well this, was too tacky even for hearst and there was such an outcry that two day later the banner was drooped. the war went on for several more months and hearst with some

justification continued to think of it as his war. no less vile than hearst, although in an entirely different manner was the reporting on soviet leader josef stalin's five year plan in the early 1930's by waller durante of the new york sometimes. stalin had determined that he would make the soviet union a military and industrial powerhouse to rival the united states and that he would do it in half a decade. one of the ways he tried to do it was by confiscating grain and other dietary staples from the soviet republic, the back woods soviet republic of ukraine. he would then see to it that this food was delivered to workers in the more technologically advanced soviet republics, so that they would be hearty and well nourished, will be able to work on the assembly lines and able to bring about the goals of stalin's five year

plan. the result in ukraine was the worst famine in the 20t 20th century. anywhere according to some estimates, seven million people died, that is probably an exaggeration, the more conventionally accepted number is about half that. maybe between three million and three and a half million. regardless, three points are indisputable. millions of people died. second, stalin in effect murdered by stealing their food. and third, walter durante refused to report on the famine in the pages of the "new york times." at one point referring to reports of a famine in the pages of other newspapers as, this is his word, bunk. durante was not an american. he was born and educated in england. he was however a rabid

stalinist, the fact of which the editors of the "times" back in new york were almost certainly not aware. they trusted durante, an durante repaid their trust with deceit on an epic scale. eventually, knowledge of the famine became so widespread that even durante had to admit it, but in the first article he sent to the "times," that acknowledged the famine, although conceding that soviet soldiers and again, this is his word, might have borrowed, might have borrowed too much food from ukraine, he blamed the ukrainians for not cooperating fully with stalin's objectives. furthermore, he blamed them for faulty agricultural practice, which stalin said is what really led to the famine. it's hard to conceive of the magnitude of this kind of rationalization. ukraine had always been a backward province.

-- republic. it had always been a republic in which people farmed for hundreds and hundreds of years, and now, stalin, being parroted by durante, is saying that all of a sudden ukrainians forgot these techniques of agriculture, which were in their very blood streams, and as a result, starved themselves to death. in 1932, when the famine was underway, but had not yet reached its peak, walter durante wrote a 13-page series on the -- i'm sorry, a 13-part series on the soviet union for the "new york times." 13 parts, one reference to ukraine, no references to the famine. for this series, which to be fair, had a lot of information in it that americans did not know before about how the soviet union was operating under stalin, and to be fair to the other side, had a lot of information or rather, ignored a lot of other information that

americans should have known about the soviet union under stalin, for this series, walter durante, in 1932, won a pulitzer prize. 77 years have passed since then. and the pulitzer prize committee has still not revoked the award. one final note on the great ukrainian famine of the early 1930's, which durante once called bunk. in 2008, it was officially recognized by the government of ukraine and by several other world bodies as an act of genocide. it's too bad it didn't lead to acts of honest journalism in the "new york times." which by the way, it should be pointed out was as much a victim of durante's reporting as those people who read the paper. back to the 1930's now. 1934, brew -- bruno richard

hauntman. he played a major role, probably the major role in the kidnapping and murder of charles lindberg jr., the infant son of the most famous man in the world at the time. there are some reputable authors and historians who have since questioned hauptman's guilt. they have offered other perpetrators, and sometimes in very convincing manner. i repeat, hauptman probably did it. as far as journalists were concerned though, haupnman definitely did it. he certainly seemed a good choice. i will quote here from all the news unfit to print. hauptman was a german and the germans had been our foe in world war i. his features were coarse, his speech guttural. he had entered the united states illegally. he had a criminal background,

resorting to burglary, at a time when he couldn't find work as a carpenter. there was, as far as anyone knew, more evidence against him than against anyone else. he was as perfectly cast for the role of villian as lindberg was for the role of hero. so as a result of this, reporters behaved toward hauptman. at his trial, actually in the courtroom, in a manner that reporters had never blade before. and i don't think have ever blade since. they have screamed the at hauptman from the they cursed at him. in a couple of days, they threw things at him when he was in the witness stand. they calmed him a -- call him a liar when he answered questions from attorneys. seldom did the judge calm for order. there is film that exists of the hauptman trial and to look at

