I enjoyed The Influencing Machine by NPR's Brooke Gladstone, a comic book (of all things) about the history of the media and how we consume and shape it:
The media machine is a delusion. What we're really dealing with is a mirror: an exalting, degrading, tedious, and transcendent funhouse mirror of America. Actually, media is a plural noun: we're dealing with a whole mess of mirrors. They aren't well calibrated; they're fogged, and cracked. But you're in there, reflected somewhere, and so is everyone else (including people you dislike).Then there's War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq by Richard Engel, NBC's Chief Foreign News Correspondent. I've always liked Engel - he was pretty much the only person on cable news I wanted to hear from during the Arab Spring. On the Iraq War, he says:
I used to launch into deep discussions about Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. I would draw maps on cocktail napkins to illustrate the shifting power plays, much to the amusement of NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who has kept a few of my scribbles. Now when most people in the States ask about the war, I simply say, "We are in over our heads. We started a war we were not qualified to deal with."On the New Zealand side of things, I've made a start on The Hollow Men by Nicky Hager, an expose about Don Brash put together from internal reports, emails, and other information leaked by members of the National Party:
It is not that the activities and themes described in this book have never happened before: such cynicism is found to varying degrees in most eras and parties. But this study of the National Party covers a period of extremely cynical political behaviour. And what is unique is the opportunity it offers to observe politics up close and in the politicians' own words.It's way too early to compare myself to any of these journalists, of course, but it's fun to think about.
No comments:
Post a Comment