Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962 [Paperback]

Rob Leicester Wagner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0944933807 | ISBN-13: 978-0944933800 | Publication Date: June 1, 2000

Los Angeles at the end of World War I was poised to become a major metropolitan center as hundreds of thousands of residents from the East and Midwest flocked to the city they eagerly wanted to call home. To serve the growing appetite for news, particularly scandal among the Hollywood set, were six daily newspapers. These newspapers provided a colorful portrait of a city in its awkward adolescence. They rose to power with their own distinct voice. Behind their mastheads reporters and editors strived to build their own agenda, whether to give a voice to the voiceless or to banish minorities from within the city's borders. It's a bold raucous story told by the newspapermen and women who experienced it first-hand, covering the breaking news, scandals, and tragedies of the City of Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

Review

... an unparalleled grasp of its history, yet sweetened by anecdotal memoirs heart-tugging to those of us who lived it. -- Paul Weeks, former Los Angeles Times reporter

A fascinating history of LA's most colorful days and the newspapers a lot of us loved working for. -- Jack Jones, member of the 1965 Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting team for the Los Angeles Times

Wagner masterfully takes us through the growing pains of LA's newspapers throughout most of the 20th century... -- Today's Librarian, August 2000

Product Details

• Paperback: 357 pages
• Publisher: Dragonflyer Pr (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0944933807
• ISBN-13: 978-0944933800
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,143,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Untold journalism history, June 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962 (Paperback)

I love to read about Los Angeles history, and I thought I've studied just about everything on this city. But this book just blew me away. It's a totaly different take on early 20th century Los Angeles told by the men and women who lived it and reported on for the city's daily newspapers. It is filled with anecdotal accounts of L.A.'s most sensational crimes, mobsters, and bad cops. It tells the history of the city not from the scholarly ivory tower but through the eyes of the newspaper reporter, editor, and photographer who witnessed these actual awesome events. A real wonderful read. It's well-sourced. I got a kick out of the who's who at the end of the book that lists and provides bios of nearly 200 L.A. journalists of the day.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red Ink White Lies is the bluebook on L.A. newspaper history, June 17, 2002

By 

Mycroft H. "Mycroft H." (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962 (Paperback)

Rob Wagner has performed a great and long overdue service. He has chronicled the history of L.A. newspapers in the first half of the 20th Century---a "Front Page" era when L.A. had a half-dozen dailies, with many editions per day. Wagner is to be particularly congratulated for recounting the rise and fall of the original L.A. Daily News, a peach-colored oversized tabloid much revered in its day. The DN, at one time the circulation leader, hosted an array of great writers, from the legendary Matt Weinstock (THE L.A. columnist of his day)to Jack Smith and Jim Murray. The book is painstaking in its research of circulation figures and union struggles---spiced with rollicking anecdotes about great newspapermen (and women) of the day. This is the definitive history of Los Angeles newspapers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, insightful contribution to journalism history., August 7, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962 (Paperback)

Red Ink, White Lies is an impressive and informative chronicle of the successes and failures of six Los Angeles daily newspapers during an era of the city's fiercest newspaper wars and competitions. Author Rob Wagner (who is a veteran of more than 26 years as a reporter, city editor, managing editor, and night editor) interviewed dozens of newsman and women, resulting in a vivid and candid portrait of prewar and postwar newspaper reporters, including their lifestyle, ethics and professionalism. From celebrity journalism to mob era police corruption, reportage of ethnic minority communities and the "red-baiting" 50s, Red Ink, White Lies is a thoroughly fascinating, insightful contribution to the 20th century history of journalism.