it, to look at the astonishing chaos of it is not to believe that you are witnessing a legal proceeding. absolutely remarkable. but even more remarkable is the fact that in some cases, the press behaved even worse toward hauphman before the trial. the first time police went to search hauptman's apartment after he was been arrested, they let a buddy of theirs, a reporter for the new york daily news, accompany them and this gentleman, when he got the opportunity, sneaked away from the cops and went into a corner of the apartment, took out a pencil and he wrote down the name and phone number of the intermediary in the case, that is to say, the man who delivered ransom money from the lindbergs to -- well, it's never been clear to whom. might have been hauptman but even the intermediary couldn't tell.

it was park, it was an -- dark, it was an evening on which it just wasn't possible to be sure who was whom. so the new york daily news reporter writes down this guy's name, writes down his phone number, and then he smears it to make it look as if hauptman had tried to erase it. then he went to the police and said, look what i found back here, and this evidence, this evidence was admitted into the trial. >> the worst offender was not "the daily news" but william randall hearst's new york journal. quoting now from the historian. which claimed falsely that maps found in hauptman's apartment, included those around hopewell, that the caliber of hauptman's

pistol fitted a hole in the baby's head. but the "new york times" was not far behind with equally false stories that writing paper found in the hauptman apartment was the same as writing paper used in ransom notes. that latter notes were found and they were the same as those used in the kidnap ladder. that hauptman had written to a man in a prison in ohio, saying that he intended to kidnap the lindberg baby. that's the end of the historians quote. all of these lies, dressed up like veracity, appeared in print before hauptman went to trial. fortunately, not all of the misdeeds in the his tore of journalism had consequences like that, were that meanly intended. take the case of theodore drieser who early in his career

was a newspaper reporter and then a theater critic for a newspaper in st. louis. on one occasion, drieser was assigned to review three plays that were opening on the same night. to make things worse, he also had another assignment that night, which was several miles out of town, away from the theaters smtheaters. he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do. he was afraid. he didn't have the best reputation with the paper. he was thought to be a little lazy because he didn't like the notion of being a theater critic, so he was afraid to complain. he decided he had to come up with a plan and his plan was to do this. he reviewed the three plays before he saw them. he operated the way jason blair did. he got newspapers from cities in which the plays had already been we are formed and on -- performed and on the basis of those reviews, he wrote three reviews of his oh but he didn't intend to be dishonest because thinks plan was to go out to this other assignment as early as he could, finish it, come back, see as much of the three

plays as he could, and then rewrite the reviews to make them por personal, more honest. it wasn't a perfect plan, but it was his plan and it was the best thing he could think of at the time. but by the time drieser got done with his other assignment, it was too late to go to the theaters. he had pissed his dead lines and the reviews as he originally written them were large raised, were sent to the press room and sent to the press room and published by the st. louis globe democrat. according to his reviews, drieser liked all three of the plays. one of them at the grand theater starred an actor about whom drieser said, a large and enthusiastic audience had received mr. sal smith russell. there was just one problem.

sal smith russell wasn't received by anyone at the grand theater on the night in question. no one was. in fact, none of the three plays was performed that night at any of the three theaters. there was -- there was some kind of problem on the railroad lines, running into st. louis, an none of the trains carrying the actors or the sets could get through. great god, drieser said, when he learned what had happened. and shortly after that, he quit his job with the paper in st. louis and went on to become perhaps the worst of america's great novelists. i will conclude my prepared remarks by coming full circle. here is that paragraph again, or at least part of it. most journalists bailiff like people in most other occupations. they do their jobs well, or

better than well, they realize that others depend on them and are stimulated by the need to meet their responsibilities. you have just heard in brief about some notable exceptions to the concept of meeting journalistic responsibilities. i would now be happy to answer questions about them, about anything else that appears in all the news unfit to print or if i'm able, about topics not covered in the book. and i thank you for your attention. [applause] well, you're of the perfect man, since you're standing right next to the microphone. >> they -- the court's verdict and sentence, if there was one, against hauptman, what was it? >> guilty and he was executed. really? >> he was executed, he was cremated.

