No Cobwebs Here
LIEBLING, A . J .
Books Briefly No Cobwebs Here THE PRESS by A.J. Liebling. (Pantheon Books. 555 pp. $6.95 paperback). This is a welcome reissue of a book first published in 1961 and revised in 1975 by novelist...
...Liebling's widow...
...But there are no cobwebs on Liebling's prose...
...Many of the journalistic nabobs Liebling kicked around—men like Westbrook Pegler, Fulton J. Lewis Jr., George So-kolsky, and Colonel Robert R. McCor-mick—have now faded into obscurity...
...After World War II, he wrote with wit and shrewd insight of the foibles, inconsistencies, and occasional triumphs of the nation's press, aiming most of his barbs at publishers, editors, and columnists...
...It is still mint-fresh...
...For twenty-eight years, Liebling was a writer and war correspondent for The New Yorker...
...In her introduction Jean Stafford remarks that "some reputations attract enshrouding cobwebs with astonishing speed...
...This is a welcome reissue of a book first published in 1961 and revised in 1975 by novelist Jean Stafford, A.J...
...News, Liebling contended, becomes increasingly non-essential to newspapers in the growing number of cities with single newspaper ownerships...
...And the journalistic shortcomings he addressed appear to be everlasting...
...In the mind of the average publisher, news is a costly and uneconomical frill, like the free lunch that saloons used to furnish to induce customers to buy beer...
Vol. 45 • October 1981 • No. 10
