Publishers’ Weekly has an article about how the publishing industry is releasing more political books such as the Scott McLellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, and the Douglas Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, which purport to tell the real truth behind the government’s actions toward the war. The thrust of the article is that publishing industry is taking up where congressional oversight and the standard press has failed the public. The thought that occurred to me when I read this article was how important it was for publishers to stay autonomous which is why any movement toward ad supported non-fiction or fiction could be dangerous.
Via Publishers’ Weekly.
I don’t think publishers are taking up where the press fails. The people writing these books aren’t journalists, and they typically don’t uphold journalistic standards. These books are usually written by people who want to make a buck and don’t want to have to do the legwork associated with real investigative reporting.
While some good can come from books like these, I think that it would be dangerous for people to mistake tell-alls for real journalism.