his wife took his ashes back to germany. and never returned to this country, which she felt had treated her husband as poorly as a human being can be treated by a society. his name has not been cleared to this day. but in the -- well, both in the text and in the bibliography of the book, there are two books. there are two books mentioned. one is called the armen and the carpenter, by kennedy and i've forgotten off the top of my head the other book, but they make remarkable cases for the housekeeper's involvement and for the involvement of one of mrs. lindberg's sisters in the case. so that's why i say, that although his name has never been cleared, if you read enough about the case, you are certainly justified in having some doubts.

just a moment, please. >> i want to know, do you have anything more recent, like recent, very recent journalistic or you just don't want to say? >> no, i'm happy -- well, in the book you'd find out anyhow. in detail, the most recent that i have get is janet cook. i don't know if you know of her case. she won a pulitzer prize for the washington post in 1980 for a story called jimmy's world, about an 8-year-old heroin addict in washington, d.c., who never existed. and she was fired and has led a very sad life ever since then. there are fleeting references to jason blair, to mitch albaum, a sports writer, who a couple years ago, did a piece unisonal former michigan state athletes,

and their reminiscenses as they watched michigan state play in the final four. unfortunately, albaum did the story if advance and at the last minute these guys didn't go to the game. my interest is in this book and frankly in my life primarily in history. the closer it gets to the present, in books and in my life, the more uncomfortable i get. so i'm trying to get through tonight as best i can. this young gentleman here, please. >> in your book, all the -- all the news unfit to print, when you're reading out loud, you were talking about all the mists he made -- myths he made. was there one particular one that was most special to the book. >> myths that who made? you mean all journalists? >> uh-huh. >> well, i chose for the purpose

of this reading, to give, other than the one paragraph, what i thought were the most interesting cases. to me, the worst thing journalists ever did en masse was cover the lindberg trial. generally, these incidents of reparatoryial malfeasance are individual cases, and another thing that i did in the book was try to give -- i don't know that i picked in all cases the worst examples, but tried to give you a variety of examples about why people did this. for instance, mark twin, mark twin was not a very nice man and didn't have much respect for the truth and just didn't give a damn. samuel johnson was quite lazy, by his own admission, quite physically unattractive, severely pockmarked face. he didn't like to go out in public. so that's why he did what he did.

william randolph hearst was in the midst of a circulation war with joseph pulitzer's newspaper, the world, so virtually every instance in the book given of somebody who tries to create a myth has a different motivation behind it. but as i said, i think the worst thing to me is the behavior against hauptman, which was at its core, racist. >> your book couldn't come out at a better time, whether anything written can be fit or unfit. in your research, did you see increase of frequency or in terms of malfeasance, as it progressed in terms of time, like closer to our time, did it

happen more or it happened more in the past? >> i think the more serious examples happened in the past. the state of journalism is, i don't think, to be commended much today, but largely for different reasons. i don't know that journalists in any large numbers in the past 10 or 20 years, have done anything to compare with some of the examples in the book. what happens these days is much more biased. some of it disguised, some of it not disguised and largely because of the company that i used to work for, fox news channel, much more contentiou contentiousness than there's ever been before. there was more argumentation on these so-called talk shows. i have a friend who's a jew, who wrote a book called "denying the holocaust," she wrote it about

