Customer Reviews

Somebody's Gotta Tell It: The Upbeat Memoir of a Working-Class Journalist

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This is a very evocative and entertaining autobiography that vividly recreats newfield's childhood and coming of age as a working class radical journalist and student activist in the 60s. Newfield seemed to know everyone who was anyone in the 60s and was was closely involved in the creation of SDS. Newfield also provides us great stories about the four things he loves most and writes about best: baseball, boxing, jazz and -- of course -- New York CIty. A lovely book, full of Runyonesque character.

A true glimpse into the day to day grind of an old newspaper man is captured in Somebody's Gotta Tell It: The Upbeat Memoir of a Working-Class Journalist by Jack Newfield. This New Yorker holds no punches as he shares his life's story. His worrier single mother made sure that Newfield had lots of opportunity as she supported their family. A self described `latch key' kid, Newfield was enamored by the writings he found in his daily news.
In his work he became friends with Bobby Kennedy and portrays an intimate portrait of a man who on a mission to help the less privilege and dedicated his life to public service. Like his brother Jack, Bobby was taken too early at 42. Newfield was there in the candidate's suite as he heard the news of the victory and also was in the room a few hours later when Kennedy had his last breath.
Newfield came face to face to Richard Nixon once in his life, as he was boarding an airplane. He describes it as "walking down the aisle, I suddenly found myself looking into Nixon's face, as he was taking his jacket off and about to take his seat. Out of some deep, visceral, primitive instinct, the words came out of him. `Oh, when did you get out of the can?'" He does not hold out his opinion later in the book when he believes that "Nixon raped the constitution."
Newfield also followed sports and also made friends with many. At the end he was fired, but he reinvented himself and did free lance and documentary work. He cites the wisdom of singer Howard Tate "Get it while you can," which translate into love, not money, not sex. The late Senator Paul Tsongas, knowing he was dying, remarked, "I never heard of anybody on their death bed say they wished they had spent more time at the office."
This book, Somebody's Gotta Tell It: The Upbeat Memoir of a Working-Class Journalist by Jack Newfield is a candid perspective on one's writer's life. It took twelve manual type writer ribbons to write.

Newfield has to be one of the most humorless journalists who ever wrote about the 60's. He calls this an upbeat memoir but I found it a downer. It's a lot of self congratulation with same old cliches and no real thoughtfulness. The world has changed and passed Newfield by. It's all been done before and far better too. Spare yourself.