Customer Reviews

News is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the 20th Century (Library of Contemporary Thought)

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Buy this book for all the journalists you know and love -- and don't forget the publishers. Veteran New York newsman Pete Hamill has the solutions to so many of the problems plaguing modern newspapers: sliding standards of accuracy, the blurring of the line between news and entertainment, stagnant circulations in the midst of population growth. It will inspire those who want to be journalists and remind the veterans why they fell in love with news in the first place. NEWS IS A VERB should be required reading in every newsroom and journalism school.

I picked up the book partly because I admire Hamill's writing and partly because I had just been griping about our local newspaper. The book was great. It articulated many of my own criticisms about the press -- the adoration of celebrity, the lack of accuracy, the re-hashing of somebody's press release.

Hamill is a great writer. He conveys his thoughts in a stimulating yet simple, straightforward manner. He has the talent to "tell it to the Sweeneys" without sacrificing depth.

He reverently tells about the great history of newspapers. Sometimes, this dips to a form of romanticism which detracts from his message. He is best when he sets forth goals for the industry and avoids the rosy-dream context.

I was a bit disappointed that Hamill omitted commenting upon the decline in grammar and spelling in the newspapers. [I found a typographical error in the text.]

The book is a must for newspaper folks and all of us shake our heads over the morning edition.

This book reminds me why I want to be a journalist. I have read and re-read News Is a Verb and each time it never fails to excite and inspire me. Mr. Hamill's notions of the purpose of a newspaper and ideas about how to effectively cover a city are inspirational. In addition, News Is a Verb has greatly improved my impression of tabloid papers -- a genre which I previously scorned, and was sometimes wrong to do so. My only criticism of Mr. Hamill is that he does occasionally appear bitter over the several misfortunes of his career, despite his disclaimer to the contrary. In particular, his personal attack on Donald Trump, though perhaps understandable, is a little over-exuberant. He loses a little credibility here, I think. His distrust of newspaper publishers is probably well-founded. That one caveat aside, this is a fabulous book and deserves attention from anyone interested in the field of journalism.

Pete Hamill is one of the last and finest of old-time journalists, a master of his craft who genuinely believed in the old adage that a newspaper's prime job was to "comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable."

Today, the opposite is true. With the exception of a few papers, and no television stations, news is based on the idea "comfort the comfortable advertisers, afflict the welfare victims of society." It's called "press release journalism" and reflects the basic reason for the decline of many modern papers, the timidity and fear of editors who limit news coverage to people and events about which press releases are offered. Years ago, I worked beside a reporter who had a big "No guts, no glory" sign above his desk; it took awhile to realize the emphasis of the paper he worked for was "no guts" because any original work might upset powerful friends of the publisher. Readers know "a flawed watchdog is better than no dog at all;" but editors have muzzled the watchdog for fear someone will object to its bark.

I've been an editor at various times from 1968 through 1996; on every occasion the paper gained circulation. Hamill talks about quality, which he doesn't define except to say "it is good stuff." My approach was to emphasize local news and provide commentary with a sharp edge -- scorched earth journalism, one fan called it -- recognizing that we couldn't obtain the kind of quality Hamill stresses.

The secret of good commentary isn't excellence; it's readers who know they have the complete freedom to respond. In many cases, I gave them a prominence equal to my commentary. No one ever agreed with me all of the time, but everyone knew they had a right to reply and their response would not be trivialized. It's the most important element in establishing trust, the willingness to respect readers. Hamill is wonderful at analyzing the past; this is a man who loves newspapers, and is a superb observer of the human condition. His book "Why Sinatra Matters" is a slender classic that offers more insight and understanding of Sinatra and America than any of the mighty and lengthy biographies. He brings the same expertise and passion in his analysis of newspaper failures. This book offers dozens of examples of why papers are dull, dull, dull.

Anyone who's disappointed in the quality of newspapers can sympathize with the faults Hamill outlines. For example, a recent local report of a major fire with damage in the millions of dollars failed to mention the name of the company or their product -- but, it had extensive interviews of bystanders who came to watch the fire. It's what passes for news; bystanders who think the flames were very impressive. In the modern newsroom, it's called ". . . the human touch."

Give me a break. Tell me about the fire, and I'll add my own human touch. I don't need a newspaper telling me that bystanders are impressed by big flames. Give me local news and the right to talk back. That's precisely what Amazon.com does with reader reviews of books -- it gives ordinary people an uncensored forum. It's why Amazon.com is a success; and the opposite attitude is why newspapers are either static or declining.

Hamill points out, "Newspapers emphasize drama and conflict at the expense of analysis." He's two thirds correct; people want facts, not conflict and drama. But, they want facts, not analysis which used to be rare and clearly identified. Readers are smart enough to make up their own minds, provided they get accurate information. What are facts? Briefly, the old reliable "Who, What, Where, When and How."

This is a superb book for analyzing the faults of modern newspapers; but, it falls short on offering solutions. Hamill thinks the fault is centered on absentee owners who don't understand the newsroom; my experience says it is based on "press release" journalism which changed the "watchdog of the community" into a tame "little bark and no bite" puppy.

