The Books Briefing: What’s White and Black and Read All Over?
In uncovering truths and disseminating information, journalists shape the way the public understands world events. Ida Tarbell went to great lengths to gather information on her subjects, and her immersive reporting for McClure’s magazine—which Stephanie Gorton chronicles in Citizen Reporters—laid the foundation for the way members of the press work today.
Timothy Thomas Fortune’s identity as a black man in America informedhis work as a newspaper editor and civil-rights leader, which is collected in an anthology edited by Shawn Leigh Alexander.The influential writer Walter Lippmann, who had insider access due to his close relationships with public officials,used his newspaper columns to influence U.S. policy, as Ronald Steel describes in his biography of Lippmann.
