Paper of Wreckage
The Rogues, Renegades, Wiseguys, Wankers, and Relentless Reporters Who Redefined American Media
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A jaw-dropping and unputdownable oral history of the New York Post and the legendary tabloid’s cultural impact from the 1970s to today as recounted by the men and women who witnessed it firsthand.
By the 1970s, the country’s oldest continuously published newspaper had fallen on hard times, just like its nearly bankrupt hometown. When the New York Post was sold to a largely unknown Australian named Rupert Murdoch in 1976, staffers hoped it would be the start of a new golden age for the paper.
Now, after the nearly fifty years Murdoch has owned the tabloid, American culture reflects what Murdoch first started in the 1970s: a celebrity-focused, noisy, one-sided media empire that reached its zenith with Fox News.
Drawing on extensive interviews with key players and in-depth research, this eye-opening, wildly entertaining oral history shows us how we got to this point. It’s a rollicking tale full of bad behavior, inflated egos, and a corporate culture that rewarded skirting the rules and breaking norms. But working there was never boring and now, you can discover the entire remarkable true story of America’s favorite tabloid newspaper.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Five decades worth of raucous behind-the-scenes anecdotes, from the creation of the notorious headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar" to the genesis of the popular gossip column Page Six, fill this scintillating oral history of the New York Post. Former Post contributors Mulcahy (My Lips Are Sealed) and DiGiacomo tap hundreds of former and current staffers, plus a zany selection of readers and subjects (filmmaker John Waters; a "onetime Gambino crime family hitman"), to tell the story of how the staid liberal paper changed after its 1976 purchase by Rupert Murdoch—a transition that was "like Sid Vicious taking over the Philharmonic." Much of the book consists of tales of hardboiled, misfit journalists—"rogues, reprobates, freaks"—willing to do anything for a story, like pose as a grief counselor to nail an interview with the mother of a Son of Sam victim. The paper's office hijinks are no less sordid; they include photographers snorting "coke off the light tables," an editor who wore "red devil horns" while "spanking and terrorizing the copygirls," and numerous fistfights. Though reveling in the sensationalism of such Mad Men–esque, pre-#MeToo behavior, the book is not uncritical; the authors are clear-eyed about the Post's damaging "negative coverage of the Black community" and the credence it gave to unreliable sources, including Trump mentor Roy Cohn. It's a juicy, gonzo slice of New York history.
