Morning Miracle: Inside The Washington Post by Dave Kindred

I won this book from LibraryThing and just couldn't wait to read it when it finally arrived. I've been a news junkie all my life; came by it naturally since my mother was too. Our political leanings were totally opposite, leading to countless debates, er, arguments about politics. I grew up in the state capitol of Illinois so there was plenty to argue about, and every Sunday we went downtown to get the Chicago Tribune which only added fuel to the fire.

As an adult I was a journalist myself at several newspapers through the years, only leaving the profession for better pay in another field. You can imagine then how I feel watching newspapers across the country being sold and/or dying. Some respected newspapers have actually become online-only news outlets. I read an autobiography of Katherine Graham some time ago so I already knew a lot about The Washington Post from an owner's point of view. This, however, is the Post's fight for life from a reporter's point of view.

Dave Kindred started out as a sportswriter which may be why I love his writing style. In sports a reporter has to learn quickly how to sum up an athlete in one telling story. Kindred takes that ability to the news room and the owner's office and to Bob Woodward and gets great interviews on the topic of the Post and news reporting in general.

I've wondered why so few people read a daily newspaper these days. Young people are so electronically wired in that they just naturally turn to the internet, their phones and so on, but I don't even see that many older people reading a paper anymore. Last night when we stopped for a slice on our way to a basketball game, I saw a middle-aged man reading The New York Times. I could hardly believe my eyes. The Post has an amazing number of Pulitzer prize winning reporters and feature writers, yet its subscription numbers have consistently fallen and revenues along with them.

Kindred gets the background on some of the Pulitzer winning stories (the mistreatment of veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, the McChrystal report on Afghanistan, the Virginia Tech shootings, and more) with emphasis on how reporters got those stories. Those reporters didn't just waltz in, take a few notes, and write the piece. In the Walter Reed story, for instance, the two reporters spent time in Building 18 talking to patients and employees. They got to know the patients and their families, secured confirmation of all information, got a photographer in to take the damning photos, and were allowed to take all the time they needed. Then they wrote the story and as we all know, all Hell broke loose. Anyone who saw the movie or read the book about Bernstein, Woodward, and Watergate will recognize the work involved.

While these dedicated reporters were doing their job though, everyone knew their careers might be limited by the bottom line. A poignant part of the book is employee buyouts, retirement packages offered to them which eventually resulted in the 800 person newsroom being reduced to under 400. Katherine Graham's son Don moved himself up out of day-to-day operation in favor of the only family member at the paper, his niece Katherine Weymouth. Len Downie, long the managing editor and beloved by his reporters, was "advised" to take the buyout. The whole masthead was in upheaval.

This book is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions to a newsie like me even though I suppose younger people wouldn't see it as such. Kindred makes it all readable, a story of a mighty giant fallen, and although the Post survives, it is no longer that powerful force it once was. Congratulations to Kindred on a book well written, one that began as "a valentine" to the paper and ended as an elegy to a great newspaper.

Sharyn McCrumb is Back with a New Ballad Novel

I was delighted to win this new book from Goodreads and thanks also to St. Martin's Press for sending me to a wonderful audio introduction complete with appropriate music as well as interviews with McCrumb. You can find these at http://us.macmillan.com/thedevilamongstthelawyers.

If, like me, you are a longtime fan of the Ballad novels, you might be disappointed to find that Nora Bonesteel, gifted with The Sight, has only a small role in this book. However, it is a wonderful read with what I think is an important message.

McCrumb is superb at characterization and that's what I enjoyed most about The Devil Amongst the Lawyers. The devil in question is New York reporters who show up in a little mountain town in Virginia for a big murder trial. The local schoolteacher is on trial for murdering her own father. The trial actually happened in 1935 and the story is basically true to what happened, just populated with McCrumb's real-as-life characters.

The main character in the book is Henry Jernigan, a famous reporter. He had spent many years in Japan and that experience plays a role in this story. He and the other reporters have packed their preconceptions for the trip, so much so that they can write their first article on the train before they even arrive. Their mission is to sell newspapers, you see, and the truth doesn't really matter at all to them, especially the fact that instead of hillbilly shacks, etc., what they actually find is normal small-town America. Nora Bonesteel's cousin, a rookie reporter for a small town paper in Tennessee, actually tries to report the truth but that doesn't sell papers. One of the NY reporters says something like the truth is merely whatever you can convince people to believe. Talk about jaded.

I knew early on whodunit, but that isn't really the point anyway. The point is the reporters' coverage of the trial and their superior attitude toward the locals which gets the predictable response. I enjoyed the book but was a little sad that too often 2010 reporting follows the example of what was true in 1935. It's just as hard to know what's true now as it was then.