Thomas W. Lippman spent nearly 40 years at the top ranks of American journalism. For most of that time he was at The Washington Post, where he was bureau chief in Saigon during the late years of the Vietnam War and later bureau chief in the Middle East, where he covered wars in Lebanon and Somalia.
He was an Edward R. Murrow fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations and has been a consultant to the U.S. Air Force and the Central
Intelligence Agency and a frequent television and radio commentator.
His latest book is Get The Damn Story, the first biography of Homer Bigart: "a gangly, rumpled college dropout from a small town in Pennsylvania. By acclamation of his peers and colleagues, he was the best in the business, the definitive foreign correspondent and war reporter. He was the model aspiring young reporters such as myself wanted to grow up to be."
About the book:
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent
of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the
United States, the best reporter in the business was a rumpled, hard-drinking
figure named Homer Bigart. Despite two Pulitzers and a host of other prizes, he
quickly faded from public view after retirement. Few today know the extent to
which he was esteemed by his peers.
Get the Damn Story is the first comprehensive
biography to encompass all of Bigart's journalism, including both his war
reporting and coverage of domestic events. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bigart brought to life many events
that defined the era ― the wars in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam; the
civil rights movement; the creation of Israel; the end of colonialism in
Africa; and the Cuban Revolution.
The news media's collective credibility may have diminished in the age of
Twitter, but Bigart's career demonstrates the value to a democratic society of
a relentless, inquiring mind examining its institutions and the people who run
them. The principle remains the same today: the truth matters. Historians and
journalists alike will find Bigart's story well worth reading.
"Tom Lippman has given us a deeply researched, richly detailed, vividly
written biography of Homer Bigart, a great reporter and war correspondent, set
against an engaging backdrop of the colorful history of American newspapers and
their vital role during their mid-twentieth century heyday."
― Leonard Downie Jr.,
Weil Family Professor, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, Arizona State University,
former executive editor, The Washington Post
Here's a podcast about the book
Tom is the author of eight previous books; the most recent, “CRUDE OIL CRUDE MONEY: Aristotle Onassis, Saudi Arabia, and the CIA,” was published by Praeger in June 2019.
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