May 2021 theme -- MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press

May 3, World Press Freedom Day. And I define journalism to include Wikileaks, so books on Julian Assange (e.g., Geoffroy de Lagasnerie's The Art of Revolt: Snowden, Assange, Manning) are fair game. In fact, if you'd like, you're welcome to include sources as well, so there's Edward Snowden's Permanent Record open to your reading.

Think a little outside the box if you'd like. For example, I have Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century in a TBR pile, and a significant part of the Catholic Worker movement was and still is the Catholic Worker newspaper, which Day published at a penny-a-copy and first sold on May Day 1933 on a New York City street corner opposite that where the Daily Worker was being sold. (For those of you who are unaware, Day back in her pre-Catholic Greenwich Village days was a close friend of Eugene O'Neill in his pre-playwright years and may have saved his life on more than one occasion by getting him home from a bender.)

But don't feel constrained to reading non-fiction. In drama, The Front Page comes immediately to my mind. Anyone have any other suggestions among plays?

Among novels, an interesting read could be Gore Vidal's 1876, Empire and Hollywood, which include newspaper publishers among their major characters. (And note that Hollywood's president, Warren Harding, was himself a newspaper publisher, so feel free to check out John "Watergate" Dean's biography of Harding.) Caution on the Vidal novels, though, because you'll have to read those three novels together and in order or you'll get confused about the characters. But there are plenty of stand-alone novels you could read, like Graham Greene's The Quiet American or George Gissing's New Grub Street or Annie Proulx's The Shipping News.

Then there's the journalism itself. The Library of America includes several anthologies like Reporting Vietnam, Reporting Civil Rights, and Reporting World War II. There's Ernie Pyle's dispatches under such titles as Ernie's War. And there's the gonzo journalism of Hunter Thompson and some of Norman Mailer's work like Miami and the Siege of Chicago and The Armies of the Night.

So get ready to Meet the Press!

>1 CurrerBell: The touchstones don't seem to be working, so I'm going to have to edit this when TPTB get it fixed.

Thanks for all the great ideas! I've been wanting to read something on Assange or Snowden for sometime. The touchstones have not been working for a week--for me, at least.

To get touchstones to work, I generally have to hit re-fresh for my browser for the entire page. I then click "edit" on the message without touchstones. And then I watch and wait for the touchstone icon to finally update. Sometimes I have to repeat this process a couple of times, depending on my connection.

I am planning on reading The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri N. Murari for this theme, it is both written by a former journalist and the main character is a female Afghanistani journalist, who under the Taliban in the late 1990s is not allowed to openly work as such.

I think I have decided on Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography. This was to be an authorized biography, but when the months of co-writing were over, Assange pulled his permission. The author decided to publish it anyway.

Perhaps some of Neil Simon's books/plays? Also Samuel Clemens began writing for newspapers.

Also thinking of Bob Woodward All the President's Men and The Final Days and Holzer's The Presidents vs. the Press.

BTW, I got the links set up in the opening post. I think I just had too many touchstones, and they were just getting overwhelmed and weren't working, so I just hand-coded the HTML tags.

I have a couple of ideas: How the Other Half Lives, the classic by Jacob Riis, has been on my shelf for ages. I'd also like to read London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes, who was a correspondent for the New Yorker.

I need to check my To Read shelf but I think I have a book from the Indonesian occupation of East Timor / Timor-Leste, written by an Indonesian journalist in defiance of his government's censorship laws.

ETA: Jazz, Perfume, and the Incident

You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War, just released (according to Amazon) on February 23. Three female war correspondents – "Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French daredevil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual" – in Vietnam, FitzGerald being the one known to me for Fire in the Lake (which, however, I've never read). I stumbled across You Don't Belong Here browsing the "Women's History Month" display at a B&N and picked it up on an impulse-buy. At 320pp, it could be a fairly quick read, and it's also got a dozen (fairly conventional) illustrations.

Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes I used to watch this show religiously with my dad when I was a kid. The review in the NYT book review is eye opening indeed. Think I might start with that one

Always try to read from my own shelves for RTT if at all possible and it seems like it is. The Ventriloquists looks like it fits the bill.

>15 beebeereads: ED. Just realized this selection does not fit this group.

BUT I have just put one on hold at the library which looks intriguing. Sensational: The Hidden History of America's Girl Stunt Reporters

I have settled on Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet which deals with Wikileaks.

I still need to figure out what I'm reading for this one in May. Hmmm....

ETA: Ohhh, another Canadian one (I have a couple of local ones for other challenges next month). This looks like it's radio, so it should fit:

Late Nights on Air / Elizabeth Hay

Mentioned else thread: "Travels with Herodotuswhich is respected journalist Ryszard Kapuściński's non-fiction about how reading history helped him write journalism." Thanks spiral sheep, definitely want to read this!!

