4 results for "Biography"

Newspaperman: inside the news business at the Wall Street journal

Phillips, Warren
An inside look at America’s largest newspaper— The Wall Street Journal ”Phillips offers fascinating insights about American business, politics, and journalism. He traveled in the circles of CEOs, U.S. presidents, prime ministers, and royalty; always at his core he was a reporter. That is the beauty of Newspaperman .” —Vernon E. Jordan Jr., civil rights leader; senior managing director, Lazard Freres & Company; adviser to President Bill Clinton “[Phillips] captures the fabulous stories of a scrawny, precocious boy from reporter to publisher and then CEO, participating in and then presiding over the Journal ’s years of greatest growth.” —Joan Konner, Dean Emerita, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism “Phillips fell in love with newspapers when he was a boy. He’s still infatuated but he doesn’t skip over his tough times or mistakes. That’s what makes Newspaperman such a telling guide to the newsroom and to the top office in the executive suite.” —Lou Boccardi, former president and chief executive, Associated Press; former chairman, Pulitzer Prize Board “This lovely book recounts the life of a wise, thoughtful, and admired newspaper editor and publisher. The tiny Wall Street Journal Warren Phillips joined grew up to be a giant. Newspaperman tells that story.” —Donald E. Graham, chairman and chief executive, The Washington Post Company “[Phillips provides] perceptive commentaries on Germany, Greece, Turkey, England, Spain, China, Russia, and the Middle East. All is told with modest good humor, but repeatedly emphasizes the need for integrity and high standards.” —George B. Munroe, retired chairman and chief executive, Phelps Dodge Corporation “The story of a boy born in Brooklyn, a reporter, an editor, a publisher, a corporate executive, and now the author of a fascinating book.” —James Q. Riordan, former vice chairman, Mobil Corporation “In spite of a few hiccups, honestly related here, Dow Jones was rated by Fortune magazine as the second most-admired company in the United States, and so proved that an outstanding newspaperman can also achieve enormous success as a business builder and leader.” —Hamish Maxwell, former chairman and CEO, Philip Morris Companies Inc. “A memoir from a man who helped transform The Wall Street Journal from a local newspaper to a global operation.. . . Throughout the book, Phillips looks at his part in shaping the Journal ’s news and editorial coverage, and these sections provide insight into his highly successful methods. The author includes many anecdotes culled from his diaries, some very funny, which illustrate the variegated aspects of his life and the people who shared in it.. . . A well-rounded autobiography about the journalism industry and the people who shaped the news over the past 50 years.” —Kirkus Reviews “The sections about the rise of the Wall Street Journal 's quality and influence are fascinating - for journalists and non-journalists alike.” — Philadelphia Inquirer ”Phillips provides an arresting retrospective on modern world history that general readers will find informative and delightful.” — Star-Telegram About the Book When Warren Phillips was eleven years old, his father took him on a guided tour of the New York Daily News , where he got his first look at the frenzied yet surprisingly ordered and controlled world of newspaper publishing. He saw everything from the industrial printing presses churning out newspapers at astonishing speeds to reporters hunched over their typewriters, writing the very stories those presses would be producing within hours—or even minutes. Phillips was hooked. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Newspaperman tells the story of how an immigrant’s shy son from Queens, New York, rose to the top of his industry powered by little more than passion, brains, and hard work. Phillips began his career working as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune for sixteen dollars a week—and ended it as publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent corporation, Dow Jones & Company. The life story of Warren Phillips is the story of the American newspaper business. Here, the details of his vast experience come together to create a broad picture of the newspaper business— revealing how news is discovered, reported, edited, published, and disseminated. Sharing vivid tales of working as a reporter around the world and describing the many colorful characters he meets along the way, Phillips provides a level of insight that only a leading figure in the industry could offer. Newspaperman gives you an up-close look at one of the most influential people in the history of The Wall Street Journal —and an unprecedented view of the business, from its rapid modernization during the post–WWII , cold war era to the early years of digital publishing and the rise of the Internet, which may mark the decline of the printed page forever. Phillips’s entertaining, penetrating, and impressively detailed account is a must-read for both devotees of America’s most iconic business publication and anyone with an interest in how news is reported.
McGraw-Hill 2012 316 pages

