All the Art That's Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn't): Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page
Arts and entertainment, Humour, Writing
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
From the New York Times&’s former Op-Ed art director, the true story of the world&’s first Op-Ed page, a public platform that prefigured the blogosphere. Jerelle Kraus, whose thirteen-year tenure as Op-Ed art director far exceeds that of any… other art director or editor, unveils a riveting account of working at the Times. Her insider anecdotes include the reasons why artist Saul Steinberg hated the Times, why editor Howell Raines stopped the presses to kill a feature by Doonesbury&’s Garry Trudeau, and why reporter Syd Schanburg—whose story was told in the movie The Killing Fields—stated that he would travel anywhere to see Kissinger hanged, as well as Kraus&’s tale of surviving two and a half hours alone with the dethroned outlaw, Richard Nixon. All the Art features a satiric portrayal of John McCain, a classic cartoon of Barack Obama by Jules Feiffer, and a drawing of Hillary Clinton and Obama by Barry Blitt. But when Frank Rich wrote a column discussing Hillary Clinton exclusively, the Times refused to allow Blitt to portray her. Nearly any notion is palatable in prose, yet editors perceive pictures as a far greater threat. Confucius underestimated the number of words an image is worth; the thousand-fold power of a picture is also its curse . . . Features 142 artists from thirty nations and five continents, and 324 pictures—gleaned from a total of 30,000—that stir our cultural-political pot. &“To discover what really goes on inside the belly of the media beast, read this book.&” —Bill Maher &“In this overflowing treasure chest of ideas, politics and cultural critiques, Kraus proves that &“art is dangerous&” and sometimes necessarily so.&” —Publishers Weekly