Finding the News tells Peter Copeland’s fast-paced story of becoming a distinguished journalist. Starting in Chicago as a night police reporter, Copeland went on to work as a war correspondent in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa before covering national politics in Washington, DC, where he rose to be bureau chief of the E. W. Scripps Company. The lessons he learned about accuracy and fairness during his long career are especially relevant today, given widespread concerns about the performance of the media, potential bias, and the proliferation of so-called “fake news.” He offers an honest and revealing narrative, told with surprising humor, about how he learned the craft of news reporting. Copeland’s story begins in 1980, when a colleague hastily declared him a full-fledged reporter after barely four days of training. He went on to learn the business the old-fashioned way: by chasing the news in thirty countries and across five continents. As a young person entering journalism and reporting during some of recent history’s most fraught military situations— including Operation Desert Storm and the US invasions of Panama and Somalia—Copeland discovered the craft was his calling. Looking back on his career, Copeland asserts his most important lessons were not about reporting, writing, or the latest technologies, but about the core values that underlie quality journalism: accuracy, fairness, and speed. Replete with behind-the-scenes stories about learning the trade, Copeland’s inspiring account builds into a heartfelt defense of journalism “done the right way” and serves as a call to action for today’s reporters. The values he learned as a cub reporter are needed now more than ever, he argues, as the integrity and motives of even seasoned journalists are called into question by political partisans. Copeland admits that those critics are not entirely wrong but contends that exciting new technologies, combined with a return to old-school news values, could usher in a golden age of journalism.

"Reporter is just wonderful. Truly a great life, and what shines out of the book, amid the low cunning and tireless legwork, is Hersh's warmth and humanity. This book is essential reading for every journalist and aspiring journalist the world over." —John le Carré From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author and preeminent investigative journalist of our time—a heartfelt, hugely revealing memoir of a decades-long career breaking some of the most impactful stories of the last half-century, from Washington to Vietnam to the Middle East. Seymour Hersh's fearless reporting has earned him fame, front-page bylines in virtually every major newspaper in the free world, honors galore, and no small amount of controversy. Now in this memoir he describes what drove him and how he worked as an independent outsider, even at the nation's most prestigious publications. He tells the stories behind the stories—riveting in their own right—as he chases leads, cultivates sources, and grapples with the weight of what he uncovers, daring to challenge official narratives handed down from the powers that be. In telling these stories, Hersh divulges previously unreported information about some of his biggest scoops, including the My Lai massacre and the horrors at Abu Ghraib. There are also illuminating recollections of some of the giants of American politics and journalism: Ben Bradlee, A. M. Rosenthal, David Remnick, and Henry Kissinger among them. This is essential reading on the power of the printed word at a time when good journalism is under fire as never before.

The Captain of the Crew Resigns Trying to Become a Reporter The Old Gentleman of the Oxygen Beginning a New Life The Kind of a Fellow Billings Was A Reporter at Home "No Loafers nor Reporters Admitted" "Lord Steerem," the Coxswain An Act of Folly and a Cruel Dispatch Myles Makes a Startling Discovery A Fight and a Mistake Myles Falls into a Trap The Strikers Capture a Train A Race against Time The 50th Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y. Recalled and Dismissed The Best Sister in the World Who Robbed the Safe? Reinstated and Arrested Collecting Evidence for the Defence A Day of Trial Triumphantly Acquitted