Trade Secrets of Washington Journalists
Author: Steve Weinberg
Publisher:
Published: 1981
Total Pages: 260
ISBN-13:
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Bureau of Spies
Author: Steven T. Usdin
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2018-09-04
Total Pages: 398
ISBN-13: 1633884775
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBrings to light the long history of spies posing as journalists in Washington. Covert intelligence gathering, propaganda, fake news stories, dirty tricks--these tools of spy craft have been used for seven decades by agents hiding in plain sight in Washington's National Press Building. This revealing book tells the story of espionage conducted by both US and foreign intelligence operatives just blocks from the White House. Journalist Steven T. Usdin details how spies for Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and the CIA have operated from the offices, corridors, and bars of this well-known press center to collect military, political, and commercial secrets. As the author's extensive research shows, efforts to influence American elections by foreign governments are nothing new, and WikiLeaks is not the first antisecrecy group to dump huge quantities of classified data into the public domain. Among other cases, the book documents the work of a journalist who created a secret intelligence organization that reported directly to President Franklin Roosevelt and two generations of Soviet spies who operated undercover as TASS reporters and ran circles around the FBI. The author also reveals the important roles played by journalists in the Cuban missile crisis, and presents information about a spy involved in the Watergate break-in who had earlier spied on Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater for then-President Lyndon Johnson. Based on interviews with retired CIA, NSA, FBI, and KGB officers, as well as declassified and leaked intelligence documents, this fascinating historical narrative shows how the worlds of journalism and intelligence sometimes overlap and highlights the ethical quandaries that espionage invariably creates.
This Town
Author: Mark Leibovich
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2014-04-29
Total Pages: 417
ISBN-13: 0399170685
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe #1 New York Times bestseller! Washington D.C. might be loathed from every corner of the nation, yet these are fun and busy days at this nexus of big politics, big money, big media, and big vanity. There are no Democrats and Republicans anymore in the nation's capital, just millionaires. Through the eyes of Leibovich we discover how the funeral for a beloved newsman becomes the social event of the year; how political reporters are fetishized for their ability to get their names into the predawn e-mail sent out by the city's most powerful and puzzled-over journalist; how a disgraced Hill aide can overcome ignominy and maybe emerge with a more potent "brand" than many elected members of Congress. And how an administration bent on "changing Washington" can be sucked into the ways of This Town with the same ease with which Tea Party insurgents can, once elected, settle into it like a warm bath. Outrageous, fascinating, and very necessary, This Town is a must-read whether you're inside the highway which encircles DC - or just trying to get there.
Covering Politics in a "Post-Truth" America
Author: Susan B. Glasser
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2016-12-06
Total Pages: 21
ISBN-13: 0815731337
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn a new Brookings Essay, Politico editor Susan Glasser chronicles how political reporting has changed over the course of her career and reflects on the state of independent journalism after the 2016 election. The Bookings Essay: In the spirit of its commitment to higquality, independent research, the Brookings Institution has commissioned works on major topics of public policy by distinguished authors, including Brookings scholars. The Brookings Essay is a multi-platform product aimed to engage readers in open dialogue and debate. The views expressed, however, are solely those of the author. Available in ebook only.
Intimate Journalism
Author: Walt Harrington
Publisher: SAGE
Published: 1997-03-28
Total Pages: 378
ISBN-13: 9780761905875
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn exemplary text for courses in feature writing, magazine, and literary journalism, Intimate Journalism introduces students to the cutting-edge art of combining traditional feature writing with deep journalistic inquiry. This collection of award-winning articles elevates human interest reporting to new heights in the literary journalism field. In a detailed and hands-on, practical primer on in-depth human reporting, editor Walt Harrington prefaces this outstanding collection by sharing the trade secrets from his 15 years as a staff writer for The Washington Post Magazine. Fifteen articles follow, each containing fascinating examples of evocative human reporting by some of the most artful journalists in America. Each article is followed by an invaluable afterword from each journalist describing how he or she conceptualized, reported and wrote their particular story. In this passionate and intense volume, Harrington gives journalists inspiration and guidance on how to turn ordinary life into extraordinary journalism A must for students and teachers of journalism, for budding magazine and newspaper writers, and for professional journalists who wish to be re-inspired by the superb reporting, distinctive writing, and sound advice found in this text.
