The Media Market

I did mention this title before, on November 10, under "Retirement Season", but I will do it once more as it is important. So, here it goes - Seth Mnookin's Hard News - The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media is an important book. About the Sulzberger family and the culture around the news desks in one of America's most prominent elite media outlets. However, Mnookin doesn't go deep enough. Jayson Blair might have shown that even the NY Times can be fooled (or have reporters who are interested in fooling their readers). But so did the Memogate during the election, when the NY Times, accompanied by The Boston Globe and CBS News tried to scandalize the Bush campaign with a fake memo about his time at the Air National Guard.
There are certainly more stories to be told about the reign of Howell Raines and the political impact of the New York Times.