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For five scandal-ridden years in the mid 1950’s, Confidential was the most popular, pulpiest, dishiest, Hollywood-shaking, gossip rag in the nation. And it insisted that its stories, no matter how sensational, be true. Confidential defied the studios, exposed the foibles of Hollywood brightest stars and laid the groundwork for our modern 24/7 celebrity culture. Henry Scott, author of a new book Shocking True Story, tells Confidential’s story.
25 years ago the Russian computer programmer Alexey Pajitnov created the ur-video game Tetris. Simple to play, hard to win and ubiquitous, the game continues to frustrate and entertain the masses. We speak with Pajitnov about how he started the shapes falling.
In a recently published memoir, a New York Times Washington-Bureau editor makes a shocking revelation: the Times had a scoop about the Watergate story months before Woodward and Bernstein. Amazingly, and mysteriously, the Times never followed up on the tip. Robert M. Smith, the Times reporter who received the tip says that until the memoir was published, he had protected his source for 37 years.
Throughout journalism there have been the inevitable errors of omission, errant mistakes and occasional misstatements of fact. And then there have been the flat-out, large-scale flagrant lies. Eric Burns, author of All The News Unfit to Print, reintroduces us to a number of prominent journalists who, finding the news lacking, simply made it up.
Last week, Slate’s press critic Jack Shafer wrote in praise of yellow journalism: “At its best it was terrific, at its worst it wasn’t that bad.” So, does the yellow stuff deserve its tawdry reputation? We asked W. Joseph Campbell, author of Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies.
We all know that Orson Welles drew his inspiration for the film “Citizen Kane” from the life of William Randolph Hearst. But over time, the character called Kane has become so conflated with the man named Hearst that we tend to think of the movie as a biopic. Kenneth Whyte’s The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst separates the myths from the reality.
Twenty years ago this week 60 Minutes introduced much of the country to Alar, a chemical used to make apples ripen on time. They argued that Alar was also an unregulated carcinogen, after which a panic ensued. Food journalist Michael Pollan argues that the fallout from the Alar scare is still all around us and the real story of what happened is in need of retelling.
Best known for his novels 1984 and Animal Farm, George Orwell's mastery of clear language is nowhere more evident than in his essays. New Yorker staff writer George Packer, who has compiled some of these shorter works into two volumes, says Orwell's voice was irascible and witty and, above all, direct.
Hear more of Brooke's conversation with George Packer
