sullivan - image from PBS
I was very fortunate to have been raised in an environment in which reading the news, every day, was just a normal part of living. Even though my parents were not well-educated—Mom finished high school. Dad did not.—they valued staying informed. There was no talk at home about reporters slanting stories, although I am sure they did. The news was like the water supply, presumed to be potable, and universally consumed. But there was one exception. It was not until later in life that I began to read the news with a more critical eye, but even as a kid, I could see that sportswriter Dick Young was a mean-spirited son-of-a-bitch, flogging right-wing bile that had nothing to do with sports. I guess that was my first real exposure, consciously anyway, to journalistic political bias. Young was not a person who could be trusted, even though he held a very public position at a major New York newspaper. I doubt, if Dad were still with us, that he would accept what he’d be reading today as revealed truth. But back then, mostly, though, we took the news at face value.
Margaret Sullivan, a doyen of media self-reflection, has not been happy with American news reporting for quite some time. The news media, in her view (and in the view of anyone with a brain) is far too concerned with the horserace aspect of political competition, far more than they are with the actual policy substance that differentiates candidates and parties. One of the most respected journalists of her generation, having led a major regional newspaper, and having held two of the most widely read and respected writing posts in contemporary American journalism, she has had a ring-side view of this in action. She worked for thirty-two years at The Buffalo News, rising to be their top editor and a vice president. In 2012 she moved on to be the Public Editor at The New York Times, and in 2016 headed to The Washington Post as a media columnist in the high-powered Style section. She retired from that gig in August of 2022, and is currently teaching part time at Duke while working on a novel. (01/2023 MS announced that she would write a weekly column for The Guardian)
She won a Mirror award for her writing on Trump’s first impeachment, served on the Pulitzer Prize board, and was a director of the American Society of News Editors. She has also suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous sexism, as she worked her way through her share of glass ceilings. She knows a thing or two, because she has seen a thing or two. Newsroom Confidential is not just a personal memoir of her career in the newsroom, but a look at the changes that have taken place in journalism and in our view of journalism over her career.
It’s high time to ask how public trust in the press steadily plummeted from the years following the Watergate scandal and the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s—when seven of ten Americans trusted the news—to today’s rock-bottom lows.The high point may have been the inspirational impact of Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting on the Nixon administration’s corruption, Watergate most particularly. It was seeing that journalism was a way to impact the world, to improve it, that moved her to pursue a career in the news. We follow her through the career travails at The Buffalo News. She tells a bit about her full dedication to work conflicting with the demands of having a family, exacerbated by having to cope with the extra resistance of gender bias in her struggle to advance her career.
But while Buffalo may have occupied the bulk of her professional life, it does not occupy a proportional piece of the book. The real meat begins with her move to The New York Times. As Public Editor, her role was to be an outsider, looking critically as the work of Times reporters. Not exactly a recipe for making friends. Most editors were not particularly receptive to criticism, constructive or not. The sexism presented straight away, as a Times obituary about a very accomplished woman opened with a description of her cooking skills. Her job was not only to write about wrongs, but to offer recommendations for improvement. It would prove a Sisyphean task. She writes about her personal conflict in taking on a Public Editor investigation into a story written by a Times mentee of hers. While it may have been an important and high-profile position, it was a very tough job at times.
One thing I learned back in my twenties is that it is not only the content of articles that merits attention. Their placement is also significant, as is the heading given to those articles. These are often provided by an editor, not the reporter, and are often misleading. Sullivan writes about the most egregious example of the Times doing this, in its treatment of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. The paper saw Clinton as a “pre-anointed” candidate, presuming that she would win. They wanted to be seen as tough, and were very defensive about being seen as too soft on Democrats.