>18 cindydavid4: I think you'll both enjoy it and find nits to pick (what's a polite way of saying that?) :-)

nuggets for discussion? Tho I like nits to pick just fine :)

These aren't books I was planning to read for this theme but the first is a biography of a woman who published journalism in the 19th century, and the second is a collection of poetry published in political journals by woman who published journalism in the 19th century, so I suppose they count.

I read The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia, by Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot, which is a biographical sketch in comics form ("graphic novel") of French feminist anarchist utopian Louise Michel, concentrating on the Paris Commune of 1870-71 and her imprisonment on New Caledonia from 1873-80. It begins with quotes by Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett, a dedication to Iain (M) Banks, and an extended cameo appearance by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. What more could any intellectual utopian want even in the best of all possible worlds?! 4*

Oscar Wilde: "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at".

Samuel Beckett: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

I also read Liberty Lyrics an 1895 poetry pamphlet by L.S. Bevington, an English anarchist feminist associate of Louise Michel who wrote for some of the same publications. 2*

I've started Letter from England by Mollie Panter-Downes, published in October 1940. This is a collection of essays ("letters", if you will) written for the New Yorker during World War II, with updates on the everyday (or not-so-everyday) life in England. Letter from England covers the articles written from September 1939 through September 1940. Panter-Downes continued to write articles through the end of the war; all the New Yorker articles, from 1939 - 1945 were published in one volume: London War Notes. I decided on the earlier book, just because it was half the size (about 250 pages).

So far I've read the first entries for September 1939. Here's an excerpt about children and the new gas masks that everyone carried:

London, September 10, 1939
...How to accustom children to a war which at any moment may come right into the nursery is something that exercises everybody. The juvenile genius for accepting new conditions has already, however, reconciled many a family to a father unaccountably vanished and a mother who in a tone of determined gaiety proposes a game of Mickey Mouse in one of these amusing new mask things. The most comforting "reaction" so far reported was the remark of the little girl who countered parental whimsy with a stern "It's all right, Mummie. I know what it is. It's a gas mask and we put it on when they bomb us."

I read When Google Met Wikileaks by Julian Assange In a way I liked this book, because it gave me a clear picture of what both organizations are about. I liked the verbatim transcription of the meeting between Assange and Eric Schmidt of Google. I liked that many assertations made in the book were backed up by more than almost 500 footnotes. It is very clear that these two organizations are at polar odds with each other. Google's "Think" tank works for the Department of Defense, the State Departments, foreign governments and the like. They purposefully plant and promote disinformation. Wikileaks is in the business of finding (illegally, most of the time) the "truth" and publicizing it. The US government, in my humble opinion, has really overstepped its bounds in persecuting and prosecuting Julian Assange under the Espionage Act. I did not like this book because at least 1/3 of it is very techie, way over my head. Assange claims he has been in prison for 20 years, holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy. Makes you almost feel sorry for him. However, he was wanted in Sweden on several charges, the most serious rape. By avoiding extradition, it makes one question his innocence. Assange claims it was a sham created by the Swedish and American governments to get him to Sweden, where then the US would arrest him. 190 pages
3 1/2 stars

"“One of the hopeful things that I've discovered is that nearly every war that has started in the past 50 years has been a result of media lies. The media could've stopped it if they had searched deep enough; if they hadn't reprinted government propaganda they could've stopped it.”
-- Julian Assange

I read Jazz, Perfume & the Incident, by Seno Gumira Ajidarma, which is a novel about jazz, perfume, and an incident of violent government repression in occupied territory, except the parts about the incident are actually factual reports of the November 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, aka the Dili Massacre, when the Indonesian military murdered 250 or so human rights protestors at a funeral in East Timor / Timor Leste.

Before I read this I thought it was going to be worthy and of historical interest and with an interesting structure, which it is, but it's also full of mischief and joie de vivre. I loved it! 4.5*

I bought Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century (John Loughery and Blythe Randolph) when it was first published March a year ago and figured I might read it for last year's June theme, "Get Thee to a Nunnery" (which broadly would have fitted Catholic Worker houses of hospitality, though perhaps only broadly). I never got around to it, though, and targeted it for this month's "Meet the Press" theme instead.

Day's Catholic Worker newspaper (still being published, though with reduced circulation some forty years after her death) was integral to her movement, which as a "cradle" Catholic (though for some years now a Presbyterian) I was certainly aware of. What I didn't realize was just how integral journalism was to Day's entire life. Her father, a sportswriter for various newspapers, had the perfect job for a race-track aficionado; and Day herself, in her pre-conversion Greenwich Village years, wrote first for The Call and then for Max Eastman's Tne Masses as well as some freelancing. In fact, it's almost a chicken-or-the-egg question of which came first, the newspaper or the houses of hospitality, and both predated her various farming enterprises.

