Merchants of Truth

Merchants of Truth

Author	Jill Abramson
Subject	Media & communication industries, journalism
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Publication date	February 2019
Pages	544
ISBN	978-1-5011-2320-7

Abramson, 2012

Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts is a 2019 book by Jill Abramson that follows four news organizations—The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and Vice News—through changes in news media technology and standards over the course of the 21st century. The author was formerly Executive Editor of The New York Times.

Multiple writers and journalists posted comparisons between previous texts and that of Abramson's book, which they presented as plagiarized. She responded by saying that she did not think plagiarism was an issue in her book. However, in an interview with NPR's Michel Martin, Abramson admitted she "fell short" in attributing her sources for some passages of the book.

Merchants of Truth was also criticized for various factual mistakes, causing the Columbia Journalism Review to highlight the book as an example of "the perils of publishing without a fact-checking net." Abramson expressed regret about the errors, but argued that "in a 500-page book I fear it’s inevitable that there are going to be some."

Reception

The review aggregator website Book Marks reported that, out of a sample of 19 reviews, five critics gave the book a "rave" review, eight critics expressed "positive" impressions, and five expressed "mixed" impressions, and one of the critics "panned" the book.

Commercial reception of the book has been poor, due in part to the plagiarism controversy, with fewer than 3,000 copies being sold in its first week, according to BookScan.

Further reading

• Bauder, David (January 4, 2019). "Former NY Times editor says Fox took her book out of context". AP News. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Beckett, Lois (January 5, 2019). "Ex-NYT editor rejects Trump praise and says words 'taken out of context'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.
• Brown, Mick (January 28, 2019). "Has Trump saved the American newspapers he wants to undermine?". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235.
• Cooke, Rachel (January 26, 2019). "Jill Abramson: 'The bleak part of the picture is the death of local papers'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.
• Kennedy, Dan (January 30, 2019). "Book review: MERCHANTS OF TRUTH: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts by Jill Abramson". Boston Globe. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Kurtz, Howard (January 1, 2019). "Former NY Times editor rips Trump coverage as biased". Fox News. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Lipinski, Ann Marie (January 31, 2019). "The sad, inspiring state of modern news". Washington Post. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Lloyd, John (February 1, 2019). "Merchants of Truth by Jill Abramson — when news goes viral". Financial Times. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Miller, Laura (January 31, 2019). "Jill Abramson and the Church of Facts". Slate Magazine. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Moore, Heidi N. (January 30, 2019). "Merchants of Truth by Jill Abramson review – journalism's troubles". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.
• Neason, Alexandria (January 25, 2019). "The perils of publishing without a fact-checking net". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Pope, Kyle (January 24, 2019). "Jill Abramson and the search for journalism's future". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
• Thompson, Nicholas (January 22, 2019). "Jill Abramson's Book Charts Journalism's Stormy Seas, With Some Personal Regrets and Score-Settling". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
• Uberti, David (January 25, 2019). "Jill Abramson's 'Merchants of Truth' Can't Pass Its Own Journalistic Purity Test". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378.

External links

• Official website
• After Words interview with Abramson on Merchants of Truth, February 16, 2019, C-SPAN
• The author speaks about her book Recode Media and Columbia Journalism Review