James Wyman Barrett

On the surface, an interesting book in its own right: an account of the last few days in February, 1931 of the New York World/New York Evening World/Sunday World group of newspapers, as those newspapers were sold by the heirs of Joseph Pulitzer to the Scripps-Howard newspapers, and merged out of existence. The story is looked at from a number of different angles; indeed, sometimes you see the same event (such as the final ruling from the Surrogate judge) seen from the point of view of a number of people. The matter appears to have been a foregone conclusion, but you do get a vivid appreciation of the emotions of the employees as a last-ditch effort to have an employee buyout briefly flares into, and out of, life. Secondarily, but no less interestingly, you also get a deep insight as to how newspapers were put together in the early 1930s, based on the various accounts from high-, medium- and low-level employees. There's even a sample of editorial writing by Walter Lippmann, the final editorial published in the (morning) World. Well worth a read, even if the book has been out of print for decades.… (altro)