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Over the years, Bob Garfield has been many things. Shoe-leather beat reporter. Itinerant NPR storyteller. Acerbic columnist and take-no-prisoners critic; media and advertising big-shots cower at the rattle of his pen. He's aspired to country music stardom and Hollywood fame, and still, he doesn't rest. And so when the call went out last month for the Funniest Reporter on the Planet, Bob didn't miss a beat. Listen as he recounts his quest for the title.
Several days ago, it was revealed that James Frey's booze-and-drug-fueled memoir A Million Little Pieces was not, strictly speaking, based on truth. Frey took to the airwaves to defend his bestseller, and a frenzied press debated what, exactly, readers should expect from a memoir. Brooke discusses the uproar with Andrew Goldberg, managing editor of the website that broke the story, and with New York Sun book critic Adam Kirsch.
This week, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a severe stroke that threatened his life and effectively ended his political career. International Editor of the Week Magazine, Susan Caskie joins Bob for a look at how the news was covered in newspapers in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.
Ariel Sharon has been a public figure in Israel for most of the state's history, so his relationship with the national media runs deep. The likely final chapter began this week, as the press covered his exit from power and started wrestling with his legacy. The Jerusalem Post's Amotz Asa-el joins Brooke to reflect on how Sharon shook his image as a belligerent young "Tarzan" and developed a working relationship with the media.
Before there was Senator John McCain, there was Senator William Proxmire. Like McCain, he often stood apart from his party, favored campaign finance reform… and was a media darling. Proxmire died on Thursday at the age of 90. Brooke reminisces about the Wisconsin Senator's long career of media stunts, born of equal parts tenacity and conviction.
In May, we spoke to the editor of the Spokane Spokesman-Review, which had just netted the city's mayor in an online sex sting. This week, Spokane voters recalled Mayor Jim West in a special election.
When Supreme Court Justice Scalia spoke recently at Time Warner headquarters, he insisted it be "off the record." And so gossip columnist Lloyd Grove, who attended the event, published a "hypothetical" account, describing what Scalia "might have said." Bob and Lloyd discuss his end-run around the rules.
As the nation mourned the death of Rosa Parks this week, most obituaries focused on the story we all know: how the humble seamstress changed history by refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. But while that account is accurate, it's only part of her story. Bob talks to University of Wisconsin historian Tim Tyson about the construction of an American hero.
