Just a Journalist : On the Press, Life, and the Spaces Between Hardback

by Linda Greenhouse

Part of the The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies series

Hardback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

In this timely book, a Pulitzer Prizeâ€“winning reporter trains an autobiographical lens on a moment of remarkable transition in American journalism.

Just a few years ago, the mainstream press was wrestling with whether labeling waterboarding as torture violated important norms of neutrality and objectivity.

Now, major American newspapers regularly call the president of the United States a liar.

Clearly, something has changed as the old rules of â€œbalanceâ€ and â€œtwo sides to every storyâ€ have lost their grip.

Is the change for the better? Will it last?In Just a Journalist, Linda Greenhouseâ€”who for decades covered the U.S.

Supreme Court for The New York Timesâ€”tackles these questions from the perspective of her own experience.

A decade ago, she faced criticism from her own newspaper and much of journalismâ€™s leadership for a speech to a college alumnae group in which she criticized the Bush administration for, among other things, seeking to create a legal black hole at GuantÃ¡namo Bayâ€”two years after the Supreme Court itself had ruled that the detainees could not be hidden away from the reach of federal judges who might hear their appeals. One famous newspaper editor expressed his belief that it was unethical for a journalist to vote, because the act of choosing one candidate over another could compromise objectivity.

Linda Greenhouse disagrees. Calling herself â€œan accidental activist,â€ she raises urgent questions about the role journalists can and should play as citizens, even as participants, in the world around them.