Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist

by Robert Miraldi

Overview

Seymour Hersh has been the most important, famous, and controversial journalist in the United States for the last forty years. From his exposé of the My Lai massacre in 1969 to his revelations about torture at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, Hersh has consistently captured the public imagination, spurred policymakers to reform, and drawn the ire of presidents. 
 
From the streets of Chicago to the newsrooms of the most powerful newspapers and magazines in the United States, Seymour Hersh tells the story of this Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author. Robert Miraldi scrutinizes the scandals and national figures that have drawn Hersh’s attention, from My Lai to Watergate, from John F. Kennedy to Henry Kissinger.
 
This first-ever biography captures a stunningly successful career of important exposés and stunning accomplishments from a man whose unpredictable and quirky personality has turned him into an icon of American life and the unrivaled “scoop artist” of American journalism. 
 

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612344751
Publisher:	Potomac Books
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

ROBERT MIRALDI is an award-winning author, journalist, and columnist who has taught at the State University of New York for thirty years. In 2003 his biography, The Pen Is Mightier: The Muckraking Life of Charles Edward Russell, was named the best book in the country in journalism and mass communication. He is the author of two books and editor of three others. In 1992 he was a Fulbright Scholar, lecturing in the Netherlands. His writing on the First Amendment has won national awards. A PhD in American Studies, he teaches classes on media law, press history, and news reporting.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Prologue Chasing Sy Hersh xi

Acknowledgments xvii

1 The Story No One Wanted 1

2 The Scoop Heard 'Round the World 14

3 Hersh Becomes a Target 28

4 "Front Page" Lessons in Chicago 45

5 Selling, Publishing, Failing 55

6 From the "Front Page" to the Pentagon 61

7 At War with the Pentagon 67

8 Fighting His Editors 76

9 Finding America's Hidden Arsenal 88

10 Speaking for Gene McCarthy 98

11 Stunning Triumph over Germs 116

12 Scoop Artist Meets the Viet Cong 125

13 The Times Calls 132

14 Digging into Watergate 144

15 Cambodia, Bombs, and Impeachment 257

16 Hunting the Coup Plotters 269

17 Skeletons Tumble from the CIA Closet 185

18 The Submarine Caper 197

19 Going after "The Godfather" 211

20 The Big Apple Turns Sour 224

21 Scoop Artist versus Dr. Kissinger 234

22 The Summer's Literary Furor 247

23 Who Shot Down the Korean Airliner? 258

24 Reporting the Worst-Kept Secret in the World 271

25 Sex, Lies, and Fraud 284

26 Going after Sy Hersh 298

27 The New Yorker Years 306

28 An Alternative View of the Mideast 317

29 Back on Top 328

Epilogue: A Muckraker's Unfinished Business 339

Selected Works of Seymour Hersh 345

Seymour Hersh Timeline 351

Notes 353

Index 403

Editorial Reviews

“At last! Someone has cast a magnifying glass on the Sherlock Holmes of investigative reporters! Robert Miraldi’s close-up examination of Seymour Hersh revels in the triumphs, controversies, and passions that have accompanied that reporter and unhinged Washington for fifty years. But more: Miraldi sheds light on what motivates a powerful bull-in-a-china-shop investigator and on how Hersh goes about finding all that exquisite porcelain to smash.”—John Darnton, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and best-selling novelist

John Darnton

"Young, independent journalists—be it in newspapers or online—should take the time to read Scoop Artist and learn from Hersh’s example. Robert Miraldi has given readers an excellent overview of Seymour Hersh—a true scoop artist."—Andrew W. Griffin, Red Dirt Report

Red Dirt Report - Andrew W. Griffin

“This book is important. . . . A graphic, fact-filled biography of Sy Hersh, probably America’s most unstoppable investigative journalist. You may remember him as the man who discovered the My Lai massacre but Hersh has [also] spent a half-century bulldozing our government and others when they try to deceive the public and stain democracy. Robert Miraldi has dug out details you’ve never heard before. The clam of investigative reporters has been shrinking in the digital age. That’s another reason this biography is important. This Hersh book is impressive.”—Sydney Schanberg, Pulitzer Prize–winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times

Sydney Schanberg

This book is important. . . . A graphic, fact-filled biography of Sy Hersh, probably America’s most unstoppable investigative journalist. You may remember him as the man who discovered the My Lai massacre but Hersh has [also] spent a half-century bulldozing our government and others when they try to deceive the public and stain democracy. Robert Miraldi has dug out details you’ve never heard before. The clam of investigative reporters has been shrinking in the digital age. That’s another reason this biography is important. This Hersh book is impressive.”—Sydney Schanberg, Pulitzer Prize–winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times

“At last! Someone’s cast a magnifying glass on the Sherlock Holmes of investigative reporters! Robert Miraldi’s close-up examination of Seymour Hersh revels in the triumphs, controversies, and passions that have accompanied that reporter and unhinged Washington for fifty years. But more: Miraldi sheds light on what motivates a powerful bull-in-a-china-shop investigator and on how Hersh goes about finding all that exquisite porcelain to smash.”—John Darnton, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and best-selling novelist

"An important, long-overdue biography."—Kirkus

From the Publisher

★ 2013-11-15
A deep biographical treatment of the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who is the scourge of those in power. Seymour Hersh, now in his late 70s, began his unlikely journalism career in 1959 after earning a history degree from the University of Chicago and dropping out of law school. With limited cooperation from his subject, journalist and former journalism professor Miraldi (The Pen Is Mightier: The Muckraking Life of Charles Edward Russell, 2003, etc.) documents his remarkable, controversial decades as an investigative reporter. Hersh comes across as a good guy of limited patience when approached by fellow journalists and as a bulldog with sharp teeth when in his reporter mode. Miraldi clearly demonstrates how the journalistically capable but mostly unknown Hersh rocketed to fame in 1969 with his exploration of the My Lai massacre. Despite the enormity of that atrocity and countless similar atrocities by American troops, no other journalist was digging into the topic, and Hersh had difficulty finding a news outlet to publish his findings. Eventually, his output of books, investigations for the New York Times, projects for the New Yorker and speeches to a wide variety of audiences made Hersh famous, albeit alternately loved or hated. Miraldi explains why there is rarely a middle ground of opinion regarding Hersh the person and Hersh the muckraker. Although Hersh is extremely closed about his family life, Miraldi manages to reveal pertinent information, allowing his subject to emerge from the pages as fully human rather than a one-dimensional scandal hound. In the competition between Hersh and Bob Woodward--a competition that includes strong feelings from the supporters and detractors of each--Hersh can be considered to be superior based on Miraldi's portrait, despite the warts the biographer delineates. Miraldi closes the Hersh saga in 2004, after Hersh's exposé of Abu Ghraib, yet another blot on America's reputation in the world. An important, long-overdue biography.

Kirkus Reviews