Backstory : inside the business of news / Ken Auletta.

Includes index.

The Howell Doctrine -- Demolition Man -- Synergy City -- New York's Tabloid Wars -- The New York Times's Outward Bound Adventure -- The Reporter who Disappeared -- Fee Speech -- The Don -- Gotcha: Candidates Versus Press -- Inside Out -- Fox News: We Report. We Decide.

"Journalism, it's long been said, is not just a business but a vital public service. Lately, however, voices from all sides of the political spectrum insist that today's journalism often makes a mockery of its high-minded ideals. But that's where agreement ceases and the debate about what ails journalism grows increasingly partisan and ugly. Is the culprit big media consolidation? Gotcha journalism? Noisy instant opinions on cable and the Internet? A pack of unpatriotic liberals, out of touch with America, whose collective bias forms an "Axis of Weasel"? Right-wing pundits who think that the words "fair and balanced" will, like a fairy's spell, turn their partisan diet into fair and balanced journalism? In Backstory, Ken Auletta's gaze sweeps into every corner of a subject that has generated tremendous noise but precious little clear thinking."--BOOK JACKET.