15 years or so ago and before she had finished writing it, she got a call from a television producers saying, we know you're writing a book called denying the holocaust, could you be on our show. well, she was astonished. this was a serious book. it's not the kind of book that television producers want to have, an i'd forgotten what show it was, i don't remember if you remember geraldo riverra's daytime talk show. it was a a show like that. she said yes, i'll appear and they said fine. you understand for the sake of fairness, we're going to have a home cast denier on the program with you. and she said fairness. fairness isn't one person tells the truth and one person tells a lie. fairness is one person thinks this is the reason this happened, and one earn person

thinks this is the reason this happened. so i think that's what's happening to journalism today, which is something different from the deliberate perpetration of frauds for reasons of laziness or circulation gain or whatever they might be. she did not go -- i was asked if the woman went on the program. she did not go on the program, no. two more questions an two hands. >> -- which drives everything. i'm finding more and more it's money. so without sensationalism, you don't make money from especially the working poor. you know, news, you know, with our sensational -- without sensationalism is boring. i remember a story in the bronx, 20 or 30 years arcs there was a story of somebody goes to rob a

store and the news said that the robbers, you know, had a gun, a shotgun and she told this woman behind the counter to lay on the floor. and she wouldn't lay on the floor because there was not enough space, so they shot and killed her, but if you ask the people in the neighborhood what really happened was the husband of the -- of this lady tried to take the gun away from the robber, and that's why she got shot. so the newspapers, you know, they're out to make money and they add sensationalism and in america, when everything is about, can you really trust true journalism. >> you can trust true journalism. i think your question is, can you find true journalism. let me make two quick responses to why that is the case and i was smiling earlier because you've hit on one of the salient

points of american journalism to me, sensationalism. it exists for two reasons. first, there are so many media outlets these days. that for anyone to get your attention, it has to do so immediately. second, there is a did he creasing literacy rate in this country. a constantly decreasing literacy raft. there is a constantly increasing number of hours in the day that americans work. when you put these two things together, you have, as a journalist, a problem in attracting an audience. once again, you are led to sensationalism. now, carolyn, could we do two now? ok, this gentleman and then you sir. >> i'm wondering if in your research you found some of the fabricated stories were actually well written and if you thought that now in retrospect, there's still like a value to looking at

them even if it's a kind of subjective history and if you felt it was still worthwhile and interesting if that way? >> well, some of them are interesting. i still -- i say still, because i've phone it for a long time. here's a story that's fascinating. h.l.milken, one of the most interesting men who ever lived when he was writing or not writing. the japanese war was going on at the time and milken was very interested in it and wanted to publish his account of a very important battle but that bathe was being delayed and mi lken said up as hearst did with the court of inquiry, the hell with it, we don't want to wait any longer. so mil democratken wrote the st. he knew so much about the political and military issues and figures involved, so much about even the terrain, that are about 20 years later, he ran into someone who said to him,

and this wasn't the first time he had heard it, but he mention its in one of his memoirs, about 20 years later, someone came up to him and said yours was the best story that i've ever read about the war. and he wrote it weeks before it happened. >> is that -- >> it's not so much hustle thattent as a writer, it's the knowledge he had. but it points to a serious problem that one of the reasons there's so many problems in journalism is this desire to be first. and it just astonishes me that people think it's that important. the morning after any election night, the "new york times" will run a piece and it will say, fox declared a winner at 11:52 p.m. msnbc declared a winner at 11:54 p.m. the first of the broadcast networks, abc, didn't declare a winner until 12:02 a.m.

are you going to decide which network you're going to watch? on the basis of the fact that that network went on the air two minutes earlier than another one? yet it is a priority in this business that is as high as any. final question. yours, sir. >> an observation and you can treat it as a question or respond to it. and that has to do actually with this gentleman touched on it, that i taught journalism for about 20 years, and -- >> at -- >> i was going to say, helped to put out the high school newspaper, award-winning newspaper. from the columbia press high school association. for pane years. -- for pane years and there was the theory and there is the practice. the theory of journalism, and i think its practice in academia is to tell the difference between the different kinds of reporting features, news

stories. difference between a news story and where the opinions should be. so why do we find, and we know where the so-called facts are supposed to be and we find a lot of facts can really offer opinions in the way they're handled, so why do we find the kind of reporting that is demonstrated so very well by you, that is not a theory in practice. and the gentleman touched on it, if i can just reiterate, and i think it's because most people don't realize and consciously or unconsciously practice it, that journalism, the media, is a very big business and they are in business to make money. and that when money is involved, you know, a lot of things, theory goes out the window. would you say? >> >> i would and i