The Times had certainly treated the FBI’s two investigations of the 2016 presidential candidates very differently. It shouted one from the rooftops, and on Trump and Russia the paper used its quiet inside voice, playing right into the Republican candidate’s hands. With a little more than a week to go before the election, the Times published a story with the headline “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia.” If anyone was concerned about Trump’s ties to Vladimir Putin, their fears might be put to rest by that soothing headline, though the story itself was considerably more nuanced. Even that reporting, not very damning for Trump, appeared on an inside page of the paper, a far cry from the emails coverage splashed all over the front page, day after day. We now know, of course, that Russia had set out to interfere with the election, and did so very effectively.That sort of selective exposure was not exactly new. The Times had been aware, back when John Kerry was running against George W. Bush, of a domestic spying program. They sat on the story for thirteen months, finally posting the information when the reporter who dug up the story threatened to scoop them with his book. The potential impact was considerable, as revelation of the program during the campaign might have impacted the election result. One collateral result of this was that when a later major leaker of government secrets was looking for a trustworthy outlet, the Times was bypassed, because there was no confidence that the paper would publish the material. The Washington Post and The Guardian received the materials instead.
She writes about the transition of the news business from paper to digital, the decline in readership overall, and the national decline in news outlets, noting some who railed against the change, and others who saw the future early on and climbed on board.
Sullivan’s real reporting bête noire is excessive reliance on anonymous sourcing, aka access journalism. Sure, there are instances in which getting on-the-record quotes is impossible, or even dangerous. But the over-reliance on anonymity has resulted in reporters being played for fools, being fed self-serving tidbits, often intended to dishonestly manipulate public perceptions, often aimed at using reporters as ordnance in internecine political battles, and far too frequently serving no public good. The classic example of this was Judith Miller at the Times, reporting inaccurate intel given to her by members of the Bush Administration in order to build support for a war that was already being planned.
In the digital age another piece of this is a compulsion to generate clicks. This creates an incentive for reporters to sometimes hold on to maybe-less-exciting policy stories in favor of pieces that are likely to raise a reader’s temperature. The old trope If it bleeds it leads has been translated into the age of digital journalism as favoring heat over light.
It is not really breaking news why people’s trust in journalism has declined. The news was once considered a realm in which professionals investigated and reported stories with an eye toward what was considered newsworthy. But with the demise of the Fairness Doctrine regarding broadcast news, the gates were opened for full-time partisanship in the airwaves. The concentration of media ownership into the hands of fewer and fewer corporations has diluted, if not entirely removed, local news reporting. Now, many local stations broadcast what their distant owners tell them to, including the airing of political puff pieces for favored candidates and issues, and
hit pieces for those they oppose. With so many places in the nation reduced to a single newspaper or local news channel, local news has become more and more a mouthpiece of national corporate views. The availability of diverse perspectives in any small market papers or broadcasts, has been considerably reduced.
The rise of the internet has had a huge impact on how we receive and perceive news. But a major reason, maybe the biggest, for a loss of faith in the media is the relentless assault on mainstream media by the right. Bias in the media is hardly new, but the unceasing emotionally-charged torrent of lies from right-wing media has raised dishonesty to a new, steroidal level. Every article that portrays Republicans or their supporters in a less than flattering light is attacked as evidence of some imaginary left-wing bias. One result of this relentless attack machine is that many outlets have become reluctant to report actual facts, lest they be attacked as biased. The Times, for example, took years to finally come around to describing Donald Trump’s blatant lies as just that. Can you fully trust a paper that is so weak-kneed about reporting the facts? Even regular Times readers must wonder. And, of course, those on the right now attack any media outlet that does not totally support the GOP party line. Even where no bias is present, many, if not all, on the right claim to see unfairness because they have been told thousands of times that such bias is always present. And the right is fond of using the threat of lawsuits to harass their targets. Trump is notorious for suing the objects of his ire, not expecting to win in court, but hoping to cost the sued large sums of money in legal fees, thus intimidating them, and, he hopes, deterring them from crossing him again. At least the Times has the resources to stand up to such bullying, but there are many media outlets that do not. Thus, MSM reporting slants away from truth.
Sullivan’s experiences writing for the Times and Post are fascinating, offering a view from inside the fishbowl, of the cultures, and some of the personalities, the battles that were fought against external attackers and the internecine conflicts that occur everywhere.
