cover image Behind the Front Page

Behind the Front Page

David Broder. Simon & Schuster, $18.45 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-671-44943-8

Broder, longtime political correspondent for the Washington Post, takes a gentlemanly look at contemporary journalism and comes up with a mild surprise or two. He is impressed, for example, by the way our neighbors to the north handle media coverage of national campaigns and proposes that ""catching up with the Canadians'' wouldn't be a bad way for our own media to begin improving itself. Unfortunately, he isn't altogether clear on what needs improving. (He admits that he doesn't take seriously the charge of media bias, for one thing.) The book is, for the most part, a sprawling discussion of the way presidential campaigns are covered, the relationship between journalists and public officials in general and , in particular, the relationship between the White House press corps and what he calls ``the White House propaganda machine.'' Major ad/promo; author tour. (April)