End Times: The Death of the Fourth Estate

by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair

We can no longer trust that our journalists are reporting the news without underlying corporate or governmental agendas. The US government deregulates radio and right-wing Clear Channel gobbles up available frequencies. Journalists are embedded and the war in Iraq is a noble one. Whether the information is fabricated, one-sided, or illegally obtained, recent scandals like those involving Judy Miller and Robert Woodward only serve to underline the point that journalistic integrity is not what it used to be.
Enter Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, who have not only kept the tradition of muckraking alive, but have reinvented and reinvigorated it for our times. Their newest effort, End Times, presents a detailed scrutiny of the “quality” print press and leading corporate media in the last decade, detailing a disastrous sequence of misrepresentation, suppression, ignorance, and willful embrace of the government’s agenda. These essays trace the impending disintegration of what is now “old media”—the traditional and now potentially tainted sources of our daily news—and looks toward the emergence of an entirely new landscape of mass one that includes a more populist approach to information dissemination.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

375 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Alexander Claud Cockburn was an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch. Cockburn also writes the "Beat the Devil" column for The Nation and a weekly syndicated column for the Los Angeles Times as well as for The First Post, which is syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

Reviews

[Isidore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I miss Alexander Cockburn. Counterpunch just isn't the same without his biting sarcasm and wit.

This collection of essays is mostly written or co-written by Cockburn, and it is mostly first-class work. He manages to expose corruption and chicanery without offering either easy answers or depressing the reader into impotence; I think its that biting style of his, which has a curiously bracing effect––it's almost pleasurable to read about political wickedness when it's described with such fiendish cleverness.

The book has a blurb on the back: "No reputation left unstained!". Unfortunately, this applies to Cockburn as well as his gallery of rogues. A 2002 essay deploring the "hysteria" and "festishization of children" which victimizes rapists and pedophiles is both disgusting in its viewpoint and inept in its argument. It shouldn't have been reprinted.

[chance nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

the Iraq war and Israel lobby stuff was good, really good. But the entire NYT's section should have been cut as well as the ones that didn't relate to the broader narrative like the hitchens story. kinda sucks this book is just a chop and paste of articles an not a BOOK book. if I had two criticisms is that I don't tolerate undo Paul Krugman slander and alex should have pushed back on the china fear mongering from page. the biggest problem with this book is 1# Alex isn't funny and 2# I expected this book to be a bit more cohesive.