Given Thompson's standing as a past leader of one of the world's dominant news organizations and the current head of another, what he thinks about the interactions among politicians, citizens and the press is by definition important. I don't think this book will change the continuing debates about "bias" and "objectivity," the separation of the public into distinct fact universes, the disappearing boundary between entertainment and civic life, the imperiled concept of "truth" or the other important topics it addresses. But it offers many instructive allusions, useful judgments and important refinements on these themesand provides reassurance by its mere existence that someone in the author's position is grappling so earnestly with such questions.
There's a crisis of trust in politics across the Western world. Public anger is rising, and faith in conventional political leaders and parties is falling. Antipolitics, and the antipoliticians, have arrived. In Enough Said, president and CEO of the New York Times Company, Mark Thompson, argues that one of the most significant causes of the crisis is the way our public language has changed.
Enough Said tells the story of how we got from the language of FDR and Churchill to that of Donald Trump. It forensically examines the public language we've been left with: compressed, immediate, sometimes brilliantly impactful, but robbed of most of its explanatory power. It studies the rhetoric of Western leaders from Reagan and Thatcher to Berlusconi, Blair, and today's political elites on both sides of the Atlantic. And it charts how a changing public language has interacted with real-world events-Iraq, the financial crash, the United Kingdom's surprising “Brexit” from the European Union, immigration-and a mutual breakdown of trust between politicians and journalists, to leave ordinary citizens suspicious, bitter, and increasingly unwilling to believe anybody.
Drawing from classical as well as contemporary examples and ranging across politics, business, science, technology, and the arts, Enough Said is a smart and shrewd look at the erosion of language by an author uniquely placed to measure its consequences.
There's a crisis of trust in politics across the Western world. Public anger is rising, and faith in conventional political leaders and parties is falling. Antipolitics, and the antipoliticians, have arrived. In Enough Said, president and CEO of the New York Times Company, Mark Thompson, argues that one of the most significant causes of the crisis is the way our public language has changed.
Enough Said tells the story of how we got from the language of FDR and Churchill to that of Donald Trump. It forensically examines the public language we've been left with: compressed, immediate, sometimes brilliantly impactful, but robbed of most of its explanatory power. It studies the rhetoric of Western leaders from Reagan and Thatcher to Berlusconi, Blair, and today's political elites on both sides of the Atlantic. And it charts how a changing public language has interacted with real-world events-Iraq, the financial crash, the United Kingdom's surprising “Brexit” from the European Union, immigration-and a mutual breakdown of trust between politicians and journalists, to leave ordinary citizens suspicious, bitter, and increasingly unwilling to believe anybody.
Drawing from classical as well as contemporary examples and ranging across politics, business, science, technology, and the arts, Enough Said is a smart and shrewd look at the erosion of language by an author uniquely placed to measure its consequences.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940169635171 |
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Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
Publication date: | 09/06/2016 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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