Suppressed

Confessions of a Former New York Times Washington Correspondent

Robert M. Smith

• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781493057726
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Journalist Biographies
• Index: History

Suppressed is the book the media would prefer you not read. The book may change the way you read a newspaper, listen to the radio, watch TV, or consume digital media.

Please look at the Follow the Author Page for videos by Robert M. Smith.

Incisive behind-the-scenes details about the Times and other media outlets. — Publishers Weekly

A forthright indictment of the media’s shortcomings. — Kirkus Reviews

Half of all Americans do not trust the media, and many Americans believe the media are to blame for the country’s division. The U.S. ranks dead last of all countries in media trust. But no one in the media is talking about this.

This well-reviewed book tells you why and shows you the inside of the media machine. It includes a look behind the scenes at some of the biggest stories in the history of journalism. The author — a former New York Times White House and investigative correspondent — was there and is ruthlessly honest about what he saw.

In fact, the author unearthed Watergate before Woodward and Bernstein, but saw the story ignored by the New York Times Washington Bureau when he gave it to them.

Margaret Sullivan, media critic for the Washington Post, called the book a “very engaging read.”

Smith is an attorney and barrister who has written a law book for lawyers. This is a different kind of book, but it is written with the same careful attention to the evidence.

Coming to the present, Suppressed shows how some media, including the New York Times, stepped into the ring and began slugging it out with President Trump, instead of staying outside the ring and neutrally reporting what it saw. The book argues that the media would have been more effective if it had remained neutral — and credible.

On the other hand, Times stock dropped 17 percent in the first two quarters of 2021, after President Trump left. During the same time the S&P 500 index rose 18 percent.

The book offers entertaining tidbits — some hard to believe — but also shows you how to be a knowledgeable consumer of something that you spend time on every day and depend on.

Written with candor and humor, Suppressed traces a young investigative reporter’s arc from naïveté to cynicism, from covering the White House to leaving journalism for Yale Law School and ultimately becoming a barrister in London and teaching at Oxford.

