Book: Merchants of Truth

After reading 3-4 books of no great social or political import -- so no reports here -- I'm starting a new one that promises to be a bit more meaty.  This is by Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times.

I believe her premise is that the starvation of print and serious broadcast journalism, by advertisers migrating en masse to online and less rigorous broadcast platforms, has led to the current bifurcation of our society into entrenched but not particularly well-informed camps, and the subsequent election of a ridiculous orange-haired rodeo clown.  

I attended a book launch Q&A with the author Friday, and she seemed well-informed and reasonable.  Unfortunately her speaking voice had a couple really annoying mannerisms, like holding the final "r" and descending in tone, whenever she said something like "anger-r-r-r-r-r" or "terror-r-r-r-r-r."

Luckily I can read her book ("Merrrrrrrchants of Trrrrrrrrruth") in my own voice.

Well, the preface was good -- well-written, concise, informational.

From there Abramson goes into rather detailed histories of The Times, The Post, BuzzFeed and The Vice... which I found I was really not much interested in. A fellow newspaperman would probably find all of the palace intrigue fascinating, but I did not.

Started skimming.

Gave up halfway through.

Started up again at the point Jeff Bezos buys The Post. He's an unlikely owner, in an unlikely investment, during an uncertain time. His reasoning, and effect on The Post, and the results of his buy make for renewed reading interest.

For a bit. I'll probably pull out again after this chapter.