What's also interesting is that one of the authors of this biography, John Loughery, is a gay man, because he respectfully takes note of Day's "love-the-sin-hate-the-sinner" position toward homosexuality and her own generally "don't-ask-don't-tell" treatment of homosexuals in her own Catholic Worker house. Day (a youthful supporter of birth control who, preconversion, had also had a traumatic backroom abortion) also had no difficulty in accepting the "rhythm only" method of birth control in Paul VI's Humanae Vitae. And don't say that she was just being obedient to ecclesiastical authority, because there were plenty of other areas in which she happily challenged the Catholic clergy.

I was well aware of her friendship with Eugene O'Neill, but this biography also brings to mention her association with various writers like Katherine Anne Porter (not-so-friendly) and Allen Tate and includes some (though I'd like to have had more) discussion of her economic philosophy of distributism, which overlapped with the economic philosophy of Tate and the Southern Agrarians. The Tate friendship might go some way toward explaining her popularity among some current-day paleocons; her popularity among libertarians is more understandable, considering that Day leaned more toward anarchism than socialism.

I'm skeptical of the movement to canonize Day, which could too much absorb her into the institutionalized church; but as a Presbyterian, I'll mind my own business and leave that issue to the Catholics. What I will find interesting, should canonization pick up some more steam, will be the response of the "woke" movement to a pacifist and radical who opposed artificial contraception, abortion, and homosexuality and who was staunchly anti-racist while maintaining a friendship with the author of the "Ode to the Confederate Dead"!

5*****

Not super-historical - set in the 1970s - but somewhat. Radio

Late Nights on Air / Elizabeth Hay
2 stars

This story revolves around people who work at a radio station in the mid-1970s in Yellowknife, NWT. Dido and Gina are fairly new to Yellowknife and the radio station. All the men seem to be attracted to Dido.

Wow, this was boring. There were a couple of mildly interesting things that happened – thee was debate on a new pipeline that a company wanted to put in and a woman disappeared in winter. But, overall, pretty slow and boring. And I didn’t see one likable thing about Dido, who seemed to just go back and forth between the men. In fact, I don’t think I really liked very many of the characters… maybe Gwen, but then I skimmed so much of the book in the end, so hard to say if she really was likable.

I’m not sure why I added it to the tbr… looking now, I see it was either nominated for or won the Giller Prize, which should have been a red flag waving me away, but if the story initially sounds interesting, I will still often try them. I see the GR description also says “Written in gorgeous prose…”, which should also be a warning to me.

Reminds me of another book Band Box by Thomas MallonTakes place in 1920s, the title refers to a magazine, one of the first of its kind, and a new rival. There is journalism of a sort here, certainly covers the news but lots of other things going on at the same time.

I have completed my read of The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri Murari. The book is set during the time that the Taliban were in control of Afghanistan. The main character is a female journalist who is beaten and told she doesn't have a job anymore as under these thugs women are not to be seen or heard. Although she has been smuggling out some articles, it is only a matter of time until she is caught. She has also attracted the attention of a well placed Taliban member who has decided he will marry her. She needs to escape quickly, but is concerned about the fate of other family members if she leaves.

Travels with Herodotus just arrived in time for this theme! Looking forward to it.

I went the route of historical fiction, with Love and Ruin, by Paula McLain, about Martha Gellhorn, who was a war correspondent for 60 years. This book focused mostly on the years of her relationship with Ernest Hemingway. Previously, I'd only known surface facts about Gellhorn, so I can't tell how accurate the book is, but it "felt" as if it rang true.

>31 countrylife: i really want to read that, read her Paris Wife which I thought was quite good.

Started Travels with Herodotus, 1955,the author had never traveled before but wanted to, so his boss at the paper he worked on arranged for him to go to India. When he landed, he was stuck, He had no language other than his own, and had no idea what to do, until a taxi driver dropped him off at a hotel. Scary, but he was so motivated to learn and explore. Right now im at the part where he is writing down signs he sees and looks them up in the dictionary. Given that he's writing this he apparely succeeds, looking forward to his tales.

>31 countrylife: Cindy, you've hit me with a book bullet for Love and Ruin. I am adding to my ever-growing list.

>32 cindydavid4: I love Travels with Herodotus, especially because Kapuscinski doesn't try to portray himself as flawless or heroic but as an everyman, one of us, like Herodotus - driven by curiosity not celebrity.

