Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism

William Safire

Nonfiction sleeper best-seller-to be.
—New York Times

Kirkus Review

Compulsively readable... . A marvelous memoir of an enviable life, written with style and real wit.

Judith Viorst

The stories are delicious, the recall is astounding, the insights are witty and shrewd and the writing sings...when there is something to tell, nobody tells it better than Dan Schorr, America's master commentator and moral compass.

Walter Cronkite

This is Schorr's detailed report on why numerous heads of state and other officials have called him a son-of-a-bitch.

Publishers Weekly

Pick a major news event of the post-WWII era and chances are NPR commentator Schorr covered it. He was present at the inceptions of NATO, the Republic of Indonesia and the Berlin Wall. He conducted the first-ever TV interview with Khrushchev, arranged for himself and violinist Isaac Stern to take one of the first tours of Anne Frank's garret, and was Ted Turner's first hire for his fledgling Cable News Network in 1980, a position Schorr accepted after his principles got him into trouble at CBS. The son of Eastern European immigrants, Schorr never intended to become a broadcaster; he wanted to write for the New York Times. But a hiring freeze on Jewish correspondents put the kibosh on that dream, and once he joined the fabled team of CBS-TV reporters headed up by Edward R. Murrow, he never extracted himself from broadcast media. In this engaging, fascinating and often funny memoir, he alternates between offering an up-close-and-personal look at the more memorable events of the 20th century and sharing intimate stories about everyone from Shirley MacLaine to Richard Nixon (who included Schorr on his famous "enemies" list). Uncompromising and occasionally antagonistic, Schorr, like any good old-school journalist, is objective, even about himself. Indeed, the best description of him comes from former CBS boss Richard Salant: "He was not universally loved. But he was very good." Whether his book will be universally loved remains to be seen. But it's definitely very good. 16-pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (May 8) Forecast: Well-known to TV viewers and NPR audiences, Schorr should get major media attention when he tours N.Y. and D.C., and, engaging as this book is, with a first printing of 35,000, it may even flirt with the bestseller lists. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT

Discharged from the Army at the end of WW II, Daniel Schorr began a career in print and radio journalism that continues today, some 55 years later. His voice, now heard on NPR, is familiar to at least three generations of Americans, and his writing skill, less known to many of us, is vibrantly evident in this autobiography. From post-war Holland to post-Stalin Russia, from Berlin to Washington, Schorr tracked down stories and story-makers with a mixture of imagination and effrontery that drives his narrative. His tales of encounters with Khrushchev are fascinating; his clashes with the Nixon administration are bone chilling. To a young reader brought up in the age of satellite communication, the efforts of the press corps to get news through the censors and out of pre-CNN Moscow may seem antediluvian. Most absorbing, perhaps, is Schorr's account of the creation of the Berlin Wall—how the crisis was born, how the wall went up, and how the Russians and the Allies played cat-and-mouse with armored standoffs. This text can serve as valuable background reading for any course on the history of the second half of the 20th century. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2001, Pocket Books, Washington Square Press, 354p. illus. index., Moore

Library Journal

Twenty-four years ago, Schorr published a memoir called Clearing the Air at the height of his journalistic fame. He had just left CBS News after three decades of international and domestic reporting. The spike in Schorr's fame came because he told the story behind a secret U.S. House of Representatives report on covert U.S. government operations in other nations, then refused to reveal to government officials how he obtained the report. Now, at age 85, Schorr covers much of the same ground as in the earlier book, adding about 50 pages of new material. The additions focus on Schorr's six years at Cable News Network, where he became the first prominent journalist hired by founding mogul Ted Turner. In the mid-1980s, Schorr left CNN because of a dispute over editorial independence, moving to a position as commentator on several National Public Radio news segments. Although journalists' memoirs are often pretentious and uninformative because of their outsider status, this memoir is neither. A useful addition to all journalism and politics collections. Steve Weinberg, Univ. of Missouri Journalism Sch., Columbia Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.