If Dad were around today, I expect he would approve of the many news subscriptions my wife and I share, the Times, the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily Beast, our local paper, et al. Our stacks of unread material may not accumulate next to chairs in our living room, but reside instead in a black hole of unread materials and a digital TBR of things we intend to get to. We have come to view news reporting with critical eyes, sensitive to biases that creep into (or are on full display) the text of pieces, aware of how those pieces are presented, where, when, and why. The sort of trust in the news that was extant in the middle twentieth century is gone. But that does not mean that all trust has been lost. For those willing to do the work, it is possible to discern good from bad, both in publications and reporters. But it takes a lot more effort today than it ever did. We are aware, as our parents’ generation was less likely to be, of a reporter’s bent. As the world has forced us to look closer at all sorts of informational input (think ingredient lists on food packages), we have become more discriminating consumers of news. This reporter can be relied on. That one cannot. The fracturing of the news into a galaxy of providers has made it easier than ever to choose only the news that that fits preconceived perspectives. But it is not exactly a news-flash that it remains possible to find quality reporting. It just takes a bit of digging.
As for Sullivan’s look back at her career and the shift in public perceptions, it is revelatory, informative, and engaging. If you know anything at all about Sullivan’s writing, this will not come as a shock. The bad news? The decline in public trust of media is very real, as is the reduction in local reporting. The good news? (I believe) people are becoming more aware of bias in supposedly neutral news media. Trust in journalism can be rebuilt, but it is clear that many outlets rely on readers/watchers accepting their reporting with uncritical eyes. After you read Newsroom Confidential you will have a greater sense of what the journalistic challenges are today, both for readers and producers of news. You will not be able to say That’s news to me.
Review posted – 11/18/22
Pub dates - 10/18/22 (hc) - 05/12/23 (tp)
I received an ARE of Newsroom Confidential from St. Martin’s Press in return for a fair and balanced review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.
This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi!
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Sullivan's FB and Twitter pages
Interviews
-----Time - Margaret Sullivan Can Only Indulge in So Much Nostalgia About Journalism - by Karl Vick
-----Vogue - Local Journalism Is Dying, and Margaret Sullivan Is Sounding the Alarm in Ghosting the News - by Michelle Ruiz – not for this book but a fascinating interview
-----The Problem with Jon Stewart- also from 2020 – also very good
-----PBS - Trump’s Showdown – Margaret Sullivanby Michael Kirk – from 2018 – good stuff
Items of Interest from the author
-----Sullivan pieces for the Washington Post
----- Sullivan pieces for the New York Times
-----The Washington Post - If Trump Runs Again, Do Not Cover Him the Same Way: A Journalist’s Manifesto an adapted excerpt
January 15, 2023
I should be this book's ideal reader: I spent a long career as a news reporter and editor before switching to writing novels. Moreover, I'm a dedicated political junkie. And this book promises to reveal the inside story of Margaret Sullivan's decades as an editor, media critic, and ombudsperson at such vaunted newspapers as The New York Times and The Washington Post, with insights into those newspapers' controversial coverage of the 2016 presidential election and other political headlines.
But before I was one-third through the pages, I was bored stiff.
Sadly, "Newsroom Confidential" belongs to the category of autobiographies and memoirs penned in the bland style I call "don't make anyone mad at me" earnestness.
Even though Sullivan spent most of her career editing reporters' copy (which inevitably means crossing out bits of their precious prose), laying off staff, and publicly flaying the Times's mistakes, everyone at every newspaper where she worked apparently was intelligent, decent, honest, and appreciative of her efforts. (Or, if they were sometimes a bit miffed at her criticisms, they understood why she had to do what she did.) She never made a real blooper or an enemy; she never said anything stupid. (She makes sure to call out by name long lists of editors, writers, and assistants who were particularly helpful.) For her part, Sullivan's criticisms of colleagues and employers are more in sadness than in snideness, with confidence that their efforts were well-intended.