October Surprise
Author: Devlin Barrett
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2020-09-22
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 1541758684
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe 2016 Election, which altered American political history, was not decided by the Russians or in Ukraine or by Steve Bannon. The event that broke Hillary's blue wall in the Midwest and swung Florida and North Carolina was an October Surprise, and it was wholly a product of the leadership of the FBI. This is the inside story by the reporter closest to its center. In September 2016, Hillary Clinton was the presumptive next president of the US. She had a blue wall of states leaning her way in the Midwest, and was ahead in North Carolina and Florida, with a better than even shot at taking normally Republican Arizona. The US was about to get its first woman president. Yet within two months everything was lost. An already tightening race saw one seismic correction: it came in October when the FBI launched an investigation into the Clinton staff's use of a private server for their emails. Clinton fell 3-4 percent in the polls instantly, and her campaign never had time to rebut the investigation or rebuild her momentum so close to election day. The FBI cost her the race. October Surprise is a pulsating narrative of an agency seized with righteous certainty that waded into the most important political moment in the life of the nation, and has no idea how to back out with dignity. So it doggedly stands its ground, compounding its error. In a momentous display of self-preservation, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and key Justice Department officials decide to protect their own reputations rather than save the democratic process. Once they make that determination, the race is lost for Clinton, who is helpless in front of their accusation even though she has not intended to commit, let alone actually committed, any crime. A dark true-life thriller with historic consequences set at the most crucial moment in the electoral calendar, October Surprise is a warning, a morality tale and a political and personal tragedy.
Women Politicians and the Media
Author: Maria Braden
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2021-09-15
Total Pages: 391
ISBN-13: 0813181674
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAll American politicians face the glare of media coverage, both in running for office and in representing their constituents if elected. But for women seeking or holding high public office, as Maria Braden demonstrates, the scrutiny by newspapers and television can be both withering and damaging—a fact that has changed little over the decades despite the emergence of more women in politics and more women in the news media. Particularly disturbing is the fact that the increase in the number of women reporters appears to have had little effect on the way women candidates are portrayed in the media. Some women reporters, in fact, seem intent on proving that they can be just as tough on women candidates as their male counterparts, thus perpetuating the misrepresentations of the past. Braden examines the political fortunes of Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. House; those of the congressional "glamour girls" of the 1940s, Clare Boothe Luce and Helen Gahagan Douglas; the long Senate career of Margaret Chase Smith; the political struggles of diverse women of more recent decades, including Bella Abzug, Elizabeth Holtzman, Nancy Kassebaum, Barbara Jordan, Dianne Feinstein, and Ann Richards; and the disastrous vice presidential bid of Geraldine Ferraro. Braden traces a persistent double standard in media coverage of women's political campaigns through the past eighty years. Journalists dwell on the candidates' novelty in public office and describe them in ways that stereotype and trivialize them. Especially demeaning are comments on women's appearance, personality, and family connections— comments of a sort that would rarely be made about men candidates. Are they too pretty or too plain? What do their clothes say about them? Are they "feminine" enough or "too masculine"? Are they still just ordinary housewives or are they neglecting their families by heading for Washington or the state house? Braden's study is based on both media accounts and the revealing personal interviews she conducted with a broad range of recent women politicians, including Margaret Chase Smith, Bella Abzug, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Nancy Kassebaum, and Ann Richards. All describe agonizing struggles to get across to the public the message that they are serious and competent candidates capable of holding high office and shaping our nation's course.
The Afghanistan Papers
Author: Craig Whitlock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2022-08-30
Total Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 1982159014
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA Washington Post Best Book of 2021 The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.