Table of contents

• INTRODUCTION
• PROLOGUE The Leak
• CHAPTER ONE Pain: The Penalty for Poverty
• CHAPTER TWO Kids’ Stuff
• CHAPTER THREE “You’re Already a Communist”: Harvard and Power
• CHAPTER FOUR Shotgun and Cookies; One-Arm Drivers
• CHAPTER FIVE Does the Trenchcoat Fit?
• CHAPTER SIX Investigative Reporting at the Automat. Excuse Me, They Do Explode
• CHAPTER SEVEN Candide Arrives at Rockefeller Plaza, But Only the Seven Sisters See It
• CHAPTER EIGHT Adam Clayton Powell, Miss Ohio, and the Bali Hai Effect
• CHAPTER NINE A Woman Deposits Herself in a Bank; Depression Is Its Own Reward
• CHAPTER TEN A Shoebox Leads to Sweaty Palms; Harrison Frowns
• CHAPTER ELEVEN The Pied Piper of Queens, and the Man Who Dug President Kennedy’s Grave
• CHAPTER TWELVE Italian Racing Jackets
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN Paper Missiles, and Quitting Every Night
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN Not Always New York’s Finest: Reporters Who Carried Guns
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN Harlem’s History Escapes the Marshal
• AWARDS TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE TIMES PUBLISHER, A FAREWELL FROM THE TIMES NATIONAL DESK, AND A LETTER OF THANKS FROM PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER ABOUT THE WORLD COURT
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN John Harvard Frowns
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Veritas Takes a Direct Hit; Ties to the Powerful
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN More Ties to the Powerful
• CHAPTER NINETEEN A Massacre as a Commodity
• AWARDS TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE TIMES PUBLISHER, A FAREWELL FROM THE TIMES NATIONAL DESK, AND A LETTER OF THANKS FROM PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER ABOUT THE WORLD COURT
• CHAPTER TWENTY Almost Fired
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE What Do You Mean, “Do You Have a Lawyer?” Not Jailed … and Not Fired: Justice Delayed Is Just Fine
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Almost Fired Again: Buck Rogers Badges Prove Dangerous
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Recruiting: Make ’Em Conservative
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Spooks Aren’t Talking to One Another (But Some of Them Whisper to Me): the Times Attends Germ Warfare Meetings
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Shame Comes to a Kid from Roxbury
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Why Am I Chasing Daniel Ellsberg? G-Men Are Everywhere They’re Not Supposed to Be, and “Mr. Green” Offers Help
• AWARDS TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE TIMES PUBLISHER, A FAREWELL FROM THE TIMES NATIONAL DESK, AND A LETTER OF THANKS FROM PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER ABOUT THE WORLD COURT
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Mafia and Me
• AWARDS TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE TIMES PUBLISHER, A FAREWELL FROM THE TIMES NATIONAL DESK, AND A LETTER OF THANKS FROM PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER ABOUT THE WORLD COURT
• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Boots in the Oval
• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Reject Me Once, Reject Me Twice. But a Journalism School Comes to the Rescue, and the Media Queue Up
• CHAPTER THIRTY More Secrets: Memories of Playa Girón, Stellar Wind Blows Hard, and Reporter Risen Rebels
• CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Cigars Rolled, Pool Hall Closed; Time to Schuss Down the Slippery Slope; Bork and the Bum Rap
• CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Not-So-Learned-in-the-Law Steps into a Fairy Tale
• CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE The Flying Ashtray; Women Reporters Aren’t Getting Their Just Deserts
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR I Didn’t Write That—Don’t You Dare Say I Did!
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Biz/Fin
• CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Oxy Threatens My Job; Pursuing the CEO from Hernando’s Posh Hideaway
• CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN A Cosseted Crowd; Kafka Has You in His Embrace; Leaving the Gray Lady Again
• AWARDS TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE TIMES PUBLISHER, A FAREWELL FROM THE TIMES NATIONAL DESK, AND A LETTER OF THANKS FROM PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER ABOUT THE WORLD COURT
• CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Josie Insists: Piaget or Nothing—Brooks Brothers Gets Dressed Down; Behind the Frosted Glass
• CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE My Learned Friend Exposes the Press; Yelling in the Courtroom
• CHAPTER FORTY The Archaeology of Leaks
• CHAPTER FORTY-ONE The Guardian Who Turned Out Not to Be; The Cabinet Sphinx
• CHAPTER FORTY-TWO Journalism Provides a Soundbite: A Plea in the World Courtroom
• AWARDS TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE TIMES PUBLISHER, A FAREWELL FROM THE TIMES NATIONAL DESK, AND A LETTER OF THANKS FROM PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER ABOUT THE WORLD COURT
• CHAPTER FORTY-THREE The Unreasonable Man Swings from Tree to … Tree
• CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR The Indecipherable East End; The Story Business; The Mystery of the Iraqi Harp
• CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE Fontainebleau: Just Keep Those Euros Coming!
• CHAPTER FORTY-SIX Climbing into the Jury Box
• CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN The Church Rejects an Offering: The Go-To-Hell Fund Is Damned
• CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT Getting the Director’s Trust
• CHAPTER FORTY-NINE Suppression, or the Fix Is In
• CHAPTER FIFTY I Tell the Times Not to Hire Robert Upshur Woodward, But Don’t Worry: He Gets a Job
• CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE Who Has Thinner Skin—Trump or the Reporters? Scribes Seek Revenge; The Piñata President
• CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO Trump—Daft or Dealing? The Ali Khamenei Gambit
• CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE The Gray Lady Bumps into the Gold Standard
• CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR Bring the Jury In
• CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE Watergate in a Time of Disappearing Ink
• CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX Modern Times: Journalism by Citizens; The Digital Dance Is a Foxtrot; Understanding Today’s Media
• EPILOGUE
• AFTERWORD The Spike—How to Read a Newspaper Like an Inside Dopester
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY