The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism

New York Times journalist Nagourney (Out for Good) offers a fly-on-the-wall history of his workplace focused on the paper’s struggles between 1976 and 2016 “to come to grips with a changing business model and a changing world.” During this period, the Times had to adjust to the rise of the internet (its business model shifted from advertising- to subscriber-based), diversify its staff after two discrimination lawsuits, and adapt to evolving journalistic norms and expectations (Nagourney tracks how competition from the Drudge Report and other blogs during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal taught the Times it needed “to be part of a world where stories were being published as they happened”). Among other journalistic scandals that rocked the newspaper, Nagourney recounts Judith Miller’s overly credulous acceptance of U.S. intelligence reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the discovery in 2003 that Jayson Blair was fabricating his articles. Drawing on extensive research and original interviews, Nagourney provides astute insight into leadership under crisis as well as a window onto recent decades of polarizing politics. The result is both a valuable case study of an industry in flux and a unique angle on American history. (Sept.)