My Times: A Memoir of Dissent

My Times: A Memoir of Dissent

by John L. Hess
My Times: A Memoir of Dissent

My Times: A Memoir of Dissent

by John L. Hess

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Overview

My Times is a critical look at The New York Times from the inside. John Hess worked at the paper for twenty-four years as an editor, rewrite man, foreign correspondent, investigative reporter, and food critic, from New York to Paris to the Middle East and back. In his tenure Hess rubbed shoulders and butted heads with some of the notable figures of journalism from the last fifty years, including Cyrus Sulzberger and his cousin Punch, A. M. Rosenthal, Seymour Hersh, Scotty Reston, and Homer Bigart.
But this isn't a lives of the saints; reporters, to Hess's observation, mostly churned out unambitious, conformist copy, and when they didn't, editors would "fix" it. He argues that the paper deliberately fudged its coverage of Vietnam at a crucial turn. He revisits the close association of the Sulzberger publishing family with the world leaders the newspaper purported to cover objectively. Later Hess shows that the Times was far better acquainted with the jet-set than with its neglected backyard; few at the paper in the 1970s seemed able to pick out the Bronx on a map. My Times is not without warmth for the Good Gray Lady. Hess praises individual reporters and editors, and notes that working for "the most influential paper in the world" gave him a platform to pursue various campaigns for justice, a few of which he recaps here: the journalistic prairie fire he set in connection with the New York State nursing home scandal; his exposé of shenanigans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and his revelation of corruption in several administrations at City Hall.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781583226223
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Publication date: 09/02/2003
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.23(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

JOHN HESS is a veteran newspaperman and the author of Vanishing France, The Case for De Gaulle, The Grand Acquisitors, and, with his wife Karen, Taste of America. After leaving the Times Hess worked in television and radio journalism, wrote a nationally syndicated column, and freelanced for The Nation and Grand Street. Today he continues his role as media watchdog with a daily spot on WBAI's Pacifica, New York public radio. He is the holder of the Ordre National de Mérite and is the winner of the Meyer Berger Award of the Columbia School of Journalism.

Table of Contents

Introduction7
1Learning a Trade13
2Tyranny of the Clerks19
3Fin-Biz27
4Meet the Family35
5Clerks to the World45
6Paris Edition55
7Tragic Victory67
8How We Blew My-lai83
9Aftermath101
10Cyrus113
11Sin City125
12Kerfuffle at the Met135
13Dining on the Times147
14Setting a Prairie Fire159
15Exit171
16Death Watch187
Epilogue195
Appendix227
Index261
Acknowledgments271
About the Author272
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