Journalism Professor’s Book Named Best in Nation
SUNY New Paltz Journalism Professor Robert Miraldi’s biography of a famous American investigative reporter has been named the best journalism biography in the United States in 2013.
The announcement of the Ann Sperber Biography Award came out recently from Fordham University which administers the prestigious prize. Dr. Miraldi, a professor at New Paltz since 1982, will receive his award on Nov. 19 at Fordham’s Manhattan campus.
Professor Brian Rose, acting director of the Sperber Awards for 2014, praised the book as “a probing and provocative investigation of this country’s premier investigative journalist.”
Miraldi’s book, Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist, chronicles the work of Hersh from the late 1950s to the present day as he wrote story after story that made national headlines, caused controversy and changed America public policy. Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize for his exposé of the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the village of My Lai in Vietnam in 1968. He then, in 2004, revealed the story of the torture of Iraqis in a prison at Abu Ghraib. Hersh is the author of eight controversial and best-selling books and has won virtually every major award in journalism.
Miraldi joins a distinguished list of biographers who have won the Sperber Award for books on subjects ranging from Walter Cronkite to William Randolph Hearst to Henry Luce, all major figures in American journalism.
“I worked on this Hersh biography for nearly a decade,” Miraldi commented. “So it is gratifying to receive this award and see my Hersh work in with some wonderful other biographies. Hersh is perhaps America’s greatest investigative reporter, and his work deserves this recognition.”
Miraldi added, “The book has a dimension beyond Hersh’s work. He is an iconic figure — irreverent, brash, indefatigable, headstrong, arrogant, and passionate. He is really a great American character.”
The 445-page book, which was published by Potomac Books/University of Nebraska Press, came out last fall and was named one of the 10 best investigative books in the U.S. by Harvard University’s Nieman Reports. The History News Network called it “refreshingly readable and very impressive.”
Miraldi came to New Paltz in 1982 after a career as a reporter. He teaches courses on freedom of speech, press history and news reporting. He has won many awards for his writing and research and was named one of America’s top journalism teachers by the Poynter Institute in 1989.
In 2004, his biography, The Pen Is Mightier (Palgrave/Macmillan Books), was named the best book in the country in media and journalism. That book told the life story of a famous turn-of-the-twentieth century investigative reporter, Charles Edward Russell, who was the most prolific of the so-called “muckraking” journalists.
Dr. Miraldi, who has a PhD in American Studies and a master’s degree in journalism, thanked SUNY New Paltz for its support of this book with a sabbatic leave, reduced teaching time to write, and various grants to fund research.
Miraldi lives in Stone Ridge, N.Y, with his wife, Mary Beth Pfeiffer, a reporter. He has two children and two grandchildren.
http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/communication_and_me/sperber_award/
Author Says No One Will Ever Match Seymour Hersh’s Work
Author Rob Miraldi said that despite dramatic changes in the way people find their news and the declining revenues of the mainstream media he remains optimistic about the future of American journalism and of investigative reporting.
Read the entire piece here: Miraldi on importance of Hersh
Miraldi talks Scoop Artist on C-Span’s Book channel
C-Span’s Book channel covered author Rob Miraldi’s recent talk at the New York Public Library about his book, Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist, in which he chronicles the life and career of the investigative journalist. Check out the video link here.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?317573-1/book-discussion-seymour-hersh
Rob Miraldi talks Scoop Artist on WAMC Radio
Author Rob Miraldi sat down with Alan Chartock on WAMC Northeast Public Radio to discuss Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist. Listen to their conversation here.
Kirkus Review on Scoop Artist: “An important, long-overdue biography.”
“A deep biographical treatment of the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who is the scourge of those in power. … An important, long-overdue biography.”
Check out the full review here.
Chronogram review of Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist
“…a jaunty survey of Hersh’s spectacular scoops—all of which are fail-proof interest grabbers, jewels in the annals of our nation’s covert history. Miraldi seeks to understand his subject’s mysterious level of success, his long reach into the sanctums of power, his cultivation of entrenched, anonymous sources.”
Check out the full review here.
History News Network review of Scoop Artist
Kingston Times: The scoop on Miraldi’s ‘Scoop Artist’
“Scoop Artist is a well-written, exciting and thoroughly detailed examination of a man who made a career out of tirelessly digging up secrets very powerful people tried very hard to hide and bringing them out into the light, very much to those powerful people’s chagrin.”
Check out the full review here.
Miraldi on Hersh and journalism today
Author and journalism Professor Robert Miraldi told an audience at the College at New Paltz that journalism today remains not only a key part of American democracy, but also a place where committed individuals can make a difference in society.
Miraldi used the example of Seymour Hersh, the famous investigative reporter whose biography — called Scoop Artist – he recently published. “Make no mistake about it,” Miraldi said, “times have changed. But we still have the chance as journalists — whether as bloggers or tweeters or simply writing long muckraking stories about the bad things that still occur — to make things better.”
