Bad News

As the senior European correspondent for CBS News, Tom Fenton reported on everything from the Shah of Iran to the movements of al Qaeda throughout Europe -- a story he was tracking before 9/11. And what he has learned is sobering: Our once-noble news media has abdicated its responsibility to the American people, and endangered us in the process. In "Bad News," Fenton traces the drastic decline of "the news" back to the fall of the Soviet Union, when networks gutted their news operations, and in-depth reporting was replaced with sensationalistic crime stories and simpleminded "news you can use." The result? America was left utterly unprepared for the war on terror about to descend on its doorstep. Fenton's book is a rousing jeremiad -- and a plea for the news media to reestablish its role as a keeper of the public trust.