What makes this authorial sweetness especially galling is that Sullivan -- quite rightly -- castigates journalists in general for going overboard in being evenhanded. As she points out, there isn't an "on the one side/on the other side" with a topic that's been scientifically proved, like climate change. Yet she does exactly that when it comes to relating her own experiences. Everyone in the book is so evenhandedly nice that it diminishes the credibility of whatever Sullivan writes.
The only reason I gave this book 3 stars instead of 2 is that it does provide a bit of an inside look at my old profession.
But before I was one-third through the pages, I was bored stiff.
Sadly, "Newsroom Confidential" belongs to the category of autobiographies and memoirs penned in the bland style I call "don't make anyone mad at me" earnestness.
Even though Sullivan spent most of her career editing reporters' copy (which inevitably means crossing out bits of their precious prose), laying off staff, and publicly flaying the Times's mistakes, everyone at every newspaper where she worked apparently was intelligent, decent, honest, and appreciative of her efforts. (Or, if they were sometimes a bit miffed at her criticisms, they understood why she had to do what she did.) She never made a real blooper or an enemy; she never said anything stupid. (She makes sure to call out by name long lists of editors, writers, and assistants who were particularly helpful.) For her part, Sullivan's criticisms of colleagues and employers are more in sadness than in snideness, with confidence that their efforts were well-intended.
What makes this authorial sweetness especially galling is that Sullivan -- quite rightly -- castigates journalists in general for going overboard in being evenhanded. As she points out, there isn't an "on the one side/on the other side" with a topic that's been scientifically proved, like climate change. Yet she does exactly that when it comes to relating her own experiences. Everyone in the book is so evenhandedly nice that it diminishes the credibility of whatever Sullivan writes.
The only reason I gave this book 3 stars instead of 2 is that it does provide a bit of an inside look at my old profession.
December 12, 2022
Click here to hear my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
October 23, 2022
Full disclosure: I won a free ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
Let me state, first of all, that I really enjoyed this book. Not only is it a look back over Sullivan's career, but a nice capsule history of the decline of America's trust in the traditional news media. I mean, "nice," in the sense of, "neat and tidy," of course. There's certainly nothing pleasant or desirable about said decline.
Honestly, I've never been a big reader of the news. I have this mental image of a person who stays informed by reading the newspaper on a daily basis, and it's an image that I have always fallen far short of. Even when I was buying the paper daily–decades ago–I mostly did so for the comics pages and the Sudoku puzzles. Most of my news comes filtered through the Daily Show and/or Facebook's algorithms. I'm not proud of this fact, just stating it for the record.
So I felt a wee bit guilty reading this book. I'd be engaging with what I read, "Yes, Ms. Sullivan. You're so right. People need to engage more with the news, and be properly critical of what they read, especially if it's confirming their deeply-held beliefs," while being uncomfortably aware of my own hypocrisy. To be fair, I'm probably being harsher on myself than I deserve, but still …
Ultimately, I did enjoy the book. It's an engaging story, well-told. It makes some excellent points, and offers some suggestions as to how media might better adapt to the current reality bubble environment we seem to have found ourselves in. Recommended!
Let me state, first of all, that I really enjoyed this book. Not only is it a look back over Sullivan's career, but a nice capsule history of the decline of America's trust in the traditional news media. I mean, "nice," in the sense of, "neat and tidy," of course. There's certainly nothing pleasant or desirable about said decline.
Honestly, I've never been a big reader of the news. I have this mental image of a person who stays informed by reading the newspaper on a daily basis, and it's an image that I have always fallen far short of. Even when I was buying the paper daily–decades ago–I mostly did so for the comics pages and the Sudoku puzzles. Most of my news comes filtered through the Daily Show and/or Facebook's algorithms. I'm not proud of this fact, just stating it for the record.
So I felt a wee bit guilty reading this book. I'd be engaging with what I read, "Yes, Ms. Sullivan. You're so right. People need to engage more with the news, and be properly critical of what they read, especially if it's confirming their deeply-held beliefs," while being uncomfortably aware of my own hypocrisy. To be fair, I'm probably being harsher on myself than I deserve, but still …
Ultimately, I did enjoy the book. It's an engaging story, well-told. It makes some excellent points, and offers some suggestions as to how media might better adapt to the current reality bubble environment we seem to have found ourselves in. Recommended!