Miraldi cited how Hersh’s 1975 stories about the CIA spying on American citizens led to a complete revamping of the agency’s regulations and spurred three major investigations. He also said Hersh’s reporting while at the New York Times led to numerous investigations and policy changes.
Moreover, Miraldi cited Hersh’s 1968 book that led to the halting of the stockpiling and production of biological weapons. “This was a stunning early victory for Hersh,” he said.
Miraldi traced the long influence of investigative reporting (once called muckraking journalism) on American politics and culture. Hearkening back to the groundbreaking work of turn-of-the-20th century journalists such as Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair, Miraldi emphasized how reporters have long played the role of the Fourth Branch of government.
“How can one not be inspired by their work,” Miraldi asked the audience. Miraldi wove stories of his own career as an investigative reporter with that of Hersh, who began in journalism in Chicago in 1959 and then worked for the Associated Press, the Times, The New Yorker and wrote nine books.
Hersh, Miraldi pointed out, has won more awards than any other American journalist and is generally considered to be the best investigative reporter in America. And, yet, he added, he is despised by the political right in America and beloved by the left. Miraldi pointed out that Hersh is often criticized for having a liberal bias. “But that is so unfair,” he said. Hersh hates it when people ask for his opinion, he added.
“Hersh wants people to look at his exposés, his reporting, his facts, what he uncovers,” Miraldi said. And that is what has made him famous over the years, beginning in 1969 when he won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism for his exposé of a massacre of more than 500 civilians in the village of My Lai in Vietnam.
Miraldi told many of the students in his audience that journalists need patience, that making changes and bringing about reform takes time. He quoted the journalist I.F. Stone, one of Hersh’s heroes, who once said, “reform is like pissing on a rock. It takes a long time for the rock to wear down – but it does wear down.”
Miraldi’s 415-page book on Hersh came out in October from Potomac Books/University of Nebraska Press. It is the first biography of the 76-year-old Hersh who is currently working on a book on the covert activities of both the Bush-Cheney and Obama Administrations.
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Journalism professor to discuss his new biography
Journalism professor Robert Miraldi will discuss his new biography of America’s premier investigative reporter at a book signing and reception on Nov. 5 at the Honors Center in College Hall on the SUNY New Paltz campus.
The event begins at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
Dr. Miraldi’s book on Seymour Hersh, now 76 years old, traces the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist’s 50 years of journalistic crusades, exposés and confrontations with six Presidents on his way to reshaping American national security policy and investigative reporting itself.
From his exposé of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1969 to the revelation of prison torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq in 2004, Hersh has uncovered domestic spying, military crimes and government assassinations which author Robert Miraldi chronicles for the first time in Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist. Miraldi traces Hersh’s rise from the streets of Chicago in the 1950s to the newsrooms of the most powerful newspapers and magazines in the United States.
The 415-page book has just been published by Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. It is a full-scale biography of Hersh, who is now working on a book about former Vice President Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration’s covert activities.
Hersh’s work– a snapshot of some of the biggest stories in America through its most turbulent decades – has consistently put the reporter in the headlines because of his use of anonymous sources and the controversial nature of his countless exposés. The book shows how his work had drawn the fury of targets from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush to Barack Obama.
This unauthorized biography is also a lively look at his life as well as a critical assessment of his stunning achievements. “Hersh is irascible and abrasive but also an iconoclastic and heroic character,” observes Miraldi. “He is a truly great American character, a top tier figure.”
Scoop Artist begins with the dramatic tale of how Hersh tracked down the story of the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the village of My Lai in Vietnam in 1968. While My Lai became the symbol of a bad war, Miraldi documents how Hersh became the journalist the political right loved to hate and the father of a conservative movement against a “liberal” media. “He has become the man the political left loves and the right loves to hate,” Miraldi pointed out.
In the years since, as he moved from one journalistic triumph to another, he has constantly been in the eye of the storm. Hersh worked for four years as a reporter for the Associated Press in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Then he was a famous investigative reporter for the New York Times for seven years. After leaving the Times he wrote best-selling books and has been a controversial magazine writer for the New Yorker for a decade.
Miraldi is an award-winning author, journalist and columnist who has taught at the College at New Paltz since 1982. He is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts on investigative reporting. In 2004 his biography, The Pen Is Mightier: The Muckraking Life of Charles Edward Russell, was named the best book in the country in journalism and mass communication.
Miraldi is the author of two books and editor of three others. In 1992 he was a Fulbright Scholar, lecturing in the Netherlands. His writing on the First Amendment has won national awards. A Ph.D. in American Studies, he teaches classes on media law, press history, and news reporting. He began his career as an investigative reporter in New York City.
The event is sponsored by the college’s Honors Program and the Department of Communication and Media. For more information contact Dr. Patricia Sullivan at sullivap@newpaltz.edu.
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Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist 