Book review – NEWS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE
The epic story of race and the American media
Juan Gonzalez and Joseph Torres
Verso books
The blurb on the front cover of this book claims “we’ve needed this book for a long time.” As I agreed I thought it would be good to review it for the Big Issue in the North magazine and I received the go-head from the deputy editor to read the book and then submit some questions – via Verso’s London office – to the authors. I’ve done about 20 or so such reviews over the last few years and have always received replies, even if on occasions they were a little later than originally promised.
The book is 400 pages long and so took a fair bit of time to read. As you don’t get much for reviewing a book in the Big Issue then the opportunity to read books that you’d like to read anyway is, in part, compensation for the time spent. Part hobby/part work is how it might be described.
The book was very interesting and so I duly sent off the questions and waited and waited….and more than three months later I am still waiting…..even the people at Verso in London appear embarrassed. So I’ve given up, the authors rightly illustrate throughout the book how black people have been excluded and marginalised from mainstream American media. Yet they can’t be bothered to answer some questions for a magazine that helps similarly marginalised people in the homeless? It makes me wonder about their motivation in writing it.
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