News Is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century

This book reminds me why I want to be a journalist. I have read and re-read News Is a Verb and each time it never fails to excite and inspire me. Mr. Hamill's notions of the purpose of a newspaper and ideas about how to effectively cover a city are inspirational. In addition, News Is a Verb has greatly improved my impression of tabloid papers -- a genre which I previously scorned, and was sometimes wrong to do so. My only criticism of Mr. Hamill is that he does occasionally appear bitter over the several misfortunes of his career, despite his disclaimer to the contrary. In particular, his personal attack on Donald Trump, though perhaps understandable, is a little over-exuberant. He loses a little credibility here, I think. His distrust of newspaper publishers is probably well-founded. That one caveat aside, this is a fabulous book and deserves attention from anyone interested in the field of journalism.

Buy this book for all the journalists you know and love -- and don't forget the publishers. Veteran New York newsman Pete Hamill has the solutions to so many of the problems plaguing modern newspapers: sliding standards of accuracy, the blurring of the line between news and entertainment, stagnant circulations in the midst of population growth. It will inspire those who want to be journalists and remind the veterans why they fell in love with news in the first place. NEWS IS A VERB should be required reading in every newsroom and journalism school.

I picked up a tabloid this morning. The headline again involved Kenneth Starr's intention of questioning Clinton directly on this Lewinsky business. That's fair enough. I open the front page, and right there, on page three, is a story about 'Seinfeld.' This tabloid deigned to put a story about a busted-up Mideast summit on page two. That's big news. But next in line is "news" about a sit-com? Come on. Pete Hamill speaks to these types of ludicrous problems besetting tabloids, all of which are done at their own hands. To make a buck, publishers speculate what the public wants, always insulting the reader's intelligence. Tabloids have become the National Enquirer with a little serious stuff on page forty-eight. Hamill writes eloquently and analytically, having seen these problems first-hand as the editor of The New York Post and The Daily News. He tried to do something about this: demanding good, tight writing from his reporters; reporting on the lives and the issues that affect the new immigrants, those who have inherited the mantle from the Irish, Jews and Italians. The people who have left their native lands for something better for themselves and their children. Most all of them come here knowing that as long as they work hard, their success is guaranteed. They are the new readership in the city. Newspapers must address their needs. If tabloids continue on their course, their fate is doomed. Publishers everywhere should be reading NEWS IS A VERB as the instructive treatise it is. It just might save them from themselves. KEVIN FARRELL

Pete Hamill is one of the best and savviest newspapermen who ever drew breath, and this book is his eloquent, angry, provocative call for saving American newspapers from themselves and the bean-counting, self-important owners and managers who have no instinctive grasp for the news business. Hamill, former editor-in-chief of THE NEW YORK POST and THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, writes with energy and power, evoking the great days of the newspaper business without marinating himself or the reader in smarmy nostalgia. Reading Hamill's cogent formula for revitalizing American newspapers as they enter the twenty-first century, you want to believe that American journalism's best days can be ahead, rather than in the past. This book is a true instant classic and a public service of the highest order; Thomas Paine would have been proud, and Joseph Pulitzer would have been delighted. -- Richard B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School, and Daniel M. Lyons Visiting Professor in American History, Brooklyn College/CUNY (and I used to carry a press card).