Customer Reviews

Restless Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal, and the Invention of Modern Journalism

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The newspaper industry is facing dire times. Just a few weeks ago the venerable Rocky Mountain News printed its last edition. Here in Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Post ceased business 12/31/07, and the Cincinnati Enquirer is only the shell it once was. As someone who has lived his entire life reading several newspapers a day, when I saw this book, I immediately grabbed it.

"Restless Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal, and The Invention of Modern Journalism" (282 pages) brings a number of stories simoultaneously: the life of Barney Kilgore and how he grew the WSJ; a looks at the WSJ itself; and of course a look at newspapers in general in the 1930-1970 era. As a regular reader of the WSJ, I'll admit upfront I had never heard of Kilgore, but author Richard Tofel brings a detailed description of how important Kilgore was in building the WSJ from a local New York paper (circulation 33,000) to a national paper (circulation over a million), and also how Kilgore built the image and prestige of the paper. A great example of that comes when the author retells the paper's showdown with GM (the paper's largest advertizer) in 1954 when GM ceases advertizing after the paper scoops several stories on "bootlegging" sales and the upcoming 1955 models (GM winked first and resumed advertising). It reads like a novel, except it all really happened.

As is often the case in books like these, the most appealing and intruiging sections are the early years (for me anyway), as in: how Kilgore arose within the Dow Jones/WSJ organization, and how the WSJ operated in those early years. The author readily admits he was helped enormously by the extensive letter-writing between Kilgore and his father in the early years, and those letters do play a big part in the book, not that it dimishes the great job the author did with this book. In all, I will hearthily and readily recommend this book to anyone, but in particular to lovers of newspapers, as this book is a perhaps unintended tribute to the golden age of the newspaper industry.

People in developed nations rarely know much about who created the world around them. They don't know, for instance, who invented the automatic starter for car engines, the jet engine, television, the computer and a thousand other devices that make contemporary civilized life possible.

One of those inventions is the modern newspaper, as least as it was construed until a few years ago until newspapers attempted to become "infotainment" and pedagogical vehicles for the left-wing. These latter two factors may account for the increasing numbers of newspaper bankruptcies and generally falling circulations.

But until their recent corruption, newspapers were a vital part of, at least, American life. And one man in particular was responsible for much of their look, feel and philosophy as exemplified in what for decades was the only truly American national newspaper, The Wall St. Journal.

Bernard "Barney" Kilgore was the man.

Through his long career at the Journal, he rose from neophyte to head honcho and, along the way, created many of the features and styles we once took for granted in a quality newspaper.

Richard J. Tofel has undertaken to write the definitive biography of Kilgore and has succeeded, aided by a unique trove of letters between Kilgore and his father. These letters, covering almost 25 years, were unusually fulsome as Barney Kilgore described his actions to Tecumseh Kilgore, his father. It was a unique relationship and Tolfel rightly credits it as the basis of his work.

Kilgore evolved editorial policies and styles that largely enabled the Journal to grow from a small business newspaper to the only national newspaper of the time, with circulation passing the million and then the two million mark.

Kilgore also set standards for editorial integrity that are largely unseen today. It is instructive, for example, to see surveys measuring how many people trust the Journal versus the New York Times.

Tolfel explains in not quite enough detail the relationship of the Bancroft family, which owned Dow Jones and the Journal, but maintained its distance most of the time. The Bancroft family sold the Journal to Rupert Murdoch recently. Tolfel, unfortunately and without reason, takes shots at Murdoch, revealing his own political allegiance. It is the only sour note in the book.

While the Wall St. Journal was the first national business newspaper, Kilgore aspired to created the first general national newspaper as well. The vehicle for this attempt was The National Observer, launched three decades before USA Today. It was a noble, brilliant concept that never quite got it right. I was a devoted reader for all its life, as well as a Journal reader through the present day.

I don't know, really, if the average person will find much to hold them in this book. I like it because it is well written and, perhaps, because I am a reader of the Journal and was a fan of the Observer. I am also a history buff who wants to know about the things around me, whether its the origin of the automobile self-starter or the guy who invented many modern journalistic practices.

If you're curious about things in general or the history of journalism and newspaper publishing, this is an excellent read.

Jerry

This is a solid book about the man central to the journalistic roots of the WSJ. Still, it would have worked much better as an extended feature article. The frustrating part was that I kept on waiting for Richard Tofel to deliver on his claim that Barney Kilgore stood behind the invention of modern journalism. What I got was that Kilgore encouraged anecdotal leads followed by the "nut graf" (article's subject) in the writing of articles. While surely an improvement over the "inverted pyramid," it hardly amounts to the superlatives placed upon Kilgore. I also struggled at times with Tofel's heavy writing style.