“The Trump books are coming.” Late last month, Katie Rogers, a White House correspondent at the New York Times, warned us that we could soon expect a raft of new titles about Trump’s final months in office to hit bookstores, written by big-name reporters from her beat and the wider world of political journalism: “Frankly, We Did Win This Election”: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, by Michael C. Bender, of the Wall Street Journal; I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, of the Washington Post; Landslide, by Michael Wolff, of himself. At least the first two books claim to be “definitive.” The simultaneity of these titles, Rogers reported, triggered “a war of the excerpts among writers who are realizing their juiciest material may not hold.” Snippets from Bender’s book appeared in the Journal, Politico, Axios, Vanity Fair, CNN, and the Mail; Wolff landed a New York cover story. ABC’s Jonathan Karl, whose own Trump book isn’t due until November, got in on the game with a splashy excerpt in The Atlantic. Matt Latimer, a literary agent, told Rogers that competition between the authors is “like The Godfather.” Rogers did not disclose that Latimer is representing her own book project, about Jill Biden. The Times removed his quote. The Post’s Erik Wemple noted that a “more classic Washingtonian conflict of interest would be hard to concoct.” As the weeks have gone by, excerpts from the excerpts have rippled through the... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-14 12:33:57 UTC ]