Customer Reviews

My Times: A Memoir of Dissent

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With a diamond-hard honesty rare, if not unique, among today's journalists, John L. Hess has written a memoir that deflates the gas-filled balloon that is the New York Times. A reporter and editor for the Times for 24 years, Hess shows how from the moment Adolph Ochs purchased the newspaper in 1896 it has cozied up to corrupt politicans and wealthy businessmen. In a blurb on the jacket, Kurt Vonnegut terms the newspaper a "mighty crowd-control engine," and indeed Hess provides many examples of the Times leading the way in suppressing news and information that might educate the public as to how they are being bilked. No one could read this book and still think that the Times is a liberal, much less an honest, newspaper.

I bought Mr. Hess' book out of curiosity. I knew Mr. Hess from the days when he was a commentator on a local TV station before Rupert Murdoch bought the station and destroyed it. I expected to try the book and give up after 50 or so pages. Well, I couldn't put it down! Mr. Hess is a very good writer who never bores you.

I lived through the years that he writes about. He explains for me many of the things that I felt were not right about those years as well as the lack of reporting by The New York Times. I have to ask myself where my head was during that period.

I highly recommend this book. It gave me an eye-opening view of The New York Times, politicians, and the sad level of reporting in the United States. It should be required reading by reporters and would-be reporters.

"Halleluya!  On this 26th day of May, 2004, the New York Times confessed to having helped promote the lies that got us into war with Iraq."

"We should fire Rumsfeld, and Cheney, and Bush, and the whole pack of warmakers today -- not tomorrow or next month -- today. "

"Politicians hire brains.  Telling them what to say and how to say it is a big business and getting bigger all the time."

"People who are under the illusion that the Times is a liberal paper should read its editorial today. It says moving good jobs abroad is 'freeing up American capital, labor and other resources for more efficient, high-value uses.' "

----John Hess, from wbai.org

I consider John Hess one of the most important voices in contemporary America. His words and what we are able to learn from them, should motivate us to open our eyes to the corruption and hypocrisy in our nation. The realization that more people recognize the name of a hate monger like Rush Limbaugh than the name of John Hess, illustrates the manufactured ignorance that those in power would prefer. Only through education will we effectively address what is wrong in the U.S. I find John Hess to be an educator who is informed, passionate and motivating!