November 8, 2022
As a journalist I believe everyone in our profession should read this. It not only talks about how the media is rapidly changing and its failures, but Sullivan offers real ideas of how we can fix it. It made me rethink a lot of how I operate and the change I want to be a part of.
December 21, 2022
Actually rating is 3.5 stars but I did enjoy this. I got a review copy of this book from Netgally but did end up listening to the audiobook once it was released.
I recently moved to Buffalo, a city that plays a large role in this book, and that did make this kind of fun for me. I even listened to part of this book while walking past the building that houses The Buffalo News. I’ll say that I enjoyed Sullivan’s particular stories about working in journalism and her general musings about journalism more than I enjoyed the parts where she tried to offer advice but all of it was at least somewhat compelling.
At times, this book felt like each chapter was written individually and then everything was shoved together. There’s more repetition than you would expect of a book this length. It didn’t affect my enjoyment that much but it was definitely noticeable.
I would probably still recommend this as a good journalism book, especially as a recent Buffalo transplant, but I don’t know how many new insights there are. An enjoyable read but nothing mind blowing.
I recently moved to Buffalo, a city that plays a large role in this book, and that did make this kind of fun for me. I even listened to part of this book while walking past the building that houses The Buffalo News. I’ll say that I enjoyed Sullivan’s particular stories about working in journalism and her general musings about journalism more than I enjoyed the parts where she tried to offer advice but all of it was at least somewhat compelling.
At times, this book felt like each chapter was written individually and then everything was shoved together. There’s more repetition than you would expect of a book this length. It didn’t affect my enjoyment that much but it was definitely noticeable.
I would probably still recommend this as a good journalism book, especially as a recent Buffalo transplant, but I don’t know how many new insights there are. An enjoyable read but nothing mind blowing.
August 31, 2022
From a very young age, I’ve admired and respected journalists to the extent that I went to school for Media Studies and Journalism later in life. Margaret Sullivan is one of the greats, so to read about her journey through the ever-changing journalism landscape was enthralling. This book is also great for people who don’t have any attachment to the news media, though. In this book, Sullivan touches on the “why”- why journalists think the way they do, why news organizations make the decisions they do, and– this one is big– why people should trust the media. The last decade or so has been a challenge for news outlets, both financially and when it comes to public trust. We are experiencing a hyper-polarizing time politically and one of the main tools has been distilling not only distrust but outright fear of journalists. Sullivan does a great job of explaining what went wrong in 2016 and even 2020 and makes really great suggestions on how news can do better moving forward. Whether you’re obsessed with journalism like me or just want to gain insight into how the industry works (or aspires to work), then this book is absolutely worth picking up!
December 12, 2022
This book is a must-read!!! Margaret Sullivan shares her story & how her love for journalism developed. In addition, she covered her time in newsroom in both New York & Washington DC. But most importunely from this book, she shared how we must press forward with news literacy. How we must ensure individuals learn how to distinguish facts from fiction in media. We must move forward from the assault on our democracy & the rallying cries of 'fake news".
December 29, 2022
This is actually very interesting but I deducted a point because she so matter of factly talked about how the media swayed the 2016 election away from Clinton. I knew this happened but hearing the tone of this book angered me.
November 6, 2022
Започвам да се замислям, че мемоарите не са моето нещо. Това е вторият, който чета и не ми допада.
В конкретния случай, ако живеех в САЩ или бях американец, може би нещата щяха да бъдат различни. Щеше повече да ми пука за написаното и споделеното от авторката. Вероятно и щях да знам коя е тя и всички хора, за които говори.
Основният ми проблем с книгата ми беше, че е ужасно хаотична. Авторката е журналистка и знае как да пише, но писател - ммм, имам моите резерви там. Трудно ми беше да следя за кой период говори, за какво говори, а пише ясно и разбираемо. Не беше в това проблема. Просто не знае как да навързва отделните си статии в подреден разказ, който да върви като книга. Почна от детството си, мина към младостта си и после уж към зрелите си години и някъде там пак почна да омешва всичко отново. Има сериозна нужда от ред тази книга.