Maxwell, the outsider

Bower, Tom
Robert Maxwell was driven by an obsession to be remembered by posterity, to create and re-create his own life in order to become part of the Establishment. Tom Bower's compelling portrait, the subject of numerous libel suits brought by Maxwell in Britain before his death, is now published for the first time--in a thoroughly updated edition--in the United States. It provides a fascinating look at the man who was relentless in his attempts to obtain media power and respectability, attempts that would eventually destroy him. Born into a life of poverty, an outsider forever trying to get in, Robert Maxwell was plagued by a deep sense of alienation. His career as publisher, printer, politician, financier, industrialist, and tycoon extraordinary was charged with both magnificent coups and controversial setbacks. He built his fortune on a mixture of engineered leaks and secrecy at the expense of long-term stability. Accused of everything from creative bookkeeping to outright fraud, Maxwell withstood each debacle until the end, surviving troubles that would have felled a less determined personality. Bower describes the many suspect strategies of Maxwell's business dealings while he was alive and the disintegration of his empire after his death, focusing along the way on Maxwell's often nebulous business dealings and his immense skills at bullying and deception. Beginning with Maxwell's early years, Bower describes in depth the period after World War II during which Maxwell made a fortune out of barter deals and the export of scientific journals from Germany, which became the basis for his Pergamon Press flagship; the Pergamon-Leasco affair in the late 1960s (involving two millionaires, Maxwelland Saul Steinberg), an ill-fated takeover deal that fell apart with Maxwell declared unfit to hold office in a public company; and his revival of the loss-making British Printing Corporation. The author explains Maxwell's numerous acquisitions and his competitive obsession with Rupert Murdoch. We learn of the mysteries surrounding Maxwell's private banking in Liechtenstein, his strange links with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the notorious "Mirrorgate" affair and Maxwell's close relationship with Israel. Going beyond recent media coverage, the author provides up-to-the-minute facts on missing corporate assets and pension funds as well as the nefarious share-support schemes. In this powerful biography, Tom Bower comes as close as anyone ever will to understanding Robert Maxwell and his demons.
Viking 1992 539 pages

Conrad and Lady Black: dancing on the edge

Bower, Tom
The riveting tale of how the wanabee aristo Conrad Black and his social-mountaineering wife Barbara gulled their way into the City, the Tory party, Wall Street and High Society. This new paperback edition will be fully updated to include details of Black's high-profile trial for corporate fraud, sure to claim international attention. The rise and fall of the media tycoon Conrad Black is rivalled in its spectacular extravagance only by the machinations of his social-mountaineering wife, Barbara Amiel. Together their story of overweening ambition and greed is a modern-day classic of hubris. There is no bolder or better-informed chronicler of the follies of the rich and powerful than Tom Bower. Fearless in the approach which has brought him accolades for his gripping exposés of Robert Maxwell, Tiny Rowland, Mohammed Fayed and Richard Branson, Bower reveals how the Blacks financed a billionaire's lifestyle and won friends and influence in London and New York. Born into considerable wealth in Canada, Conrad Black bought and sold (but never effectively managed) several businesses, from mining and tractors to broadcasting companies and newspapers. In 1985 he bought the Telegraph group in London, where very little was known of the controversy over his past financial dealings. In 1992 he married Barbara Amiel, who later famously said, 'I have an extravagance that knows no bounds'. Besotted with his wife, he began living way beyond his means. Fabulous parties, jewellery, clothes, private jets and homes followed. In 2003 an independent report in America accused him of 'outright fraud', 'ethical corruption' and 'corporate kleptocracy' - allegations that he will vigorously deny at his trial in Chicago in 2007. This edition will be updated to include the full story of the trial in all its sensational detail. Tom Bower's book, based on over 150 interviews with bankers, politicians, celebrities, power-brokers and close friends, is packed with intimate revelations. It is a hugely entertaining account of gullibility in high places.
Harper Perennial 2007 543 pages