Book-It 'o14! Book #54
The Fifty Books Challenge, year five! ( 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013) This was a library request.
Title: All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid by Matt Bai
Details: Copyright 2014, Deckle Edge Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"A poignant, myth-shattering reappraisal of the moment when the relationship between media and politicians changed forever-- and how America has suffered for it
In May 1987, Colorado senator Gary Hart- an articulate, dashing, reform-minded Democrat-- seemed a lock for the party's presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. And then, in one tumultuous week, came rumors of marital infidelity, a newspaper's stakeout of Hart's home, and unprecedented media frenzy. With the relentlessness of the newly born twenty-four-hour news cycle, Hart saw his candidacy expire in a blaze of flashbulbs, tabloid speculation, and late-night farce.
Matt Bai, former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, shows how the Hart episode marked a crucial turning point in the ethos of political media- and, by extension, of politics itself. "Sex scandal" and "politician" are a familiar pairing in the modern vernacular, but this wasn't always the case. John F. Kennedy's and Lyndon B. Johnson's escapades were well known to journalists contemporaneously but went unreported. Matt Bai argues that as platforms have diversified and satellite technology has changed the meaning of "breaking news," a transformed media culture has turned politicians into celebrities and gaffes into fodder for a news cycle ever more rapacious for "content"-- the more sensation the better.
Bai offers a brilliant new analysis of who bears responsibility for this shift, examining the extent to which Hart's defamers were responding to the evolving appetites of their audiences, thereby redefining our concept of what's "newsworthy."
Through the magnificently reported story of Hart's fall from grace (and his overlooked legacy), Bai makes the compelling case that this was the moment when the paradigm shifted-- candidates' private lives became public, news became entertainment, and politics became the stuff of gossip columns. Bai also clearly demonstrates that almost everything you think you know about Gary Hart and that fateful week is wrong."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'll be honest: my hackles go up whenever I hear anything about how Boomers "forever changed" something and how it used to be so much better and now it isn't. My interest in cultural anthropology twitches in annoyance when history is reduced that way as it so often is.
Also, although I obviously study eras that came before me, the majority of my knowledge of Gary Hart came from the Bloom County cover I saw as a kid, and for years after I was confused about who it was that actually wore the "Monkey Business Crew" t-shirt (for those unaware, the comic strip spoofed the infamous photograph by having Opus the penguin, attired in a skimpy bikini, perch on the lap of George H.W Bush, who took Hart's place clutching a drink and donning the Monkey Business shirt).
So why exactly would I gravitate towards this book?
The author gave a great interview on The Daily Show. And I'm glad he did, because otherwise I would've passed this book by, and it's an important read.
How I Liked It: With a breadth and scope of reporting that's nothing less than admirable, the author seeks to make the case that the Gary Hart scandal was a hallmark of the tide of journalism to infotainment and the lack of respectability in media. This sounds specious, but the author makes a strong case.
In the years following Watergate and the rise of the Boomers as a decent-sized voting block, the personal became political in the modern age, and issues that were ignored in favor of the candidates policies in generations past became hot-button topics. The author traces the evolution with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle and the desperate need not to feel deceived again. He argues that a collective Boomer soul-searching as to how, exactly, the nation could've elected Nixon twice and not known what was going on under their noses lead them to feel the need to vet every candidate's personal life.
The author makes a few stumbles in his history as well as his thesis: While the Hart scandal may have drawn a line in the modern age, personal scandal and politics, including American politics, is nothing new. He also bunts the fact the rise of citizen journalism (arguably a part of the 24-Hour-News Cycle before even social media) and therefore an mass influx of voices would usurp the discretion to what is or isn't an issue to that of a news corporation.
But to his credit, the author avoids pat answers and oversimplification. He does not paint social media nor technology as a whole as an evil and a detriment, rather, he lauds its rise in widening the platform to citizens. While he probes the after effects of the sex scandals that followed Hart (including Bill Clinton leaving the presidency with a whopping sixty-eight percent approval rating), he makes a relatively convincing case that were it not for Hart and his trial by fire, we'd never have even had a Bill Clinton.
The narrative thread does falter and occasionally the author's retrospectives with Hart himself can veer into the treacly (a weeping Hart spouts poetry and doubts his place in heaven), among other distractions.
The book is still an enlightening and at times even shocking read (Hart accurately predicted 9/11 and the housing crisis, among other events) packed with fascinating minutia (including Hart's correspondences with President Bill Clinton) and compels one to consider and reconsider so much of our current media landscape.
Notable: One particular passage early in the book casts immense doubt on the author's abilities:
“We credit Barack Obama with having broken down the whites-only barrier to the Oval Office, when in fact icons of popular culture had been trampling racial boundaries for years before Obama came along, so that much of the country was entranced by a candidate who might do the same thing in politics. (Obama's candidacy, based on little by way of experience or substance, might well have been less resonant or realistic had he been white.) ” (pg 31 and 32)
If I have to tell you what parts are bullshit and why, you probably won't believe me/accept it.