И очевидно книгата е написана за американци и бъдещи журналисти. Явно не е очаквала напълно случайни жители и граждани на чужди страни да вземат да я прочетат. :Р Е, уви, аз я прочетох. Ако човек е любопитен на тема анализ на ситуацията в САЩ, книгата е доста добра, но ако просто ти е любопитно да прочетеш мемоар на журналист и да видиш какво е това, амс... не толкова.
Как да е. Не съжалявам, че я прочетох. Винаги е полезно да видиш познати събития и от други гледни точки, защото това определено обогатява теб като личност и ти дава по-широка перспектива над нещата. :)
В конкретния случай, ако живеех в САЩ или бях американец, може би нещата щяха да бъдат различни. Щеше повече да ми пука за написаното и споделеното от авторката. Вероятно и щях да знам коя е тя и всички хора, за които говори.
Основният ми проблем с книгата ми беше, че е ужасно хаотична. Авторката е журналистка и знае как да пише, но писател - ммм, имам моите резерви там. Трудно ми беше да следя за кой период говори, за какво говори, а пише ясно и разбираемо. Не беше в това проблема. Просто не знае как да навързва отделните си статии в подреден разказ, който да върви като книга. Почна от детството си, мина към младостта си и после уж към зрелите си години и някъде там пак почна да омешва всичко отново. Има сериозна нужда от ред тази книга.
И очевидно книгата е написана за американци и бъдещи журналисти. Явно не е очаквала напълно случайни жители и граждани на чужди страни да вземат да я прочетат. :Р Е, уви, аз я прочетох. Ако човек е любопитен на тема анализ на ситуацията в САЩ, книгата е доста добра, но ако просто ти е любопитно да прочетеш мемоар на журналист и да видиш какво е това, амс... не толкова.
Как да е. Не съжалявам, че я прочетох. Винаги е полезно да видиш познати събития и от други гледни точки, защото това определено обогатява теб като личност и ти дава по-широка перспектива над нещата. :)
December 31, 2022
The timeliness of reading this cannot be overemphasized. It is an important book by a credible journalist and helps make sense of the media in this critical period where democracy is threatened. I’m returning my copy to the library then heading to the bookstore to buy one.
December 8, 2022
Part memoir, part critique of the media, Margaret Sullivan has produced an interesting look at her life in newspapers, the changing role of women in media over the last 30 years, and an analysis of how media contributed to the current political mess. The fact that she hits on several key thoughts that I share is, of course, totally irrelevant to my awarding the book five stars.
Sullivan, who has served as an ombudsman for the New York Times and media critic for the Washington Post pans how media treated Donald Trump from the very beginning - giving him attention and a bigger platform than he deserved. She notes a comment by Les Moonves of CBS about how Trump may be bad for the country, but he is good for CBS. She also criticizes the effort by journalists to be overly balanced in their reporting. They would treat blatant anti-constitutional efforts by Trump and cronies the same way they would treat a minor gaffe by a Democrat. The two are definitely NOT deserving of equal treatment or investigation.
She wraps up with her retirement and commentary of the uncertain future for news reporting, especially at the local level.
Living in the Washington DC area, I have always enjoyed her columns in the Post. Even though the book touches on some of the same topics she visited over the years, I thoroughly enjoyed reading her view of things.
Sullivan, who has served as an ombudsman for the New York Times and media critic for the Washington Post pans how media treated Donald Trump from the very beginning - giving him attention and a bigger platform than he deserved. She notes a comment by Les Moonves of CBS about how Trump may be bad for the country, but he is good for CBS. She also criticizes the effort by journalists to be overly balanced in their reporting. They would treat blatant anti-constitutional efforts by Trump and cronies the same way they would treat a minor gaffe by a Democrat. The two are definitely NOT deserving of equal treatment or investigation.
