Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print [Paperback]

David Wallis (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Nation Books | Publication Date: June 4, 2004

Killed resurrects remarkable articles that prestigious publications such as The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, and Rolling Stone assigned to accomplished writers for sizeable fees, then discarded for reasons having nothing to do with their quality and everything to do with their potential for unwanted controversy, political incorrectness, or undue pressure from an advertiser. Read for the first time Mike Sager's profile of Palestinian militants involved in the intifada of 1987 that was killed by the Washington Post Magazine because his story did not side with Israel, and Ted Rall's essay on his deadbeat dad that was deemed too dark by the New York Times Magazine for its Father's Day issue. While the notion of a killed article is nothing new, the breakneck pace of media consolidation has raised the stakes for contrarian writers and readers as independent publishers dwindle. Killed arises out of this moment, bringing these outstanding pieces of censored journalism into the public arena for the first time. Some of the other contributors included are Rich Cohen, Daniel Asa Rose, Alec Wilkinson, Noam Chomsky, Douglas Rushkoff, Pat Jordan, Robert Fisk, Clive Thompson, Silvana Paternostro, Glenn O'Brien, Christopher Hitchens, Gore Vidal, and Luc Sante.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Editor Wallis calls this anthology "a kind of literary orphanage... that rescues remarkable stories that editors commissioned, then abandoned." Magazines drop articles for various reasons, but these selections were killed either because they might have attracted expensive lawsuits, or they offended a magazine's advertisers or editors. Since revealing such censorship is this collection's goal, a brief history and cause of death precedes each article. The collection begins with a 1942 book review by George Orwell (killed by the Observer), an early feminist piece (1958) by Betty Friedan killed by McCall's and a 1963 discourse by Terry Southern (killed by Esquire) on Doctor Strangelove. Then, the compilation moves forward into the past two decades. There are articles about health problems from smoking, bias in the coverage of Palestinian struggles and violations of child labor law—all reminders of the many articles on these subjects that haven't seen print. Most memorable, however, are the in-depth exposés, like Ann Louise Bardach's piece on Reverend Moon or Jon Entine's on Anita Roddick and the Body Shop. These articles not only provide solid, usable research on their subjects, but stand as models of investigative journalism. The volume as a whole reminds readers that even apparently "nonpolitical" magazines like GQ and Vanity Fair often censor writers to protect their bottom line. This is a provocative compilation for journalism students and fun reading for leftist intellectuals.
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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books (June 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560255811
• ISBN-13: 978-1560255819
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,251,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth it for the Fisk and Sager articles alone, January 4, 2005

By 

T. Murphy "YouTube.com/RepresentativePress" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print (Paperback)

This book is an anthology of articles that have been rejected by print media but the article by Robert Fisk gives examples of self censorship in TV media too. Fisk's article "Remember 'the Whys' was killed by Harper's magazine in 2002. It dealt with Israel. Mike Sager's article was also killed and it was about the "gripping account of life in a squalid Palestinian refugee camp." The Washington Post Magazine killed that article, called "Travels With Bassem", in 1988. The editor of this book said in an interview, "I realized that I had a book after I read 'Travels With Bassem,' a remarkable piece by Mike Sager about living in a Palestinian refugee camp during the first Intifada."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spiked, December 30, 2006

By 

Daniel Myers (Greenville, SC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print (Paperback)

I read very few non-fiction books, and most of them are histories. I DO read journalism every day. But this is a first in that I've just finished reading and am now reviewing an entire BOOK comprised solely of journalism---ahem, it was a Christmas gift.

And, so, what do I think about this book about killed (or "spiked" seems to be the operative word in Journalese, at least in this book) pieces of journalism? I feel grateful to the gods, or Fate, or genes or whatever powers that may be or may not be that I never felt compelled to go into journalism. Even Joe Conason, whose blurb for the book tops the front cover, says in his review for Salon that the overall effect of the book is one of depression. True, literary endeavours, with which I'm more familiar, can be just as cruel and cutthroat when it comes to publication, but this is to be expected. In the arts, it's either feast or famine - Mostly famine- One ends up working for the sake of art itself. If it ends up finding grace with some publisher or agent, it's a nice lagniappe. If not, not. But journalists are in it to have their work published, posthaste. It's not so much that these pieces were killed that irks one (although, of course, that plays a part), it's the red-in-tooth-and-claw nature of the day in and day out life of a journalist that I found monumentally depressing.

Well, a few comments and I'm done: The most robust article (unsurprisingly) is P.J. O'Rourke's "A Ramble Through Lebanon," written in O'Rourke's uncanny, inimitable style combining erudition with a keen eye and ear for the absurdities of life. The "spike" was made by Tina Brown, who ends up being the "killer" of many of these pieces, who simply wrote, "You can't make fun of people dying." What a blockhead! It's clear that Ms. Tina Brown has no sense of nuance or irony or she would have seen that this is exactly NOT what O'Rourke is doing here. I consider myself lucky that I had never even heard of her before reading this book.

Award for eccentricity: Tad Friend's article "Jesus Worms" on an engaging few days spent with eccentric (and histrionic) Brit travel writer Redmond O'Hanlon. I've read O'Hanlon's works and fancy them, regardless of the obvious fact that you have to take them with more than a few pinches of salt. He belongs to that "Dr. Livingston I presume" tradition of intrepid, eccentric Brits losing themselves in various hearts of darkness to cheerfully emerge and write memoirs that encourage people like Noel Coward to write pieces like "Mad dogs and Englishmen".-The only thoroughly enjoyable piece of the lot.

Finally easily the finest piece of reportage here, splendidly well-written and well-documented, is John Entine's "The Stranger-Than-Truth Story of The Body Shop." This piece clearly deserves some sort of award. I'm so out of touch with this whole journalistic enterprise that I don't know what sorts of awards are bestowed on pieces like this one. But whatever they are, this piece is worth the entire book. I'd never heard of The Body Shop either. But I have no compunction now in saying that some public-spirited citizen should have taken an acetylene torch to these stores long ago. - To restate, this superb writing and investigation all for nought make it also one of the most depressing stories of the bunch.

That's it. The book was well worth the read. But I'm plunging back into literary fiction tomorrow.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A stimulating compilation of noteworthy articles, September 24, 2006

By 

L. L. Schneider (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print (Paperback)

I have not finished reading all the articles in "Killed..." because it's that kind of book; some you'll read and some you won't. It certainly was worth the price and if it weren't for the overly stimulated front cover, it's a good one to have lying around.

What is unfortunate for some of the articles is that there is often a shelf-life to humor. And what was "too hot to print" may really be past its prime.

But there are some real gems. I loved Erik Hedegaards piece on Mellencamp's battle with smoking. A rather incomplete ending, but the article illustrates how journalists thrive on taking advantage of the weak and famous.

What I found most interesting about the articles I read, was not that they were necessarily "Great Journalism or Too Hot to Print," but that they illustrate how advertisers dictate content. Any medium that is primarily subsidized by advertising risks rejection.

I don't know if I'd consider this book as "ground-breaking" as the back cover suggests, but there are lots of good pieces that should interest all sorts of readers.