Overview

"""Janet Cooke was a warning shot, a harbinger of all kinds of journalistic scandals to come."" --Howard Kurtz, author and media critic Janet Cooke caused one of the biggest scandals in the history of journalism when her Pulitzer Prize-winning article, about an eight-year-old heroin addict, turned out to be a fabrication. Cooke, a reporter for the Washington Post, worked under the legendary editors Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward. Her disgrace was a jarring wakeup call for the news industry. Cooke's transgressions rocked the foundations of public trust the press had built since the Vietnam and Watergate eras, when the 4th Estate was seen as a force for objective reporting and an advocate for the public good. Immediately, Cooke became infamous, the first in a line of publicly exposed fabulists, including Stephen Glass of the New Republic and Jayson Blair of the New York Times. Cooke's case also came to symbolize myriad issues in journalism and beyond: i the use of unnamed sources, diversity recruitment, newsroom ethics, resume fraud, and the tendency of some writers, operating in the genre known as creative nonfiction, to take license in the pursuit of more literary storytelling. Janet's World, written by her former boyfriend and fellow Post staffer Mike Sager, is Cooke's only in-depth interview. While faithful to the basic fact-finding contained in the Washington Post's internal investigation of the case, easily available online, Sager's work plums the depths of Cooke's persona and upbringing, bringing to light the human story behind the headlines. Vilified by history as a fabricator, Cooke's difficult role as an African American professional woman in the early 1980s is often overlooked. The book also contains new material documenting the effects of the Cooke scandal on the 35th anniversary of the events."

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9781950154173

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Like his journalistic precursors Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, Sager writes frenetic, off-kilter pop-sociological profiles of Americans in all their vulgarity and vitality...He writes with flair, but only in the service of an omnivorous curiosity and defies expectations in pieces that lesser writers would play for satire or sensationalism... A Whitmanesque ode to teeming humanity's mystical unity. --New York Times Book Review Mike Sager writes about places and events we seldom get a look at--and people from whom we avert our eyes. But with Sager in command of all the telling details, he shows us history, humanity, humor, sometimes even honor. He makes us glad to live with our eyes wide open. --Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What It Takes: The Way to the White House Like a silver-tongued Margaret Mead, Sager slips into foreign societies almost unnoticed and lives among the natives, chronicling his observations in riveting long-form narratives. --Performances Mike Sager is the Beat poet of American journalism, that rare reporter who can make literature out of shabby reality. Equal parts reporter, ethnographer, stylist and cultural critic, Sager has for 40 years carried the tradition of Tom Wolfe on his broad shoulders, chronicling the American scene and psyche. Nobody does it sharper, smarter, or with more style. --Walt Harrington, author of Acts of Creation

"""Like his journalistic precursors Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, Sager writes frenetic, off-kilter pop-sociological profiles of Americans in all their vulgarity and vitality...He writes with flair, but only in the service of an omnivorous curiosity and defies expectations in pieces that lesser writers would play for satire or sensationalism... A Whitmanesque ode to teeming humanity's mystical unity.""--New York Times Book Review """"Mike Sager writes about places and events we seldom get a look at--and people from whom we avert our eyes. But with Sager in command of all the telling details, he shows us history, humanity, humor, sometimes even honor. He makes us glad to live with our eyes wide open."" --Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What It Takes: The Way to the White House ""Like a silver-tongued Margaret Mead, Sager slips into foreign societies almost unnoticed and lives among the natives, chronicling his observations in riveting long-form narratives.""--Performances """"Mike Sager is the Beat poet of American journalism, that rare reporter who can make literature out of shabby reality. Equal parts reporter, ethnographer, stylist and cultural critic, Sager has for 40 years carried the tradition of Tom Wolfe on his broad shoulders, chronicling the American scene and psyche. Nobody does it sharper, smarter, or with more style."" --Walt Harrington, author of Acts of Creation"

Author Information

Mike Sager is a bestselling author and award-winning reporter. For more than forty years he has worked primarily as a writer for the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, GQ and Esquire. Sager is the author of more than a dozen books. A number of his stories have inspired films. He is editor and publisher of The Sager Group.

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