Books: A Look Into the Changing Business of Journalism
Towards the end of All About the Story: News, Power, Politics, and the Washington Post, the new memoir by former Washington Post executive editor Len Downie, there is an irony so huge that only a journalist could miss it. Mere pages after Downie cites that awful, nonsensical cliche that “journalism’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” he relates being forced to retire. It’s January 2008, and Downie is summoned to publisher Bo Jones’s office and informed it is time for him to go. Downie doesn’t take the news well. “I became numb as he discussed the details…I was determined not to show how shocked I was. I did not argue or ask questions.” After retreating from Jones’s office, Downie called his wife: “Something big, something life-changing has just happened,” he said.
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