Title: All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid by Matt Bai
Details: Copyright 2014, Deckle Edge Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"A poignant, myth-shattering reappraisal of the moment when the relationship between media and politicians changed forever-- and how America has suffered for it
In May 1987, Colorado senator Gary Hart- an articulate, dashing, reform-minded Democrat-- seemed a lock for the party's presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. And then, in one tumultuous week, came rumors of marital infidelity, a newspaper's stakeout of Hart's home, and unprecedented media frenzy. With the relentlessness of the newly born twenty-four-hour news cycle, Hart saw his candidacy expire in a blaze of flashbulbs, tabloid speculation, and late-night farce.
Matt Bai, former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, shows how the Hart episode marked a crucial turning point in the ethos of political media- and, by extension, of politics itself. "Sex scandal" and "politician" are a familiar pairing in the modern vernacular, but this wasn't always the case. John F. Kennedy's and Lyndon B. Johnson's escapades were well known to journalists contemporaneously but went unreported. Matt Bai argues that as platforms have diversified and satellite technology has changed the meaning of "breaking news," a transformed media culture has turned politicians into celebrities and gaffes into fodder for a news cycle ever more rapacious for "content"-- the more sensation the better.
Bai offers a brilliant new analysis of who bears responsibility for this shift, examining the extent to which Hart's defamers were responding to the evolving appetites of their audiences, thereby redefining our concept of what's "newsworthy."
Through the magnificently reported story of Hart's fall from grace (and his overlooked legacy), Bai makes the compelling case that this was the moment when the paradigm shifted-- candidates' private lives became public, news became entertainment, and politics became the stuff of gossip columns. Bai also clearly demonstrates that almost everything you think you know about Gary Hart and that fateful week is wrong."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'll be honest: my hackles go up whenever I hear anything about how Boomers "forever changed" something and how it used to be so much better and now it isn't. My interest in cultural anthropology twitches in annoyance when history is reduced that way as it so often is.
Also, although I obviously study eras that came before me, the majority of my knowledge of Gary Hart came from the Bloom County cover I saw as a kid, and for years after I was confused about who it was that actually wore the "Monkey Business Crew" t-shirt (for those unaware, the comic strip spoofed the infamous photograph by having Opus the penguin, attired in a skimpy bikini, perch on the lap of George H.W Bush, who took Hart's place clutching a drink and donning the Monkey Business shirt).
So why exactly would I gravitate towards this book?
The author gave a great interview on The Daily Show. And I'm glad he did, because otherwise I would've passed this book by, and it's an important read.
How I Liked It: With a breadth and scope of reporting that's nothing less than admirable, the author seeks to make the case that the Gary Hart scandal was a hallmark of the tide of journalism to infotainment and the lack of respectability in media. This sounds specious, but the author makes a strong case.
In the years following Watergate and the rise of the Boomers as a decent-sized voting block, the personal became political in the modern age, and issues that were ignored in favor of the candidates policies in generations past became hot-button topics. The author traces the evolution with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle and the desperate need not to feel deceived again. He argues that a collective Boomer soul-searching as to how, exactly, the nation could've elected Nixon twice and not known what was going on under their noses lead them to feel the need to vet every candidate's personal life.
The author makes a few stumbles in his history as well as his thesis: While the Hart scandal may have drawn a line in the modern age, personal scandal and politics, including American politics, is nothing new. He also bunts the fact the rise of citizen journalism (arguably a part of the 24-Hour-News Cycle before even social media) and therefore an mass influx of voices would usurp the discretion to what is or isn't an issue to that of a news corporation.
But to his credit, the author avoids pat answers and oversimplification. He does not paint social media nor technology as a whole as an evil and a detriment, rather, he lauds its rise in widening the platform to citizens. While he probes the after effects of the sex scandals that followed Hart (including Bill Clinton leaving the presidency with a whopping sixty-eight percent approval rating), he makes a relatively convincing case that were it not for Hart and his trial by fire, we'd never have even had a Bill Clinton.
The narrative thread does falter and occasionally the author's retrospectives with Hart himself can veer into the treacly (a weeping Hart spouts poetry and doubts his place in heaven), among other distractions.
The book is still an enlightening and at times even shocking read (Hart accurately predicted 9/11 and the housing crisis, among other events) packed with fascinating minutia (including Hart's correspondences with President Bill Clinton) and compels one to consider and reconsider so much of our current media landscape.
Notable: One particular passage early in the book casts immense doubt on the author's abilities:
“We credit Barack Obama with having broken down the whites-only barrier to the Oval Office, when in fact icons of popular culture had been trampling racial boundaries for years before Obama came along, so that much of the country was entranced by a candidate who might do the same thing in politics. (Obama's candidacy, based on little by way of experience or substance, might well have been less resonant or realistic had he been white.) ” (pg 31 and 32)
If I have to tell you what parts are bullshit and why, you probably won't believe me/accept it.