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First Amendment rights are the premises of both books -- the value of a free, independent press, and the need for many voices in a democratic society. But where survival is concerned, each assumes a vastly different approach: in the case of The Chain Gang, survival is that of the underdog, the home-grown newspaper, against a monolithic monopoly. It's Alive!'s notion of survival in a fast-paced, cutthroat, tabloid world is more rudimentary: that of the fittest.
Founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801, The New York Post is infamous for lurid headlines ("Headless Body in Topless Bar") and for breaking stories that have later whetted the public's appetite for more salacious details about the limelight lives of the "Mayflower Madam" (Sydney Biddle Barrows), the "Queen of Mean" (Leona Helmsley), and "Long Island Lolita" (Amy Fisher), among others. The Post's exposs have reverberated in upscale broadsheets, national news magazines, and made-for-TV movies, giving credence to the idea that the media are an incestuous lot.
Indeed, The Post's impact on the collective American conscience transcends its immediate circulation. The creeping use of emotionalism and an orientation on individual actors, rather than on larger interpretations of events, is endemic to the media in general. If not tabloid in tone, then most newspapers today are tabloid in format, tight on column inches, light on analysis, ambivalent converts to the cult of personality.
Having worked his way up from copyboy to executive editor at The Post, author Steven Cuozzo has seen it all. His career spans 20 years and five owners, and he's seen styles and peccadilloes come and go. From Dorothy Schiff's debutante approach, to the gut-wrenching style of Rupert Murdoch and the 1980s savoir faire of Peter Kalikow, Cuozzo shows how The Post survived these editorial visions and the occasional financial mayhem that accompanied them.
Comprised of anecdotes, It's Alive! makes insightful inferences about the state of tabloid journalism. Cuozzo's style is heady and hardboiled. Whether or not you agree with his premise that newspapers should cater to public taste, reflecting rather than guiding, is moot: this is one rollicking good ride. While The Post thrived on competition against the Daily News and The New York Times, its circulation gave it relatively little cause for financial concern.
Where It's Alive! is as boisterous as the atmosphere it describes, Richard McCord's The Chain Gang is gentler, but packs a profound punch. An expos in the classical sense, the book coalesces McCord's experiences with Gannett, the nation's largest chain and the subject of antitrust litigation. Chronicled are the unethical tactics employed by Gannett to squelch competition and systematically undermine smaller newspapers.
Having faced off with Gannett in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was co-publisher of the weekly Santa Fe Reporter, McCord here is both investigative journalist and maverick detective, scouring documents, letters, memoranda, and testimonies that were fodder for his self-imposed assignment -- helping a fellow publisher in trouble.
In December 1989, McCord issued a special ten-part report on behalf of another newspaper in a similar predicament, The Green Bay News-Chronicle. Like the Santa Fe Reporter, the News-Chronicle was content to be a small player with its own segment of the market, dependent on a few loyal local advertisers. Then Gannett moved in, armed with a bastion of representatives paid specifically to seize accounts from the smaller paper, thus depriving it of essential revenue in an attempt to drive it under. Gannett called it competition; the News-Chronicle, and other independents before and after, called it sabotage.
When last anyone heard, some News-Chronicle readers took up the mantle by soliciting subscriptions from friends and ads from businesses. But how long will the fight last? McCord shows why such a fight is imperative and how the deliberate muzzling of smaller, alternative voices is to the detriment of any community.
It's Alive! and The Chain Gang provide two different takes, two compelling views of the dynamics of newspaper publishing. These stories are not merely modern-day apocrypha about newspapers -- they are journalism history.
Jayne Plymale-Jackson is a freelance writer in Athens, Georgia.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.