By Gene Roberts & Hank Klibanoff

A good case can be made that the period from the mid- 1950s to the mid-1970s was the Golden Age of the American press -- a period bracketed, roughly, by Edward R. Murrow's exposure of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's mendacity in the anti-communist cause in 1954 and the resignation of Richard Nixon from the presidency two decades later following the disclosure, primarily in this newspaper, of the sordid details of the Watergate scandal. Between those signal events, the press covered the Vietnam War with a dogged insistence on uncovering the truth -- in sharp contrast to the tame acquiescence with which it reported the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- as well as the extraordinary social and cultural changes that swept through the country during those years. Among those changes, none were more important than those initiated by the civil rights movement, and in no other story did the press distinguish itself so admirably and effectively. The reporters who fanned out through the South beginning in the mid-1950s were determined, resourceful and courageous. In print and on the air, they awakened the nation to the terrible conditions in which countless black Southerners lived and the daily denial of the most basic rights to which they were subjected. The best of their journalism -- and much of it was exceptionally good -- took no sides and preached no sermons but simply laid out the facts, which were all the country needed to begin the long, complicated and difficult task of fixing things.

Published Date: 31/10/2007 Format: PaperBack ISBN: 0-679-40381-7 Publisher: n/a Rating: Retail price: US Dollar $ 30.00 (Rs. 2,146.20) Our price: Rs. 1,295.00 You Save: Rs. 851.20 Reviews: 0 reivew(s).

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