PAPER OF WRECKAGE

Two former staffers of one of the world’s most notorious tabloids present the story of how an Australian media magnate changed American media.

Former New York Post writers and editors Mulcahy and DiGiacomo interviewed more then 240 past and present Post staffers, competitors, media watchers, and even story subjects to compile an oral history of the tabloid. They focus primarily on the owner, pugnacious and business-savvy Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who took over the flailing newspaper in the mid-1970s. Interviewees describe how Murdoch, a veteran newspaperman, combined his knowledge of bylines, deadlines, and most of all bottom lines to alter how the American media present the news. Delivered by excellent reporters and prima donna columnists, shaped by Murdoch’s political bent, the paper gained notoriety and circulation due to the gossip peddled on the infamous Page Six and the antics of an eccentric New York real estate operator named Donald Trump, astutely identified by Murdoch as someone who made good copy and would sell papers. While the book’s “inside baseball” accounts of newsgathering, the goings-on in the often-debauched Post newsroom, and the New York scene may bore some readers, the book is catnip for anyone interested in the evolution (or, depending on your point of view, devolution) of the Post in particular and U.S. media in general. For laypeople who may not know the newspaper terminology that peppers the language of many of those interviewed, the authors include a glossary that is both informative and entertaining. The commentary from the candid interviewees, like the Post itself, has it all, from delightfully sublime and critically incisive to completely nonsensical. Mulcahy and DiGiacomo have organized their research and interviews well to craft an interesting and rollicking narrative that will stand as a significant contribution to the history of mass media.

Raucous and enlightening fun.