When Truth Mattered is a gripping, authoritative account of a young editor and his staff painstakingly pursuing the truth of the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970 - a tragedy that has haunted the nation for 50 years and significantly changed the debate about the Vietnam War.
The heart-pounding story captures the flash of National Guard rifles, the bloody aftermath of four students killed and nine wounded, and the stress of reporters hurrying to sort fact from fiction for a horrified world wanting to know "what" and "why."
The Beacon Journal's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage created a truthful narrative that has stood unchallenged and unchanged for five decades. It also provides an urgent lesson for today: What is the role of truth in media? Can you trust the news that you're hearing and seeing? If not, how do you equip yourself? When Truth Mattered shows how journalism was done right ... and how those standards must still be applied today.
Review :
[A]n absorbing and meticulous story of how one newspaper -- the Akron Beacon Journal -- told the truth about a national tragedy in a time, like our own, when Americans were deeply divided. --James Tobin, author of Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II; professor of journalism, Miami University
[A] painstaking pursuit of the truth -- and a searing reminder of how sorely we lack it today. --Geneva Overholser, Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, journalism consultant and advisor
[A] newsroom thriller that truly uplifts and educates. --Doug Stanton, #1 New York Times best-selling author
At a time when journalists are under attack from the very highest levels of government, this book is a reminder of why journalism -- especially local journalism -- is one of the last great guarantors of our democracy. --Guy Raz, host, creator of NPR's TED Hour and How I Built This
Giles delivers a crisp, punchy narrative of a little-known turning point in American history -- and a call to understand just how key good journalism is to a healthy democracy. --BETH MACY, author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America
When Truth Mattered shows a small, assertive newsroom (large by today's standards) operating full-tilt, around-the-clock for days, then weeks, then months, even years in pursuit of an elusive truth: Who fired? And why? More importantly, Bob Giles asks how a local newsroom, now stripped of staff and resources, could possibly respond today. --HANK KLIBANOFF, director, Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emery University, author of Race Beat and winner of a 2007 Pulitzer Prize
When Truth Mattered is an important reminder that in today's digital age, meticulous reporting and the quest for truth are even more powerful together. Then and now, journalism served as a tool for accountability. It is a timeless story that resonates today. --FREDDY CORCHADO, Mexican bureau chief, Dallas Morning News, author of Midnight in Mexico
This book harkens to a time when journalists were respected, and troubling stories could not simply be dismissed as "fake news." If you care about history, journalism, great storytelling, or simply the truth, you'll devour When Truth Mattered. --JOHN U. BACON, New York Times best-selling author