She wraps up with her retirement and commentary of the uncertain future for news reporting, especially at the local level.
Living in the Washington DC area, I have always enjoyed her columns in the Post. Even though the book touches on some of the same topics she visited over the years, I thoroughly enjoyed reading her view of things.
February 10, 2023
Having enjoyed Margaret Sullivan’s work in the New York Times and the Washington Post, I was eager to read her memoir. Anyone, having been awake during the past few years, who believes a Free Press is instrumental to a well functioning democracy, will find nothing in this book with which to disagree. Alas, they probably also will find little enlightening in its moralizing conclusions few, if any, readers will not have already reached. Like many memoirs, it’s self-congratulatory. Fine. Sullivan deserves congratulations for her stellar career and contributions to journalism. I will continue to read her journalistic pieces. But I regret having read her book.
December 12, 2022
Newsroom confidential was a good book. It tells the story of how a woman who worked for the Washington post and New York Times saw with her own eyes the change in basic journalism.
December 11, 2022
Very interesting memoir about her 40 years as a journalist during which she worked for both the New York Times and the Washington Post.
February 19, 2023
Important reading for all us. No one understands the fragility of a democracy better that someone on the inside who has watched nefarious agents of misinformation try to take it down. Owning up to her mistakes and the mistakes of many in the legitimate media, she paint a picture of contemporary journalism and offers remedies.
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February 28, 2023DNF. I heard the author on a podcast talking about this book, and it sounded very interesting. She brought up important issues about what a free press should be doing. Unfortunately the style of this book is a memoir with a lot of name-dropping and personal details that I don't care about and that inundate the powerful substance.
October 26, 2022
This is an interesting memoir of a journalist who rose to the top of her field. Along the way she encountered sexism and was able to break through the proverbial glass ceiling. She reported on many historical events that you will recognize without needing a lot of background. She is a skilled writer and the best part was her call to action for current and future journalists about reporting the facts and the importance of not over-sensationalizing statements and situations that are not fact-based - be more discerning about what should be amplified and given a platform. The first part of the book turned me off because she lacked humility. I did check myself to make sure I was not being biased and affirmed I don't like this quality with men either. But with that aside, this is a very timely and important book and is worth the read.
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February 14, 2023Varied and thoughtful look at today's media by long-time journalist. Sullivan tracks her own career in newspapers from Buffalo News reporter/editor to NY Times public editor and Washington Post media columnist. Her coverage of her years in the awkward position at the NYTimes is probing and always interesting stuff. She takes the Times to task for their over coverage of Hilary Clinton's emails before the 2016 election implying they were bending over backwards to be fair and in the process were exactly the opposite. She is front and centre in the movement to turn media's long standing commitment to neutrality into one more proactive in standing behind democracy. This position considered extreme in the past feels less so now. Finishes the book by taking a poke at one of her idols Bob Woodward and provides plenty of advice for young journalists.
March 1, 2024
As a former daily newspaper reporter and still avid reader, I found this book to be a quick, engaging read, with some good insights for fixing our huge problems in journalism. (Local papers dying at alarming rate; "both sidesism," the inherent flaws in for-profit journalism, among others.) The problems themselves are much harder to fix, as she acknowledges.
Despite an impressive career, the first woman editor of the Buffalo News, first woman Public Editor of the New York Times and media critic for the Washington Post, Sullivan doesn't really let us in her personal thoughts. Instead, she focuses on the larger themes of journalism being in trouble. Still, for those of us who care about quality journalism, a shrinking breed, I fear, it's worth a read.
Despite an impressive career, the first woman editor of the Buffalo News, first woman Public Editor of the New York Times and media critic for the Washington Post, Sullivan doesn't really let us in her personal thoughts. Instead, she focuses on the larger themes of journalism being in trouble. Still, for those of us who care about quality journalism, a shrinking breed, I fear, it's worth a read.
