Former Newsweek media columnist Seth Mnookin examines the Jayson Blair scandal at The New York Times, basing his account on conversations with many of the reporters, editors and executives involved in the paper's internal investigation into the matter.
Critic Reviews
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Favorable
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Entertainment Weekly
Vigorous, purposeful prose and a killer knack for building suspense.
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Favorable
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Salon Andrew O'Hehir
It's compulsive bedside reading for journalism junkies.
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Favorable
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Village Voice John Giuffo
Mnookin... us[es] a breezy but journalistically solid style that lends his version weight.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Michael Getler
Hard News reads like a thriller, a fast-paced novel unfolding inside a newspaper long viewed as the gold standard of American journalism.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Orville Schell
Using an absorbing and well-researched narrative style, Mnookin chronicles the series of tectonic episodes that have in recent years sent shock waves through the paper. [23 Jan 2005]
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Mixed
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Chicago Tribune Scott McLemee
At a time when the journalistic profession is succumbing to the demands of the 24-hour news cycle and a culture of streaming infotainment, we certainly need analytic power and historical memory. But an analysis that examines the problems of The Times and concludes that the scapegoat has been well-sacrificed--well, I'm not sure that quite counts. Good gossip, though.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Timothy Noah
The original material in ''Hard News,'' though adequate to fill a first-rate magazine article, doesn't provide quite enough heft for a book, leaving Mnookin little choice but to relate Blair's story at tedious length.
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Mixed
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The Onion A.V. Club Donna Bowman
Hard News suffers from its outsider perspective.
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Unfavorable
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Los Angeles Times Sidney Zion
Mnookin chose to go prospecting for gold at a mine long since picked clean by everybody with or without an ax to grind, including Mnookin, when he was a media critic at Newsweek. [13 Dec 2004, p.E9]
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