I so agree. Reading how he was trying to learn English in India, I wondered why he wasn't learning the language where he was? Later he realizes how very eurocentric he is, and how he must learn the language of a people to be able to understand the culture.

when I was in my teens I would babysit my little cousin, and when he slept I'd peruse his parents bookselfs. My two favorite books, which they ended up giving to me, was Aesops Fables, and the original 1929 edition of Ripleys Believe it or not Loved reading about the different places he visited and about the different cultures. He wrote a great deal about india tho much later I learned how everything he wrote contained mistatements and drew conclusions that we now know to be false. Later I understood that hes viewpoint was very eurocentric and made me long for more learning about other people and cultures. This is what I see the author doing. Its fascinating watching him come to different realizations and how much Herudotus is influencing his outlook. Fascinating stuff.

(I have read other books from the francise, but they didn't interest me near as much as this one did. Never went to one of the museums, tho the next time in NYC I might just go for fun)

ETA oh my I just found out that there is one that opened up in my neck of the woods in Scottsdale Arizona I remember reading about the Boardwalk along the Rio Salado but didn't realize how much is there! Must plan a trip there soonest! https://www.ripleysaz.com/

>35 cindydavid4: My eldest grandson (now 22) always asked for the most current Ripley's book for Christmas each year.

I have read Our Women on the Ground: Essays By Arab Women Reporting From the Arab World, nineteen essays by Arab women journalists telling their stories. Understanding their courageous lives and why they have made the choices they have gives a new perspective of women in the Arab world. The introduction by editor Zahra Hankir is excellant as is the forward by Christiane Amanpour.

Like the Dorothy Day biography (>25 CurrerBell:), I found another 5***** read in Elizabeth Becker's You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War — French photojournalist Catherine Leroy and American correspondent Frances FitzGerald both primarily in Viet Nam and Australian correspondent Kate Webb primarily in Cambodia, all three during the period of the U.S. war in Indochina. Becker herself is an experienced journalist who cut her teeth most importantly in Cambodia and became a witness at the war crimes trial of the few surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.

I stumbled across the recently published You Don't Belong Here a couple months ago in a B&N display for Women's History Month and picked it up on impulse. Glad I did. The only one of the three subjects I'd ever heard of was FitzGerald (though I've yet to read Fire in the Lake, but I just a few weeks ago serendipitously stumbled across it in a nice hard-cover w/dj at a used book store). I'd also especially like to get hold of Leroy's Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam and perhaps also Webb's account of her 23-day captivity by North Vietnamese troops, On the Other Side.*

Becker's book includes a small, limited collection of photographs; but there's a web site for Dotation Catherine Leroy (English-language version) with substantial images of Leroy's work. One of her particularly powerful photos reproduced in the book (part of a series of shots that can be found on the website) is of Navy Corpsman Vernon Wick by the side of a mortally wounded Marine, Hill 881, April-May 1967 © Dotation Catherine Leroy.

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* The subtitle of Webb's book mistakenly identifies her captors as Viet Cong. I suspect she was fortunate to have been captured by more disciplined North Vietnamese regulars rather than by VC guerillas.

I have started Heimweh nach Prag which gathers everything Joseph Roth published in the Prager Tagblatt. I won't finish it in time, though.

just finised Travels with Herodotus and am just floored by this guys writing. I learned so much about journalism from both him and his mentor, as well as history that i did not learn in school re the Greco Persian wars. Both the subject of the book and author have much to teach anyone about the press, whether back thousands of years,or today . Highly readable highly recommended! Want to read his Imperium soon

>40 cindydavid4: I'm glad you enjoyed it!

have you read his other work?

>42 cindydavid4: Yes, I've read most (?) of it in translation, but not recently. I suspect some of it has dated, although you have the perspective and discernment to interpret that, but Imperium, by Ryszard Kapuściński, is well worth the time investment involved.

I finished Letter from England by Mollie Panter-Downes. This is a collection of articles Panter-Downes wrote for the New Yorker from September 1939 through September 1940, covering the everyday person during the war in London. Sort of a modern-day "human-interest" journalism, although she never names anyone specifically. She covers the every day life: going to the shops, adjusting to gas masks, air-raids, going to the movies, listening to updates on the radio, and the general mood each week of average Londoners. It was interesting to feel the mood changes as they were happening. These articles end as London is being bombed nearly every night in September 1940.

There is an expanded collection, called London War Notes, which covers 1939 through 1945, with the best articles from each year.

>43 spiralsheep: although you have the perspective and discernment to interpret that

blush thank you. I do enjoy reading about russia*, so I will try it

*funny coz I don't care for a lot of russian lit. Chekhov is probably my fav, and Ive read one or two famous works. Just not my go to genre.

It took me until today to get through The Ventriloquists, which was the story of a group of people who came together in Belgium in defiance of the Nazi regime. Their aim was to bring out a newspaper to counter the propaganda which was being feed to them. The novel was based on a true story.

It has taken me a long time to finish Heimweh nach Prag which collects the articles Roth had published in the Prager Tagblatt. Also has some interesting information on the paper and its editor Karl Tschuppik.