I picked up a tabloid this morning. The headline again involved Kenneth Starr's intention of questioning Clinton directly on this Lewinsky business. That's fair enough. I open the front page, and right there, on page three, is a story about 'Seinfeld.' This tabloid deigned to put a story about a busted-up Mideast summit on page two. That's big news. But next in line is "news" about a sit-com? Come on. Pete Hamill speaks to these types of ludicrous problems besetting tabloids, all of which are done at their own hands. To make a buck, publishers speculate what the public wants, always insulting the reader's intelligence. Tabloids have become the National Enquirer with a little serious stuff on page forty-eight. Hamill writes eloquently and analytically, having seen these problems first-hand as the editor of The New York Post and The Daily News. He tried to do something about this: demanding good, tight writing from his reporters; reporting on the lives and the issues that affect the new immigrants, those who have inherited the mantle from the Irish, Jews and Italians. The people who have left their native lands for something better for themselves and their children. Most all of them come here knowing that as long as they work hard, their success is guaranteed. They are the new readership in the city. Newspapers must address their needs. If tabloids continue on their course, their fate is doomed. Publishers everywhere should be reading NEWS IS A VERB as the instructive treatise it is. It just might save them from themselves.

KEVIN FARRELL

The problems Hamill identifies in newspapers coexist in magazine journalism, where I worked for most of a 25-year career.

For starters, the corporation has overtaken the newsroom. Along with downsizing, cost cutting and concerns for shareholder value, come certain malaise. Hamill disparages today's "tabloid" journalists, but his complaint covers the entire news corps just as well. I learned recently that one major news magazine now determines whether or not to report a story based on its research costs per page of the expected count. Since the best stories always cost most to produce, this system ensures that the best stories will not be written.

Good old tabloid reporters, he avows, would be appalled at the slovenly way the word "tabloid" is thrown around and at most current practices--what I call "state-of-the-art." Old-timers didn't pay streetwalkers for stories, he notes, or "sniff around the private lives of politicians like agents from the vice squad." On breaking news, they did not "behave like a writhing, snarling, mindless centipede, all legs and Leicas," but rather "found ways to get the story without behaving like thugs or louts."

Old-timers also believed what too many newspaper reporters and publishers have forgotten--that they should act as ombudsmen for the public (my term). They have instead traded that role for consumerism, denying fundamental responsibilities to instead give readers entertainment, "what publishers, in their omniscience, think those readers want."

Without healthy newspapers, Hamill understands, no democracy can function and evolve. He reminds us that 65 reporters died in Indochina to bring us the truth, that reporters have continued to die in wars ever since--in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Bosnia and Peru--"and a lot of other places where hard rain falls." The total is now higher--of course, including 8 reporters in Afghanistan, and Daniel Pearl, murdered in Pakistan because he was Jewish.

But Internet and television relentlessly pull readers away. From 1970 through 1990, U.S. newspaper circulation remained roughly static at 60 million.

One result is a decline in quality of which the reporters, editors and publishers are all too aware. Another is that newspapers start to lose money and die. A third is the promotion of self, celebrity journalism. Newspapers today peddle "the same obsession with big names" as everyone else. I couldn't agree more. Witness the celebrity television and movie stars hired as news anchors by CNN.

Finally comes the loss of reportorial humility. Hamill writes that few reporters are today like David Remnick of the New Yorker, remaining properly humble. Those rare souls "are uninterested in working as hangmen," because their sense of proportion prohibits it. They know they cannot reach as deeply into the secret places of the heart as great fiction. "People lie to themselves as well as others," Hamill writes. "The journalist is always a prisoner of what he or she is told. The truth is always elusive." Without humility, reporters actually believe they can hit the ever-illusive bull's eye.

But the largest casualty is the deflation of journalism's key currency--truth itself. It is defeated by conditions best described in George Orwell's fiction, conditions that have become reality. To reporters today, murderers are not killers, but activists, and terrorism is a cause celebre.

Hamill correctly savages newspapers and their current culture. "Trust is the heart of the matter," he writes.

Too bad more editors and reporters don't trust the mass of readers with the good sense to tell them that they have the most critical story wrong. They trip themselves up on old-fashioned hubris. Alyssa A. Lappen

Pete Hamill is one of the best and savviest newspapermen who ever drew breath, and this book is his eloquent, angry, provocative call for saving American newspapers from themselves and the bean-counting, self-important owners and managers who have no instinctive grasp for the news business. Hamill, former editor-in-chief of THE NEW YORK POST and THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, writes with energy and power, evoking the great days of the newspaper business without marinating himself or the reader in smarmy nostalgia. Reading Hamill's cogent formula for revitalizing American newspapers as they enter the twenty-first century, you want to believe that American journalism's best days can be ahead, rather than in the past. This book is a true instant classic and a public service of the highest order; Thomas Paine would have been proud, and Joseph Pulitzer would have been delighted. -- Richard B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School, and Daniel M. Lyons Visiting Professor in American History, Brooklyn College/CUNY (and I used to carry a press card).

This book describes the way newspaper journalism ought to be, as seen from the eyes of an excellent newspaper journalist. It's also a glimpse of the way things were just a few decades ago, when newspaper journalism was still a vital part of life in the town and cities of the United States. Hamill is an eloquent and emotional voice for better newspaper journalism. He is also, sadly, a voice from the past, for the past.

The core content of the book is a set of well-thought out solutions, recommendations intended to pull the papers back out of the swamp. Hamill is remarkably optimistic, in fact, about what might solve the problems he so convincingly describes.

My main question, after reading the book and watching the general decline it describes, is whether Hamill's solutions are realistic. He blames publishers for the dumbing of the American newspaper, not the readers, and that worries me. If newspapers achieved the Hamill ideal, would they win readers?

News is a Verb very clearly describes the decline of Journalism and the affect on the newspaper industry espescially the local daily. Journalism is well defined. The corruption of the word "tabloid" explained. Disturbing but important information. It is well written and holds ones attention.

If you've ever thought of becoming a journalist, this book will inspire you. If you're already a journalist, this book will revive you.