October 19, 2022
As would be expected from someone with her training and experience as a journalist and editor, Margaret Sullivan has delivered a very readable memoir covering her career in journalism. She returns to her experiences in high school with the school newspaper to demonstrate how her love for the field began, and continues to her early work as a reporter for the Niagara Gazette and then the Buffalo News, leading to her eventual promotion as that paper’s chief editor. Her subsequent roles as public editor for the New York Times and media columnist for The Washington Post moved her to national fame. As the public editor for the Times she found herself in the middle of multiple controversies about that paper’s coverage of political events, representing the rights of the readership to know more about faulty and uneven by her colleagues of those events. Her move to the Post gave her a wider mandate, able to cover journalist choices in all national media.
The later parts of the book are what I consider its most important, as she delves into a discussion of the state of local and national news coverage in today’s political climate. She tries to identify ways in which the media should be covering events and stories in a world of news filled with misinformation. This book should be required for aspiring (and experienced) journalists as a guide on how to present the news honestly in a time when balanced news coverage may not be accurate.
The later parts of the book are what I consider its most important, as she delves into a discussion of the state of local and national news coverage in today’s political climate. She tries to identify ways in which the media should be covering events and stories in a world of news filled with misinformation. This book should be required for aspiring (and experienced) journalists as a guide on how to present the news honestly in a time when balanced news coverage may not be accurate.
October 20, 2022
This book is so important! I loved Margaret Sullivan’s thoughts and theories. You can find my full review on http://Instagram.com/chelseahudsonreads
November 7, 2022
I found this book interesting . . . and ultimately a bit unsatisfying. Read my full review here.
November 23, 2022
Fascinating book on why the media has become so untrustworthy. Margaret Sullivan a well known columnist and editor for the New York Times and Washington Post laments the over usage of unidentified sources for articles which she feels is the source of many "fake" stories.
January 11, 2023
Newsroom Confidential is a great read on the decline of true with traditional media as we explore Sullivan’s career.
I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes to stay informed.
I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes to stay informed.
January 2, 2023
Margaret Sullivan is the perfect read for a news junkie. I loved the mix of career-memoir and media criticism. She reflects candidly on her work, the editorial choices made by publications, her crusade against unnecessary use of anonymous sources, and the struggles of shrinking newsrooms and skeptical-or-worse readers.
April 25, 2023
NEWSROOM CONFIDENTIAL
Margaret Sullivan
Meh.... really that is about all I can say. I think it would have been way more interesting if I had a background in media.
3 stars
Happy Reading!
Margaret Sullivan
Meh.... really that is about all I can say. I think it would have been way more interesting if I had a background in media.
3 stars
Happy Reading!
November 3, 2022
Interesting memoir from a journalist I admire. Great perspective on what’s happening in our country right now and what media companies should be doing to combat misinformation.
February 7, 2023
I won this book with a Goodreads giveaway, but my opinions are my own.
I really enjoyed this look at the life of a journalist. For some reason I was expecting this to be fairly dry, but I really shouldn't have been surprised that a book written by an experienced journalist was engaging and interesting. Margaret Sullivan did a great job of describing why she initially became interested in journalism and some of the highlights of her career, as well as how newsrooms were moving toward more digital content.
I really enjoyed this look at the life of a journalist. For some reason I was expecting this to be fairly dry, but I really shouldn't have been surprised that a book written by an experienced journalist was engaging and interesting. Margaret Sullivan did a great job of describing why she initially became interested in journalism and some of the highlights of her career, as well as how newsrooms were moving toward more digital content.
April 9, 2024
I’m surprised this isn’t more widely read. Margaret Sullivan is the Cassandra of American journalism. Prescient and patriotic, Sullivan delivers warnings amidst the fall & degradation of digital news reporting that, unfortunately, have gone unheeded. Radical reform has not happened despite the upcoming election that calls for the standard of journalism as activism to be more rigorous than ever. And it’s happening everywhere else too. I’m heartened by how Sullivan remains upbeat despite all the mistakes & worrying trends noted in the book. I wonder if it comes naturally to journalists. One of their talents. That in the event of breaking news, next day they still rise up, go to work, and ask the perennial question, “what’s the news today?”
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