It is the night of the presidential debate. The election is eight days away. Republican nominees James Meredith, a fundamentalist Christian whose ambitions border on white supremacy, is pitted against four reporters who have just discovered damaging information that could ruin his career. What unfolds during The Last Debate will change the course of electoral politics and the news business forever…. As "the ultimate insider-outsider" (Washington Post), and as a moderator of presidential debates past and present, journalist and PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer knows the world he writes about only too well. His novel—a satirical and absorbing story of the behind-the-scenes world of news journalism—also exposes the duplicitous posing and posturing of made-for-TV political events. And with the 2000 elections looming ahead, the targets of his satire—religious fundamentalists, self-important journalists, feral network programming heads—could not be more timely.
From Publishers Weekly
Taking journalistic activism to unprecedented new heights, the media figures at the heart of this ingratiating post-Clinton political satire overtly change the course of a presidential election. At Williamsburg, Va., a few weeks before election day, Bible-quoting, media-savvy Republican David Donald Meredith will debate an all-but-defeated Democratic challenger. But newspaperman Michael J. Howley, the debate moderator, and the panel of questioning journalists so fear the consequences of Meredith's impending presidency that they conspire to ruin him by dispensing with the set debate format and ambushing Meredith with damning, unpublished documents in Howley's possession. After the debate, the panel members become controversial media superstars. The tale is told by magazine reporter Thomas Chapman, who notes that he has adopted the narrative form called "Journalism as Novel." Lehrer (Fine Lines) writes suspensefully in the persona of Chapman, as the reporter traces leads and slowly unravels the mysteries of how this historic event came to pass. But several questions are never satisfactorily answered, most importantly: Why couldn't Howley simply report his allegations rather than scrap a long-held journalistic code? While the extensive media critique is not as penetrating as one might hope, Lehrer's experience and inside knowledge allow him to point out some thought-provoking contradictions in the contemporary news business, and his story is a page-turner. Author tour. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Four journalists are scheduled to moderate a debate between two presidential candidates. The Republican is a born-again racist, while the Democrat is not too swift but a decent fellow. The journalists decide to torpedo the Republican by bringing up his background of abuse and violence. The television presentation goes off the wall with the Republican going berserk, using the "f-word," and more. When he loses the election, the journalists are rocketed to fame and notoriety. After a pokey start, this novel takes off and becomes a masterful study of journalism, politics, the media, ethics, and the human condition prevailing in spite of everything. This provocative book by Lehrer, a famed television journalist and author of Blue Hearts (Random, 1993), is recommended for most public libraries. Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
It is the night of the presidential debate. The election is eight days away. Republican nominees James Meredith, a fundamentalist Christian whose ambitions border on white supremacy, is pitted against four reporters who have just discovered damaging information that could ruin his career. What unfolds during The Last Debate will change the course of electoral politics and the news business forever…. As "the ultimate insider-outsider" (Washington Post), and as a moderator of presidential debates past and present, journalist and PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer knows the world he writes about only too well. His novel—a satirical and absorbing story of the behind-the-scenes world of news journalism—also exposes the duplicitous posing and posturing of made-for-TV political events. And with the 2000 elections looming ahead, the targets of his satire—religious fundamentalists, self-important journalists, feral network programming heads—could not be more timely.
From Publishers Weekly
Taking journalistic activism to unprecedented new heights, the media figures at the heart of this ingratiating post-Clinton political satire overtly change the course of a presidential election. At Williamsburg, Va., a few weeks before election day, Bible-quoting, media-savvy Republican David Donald Meredith will debate an all-but-defeated Democratic challenger. But newspaperman Michael J. Howley, the debate moderator, and the panel of questioning journalists so fear the consequences of Meredith's impending presidency that they conspire to ruin him by dispensing with the set debate format and ambushing Meredith with damning, unpublished documents in Howley's possession. After the debate, the panel members become controversial media superstars. The tale is told by magazine reporter Thomas Chapman, who notes that he has adopted the narrative form called "Journalism as Novel." Lehrer (Fine Lines) writes suspensefully in the persona of Chapman, as the reporter traces leads and slowly unravels the mysteries of how this historic event came to pass. But several questions are never satisfactorily answered, most importantly: Why couldn't Howley simply report his allegations rather than scrap a long-held journalistic code? While the extensive media critique is not as penetrating as one might hope, Lehrer's experience and inside knowledge allow him to point out some thought-provoking contradictions in the contemporary news business, and his story is a page-turner. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Four journalists are scheduled to moderate a debate between two presidential candidates. The Republican is a born-again racist, while the Democrat is not too swift but a decent fellow. The journalists decide to torpedo the Republican by bringing up his background of abuse and violence. The television presentation goes off the wall with the Republican going berserk, using the "f-word," and more. When he loses the election, the journalists are rocketed to fame and notoriety. After a pokey start, this novel takes off and becomes a masterful study of journalism, politics, the media, ethics, and the human condition prevailing in spite of everything. This provocative book by Lehrer, a famed television journalist and author of Blue Hearts (Random, 1993), is recommended for most public libraries.
Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.