I was about three quarters of the way through this book when I learned about the accusations of plagiarism/footnote errors and inaccurate portrayals of new media figures leveled at Jill Abramson. I decided to push through, but this ratcheted up my feelings of mistrust and downgraded the quality of my reading experience. I went into it understanding Abramson’s background would color the work, but these issues moved the book from colored to compromised for me.

I worry that her overall point about the weaknesses of new media (content compromised by marketing interests, nebulous understanding of ethical reporting, lack of editorial oversight in favor of fast turn-around) were undermined by overstating the youth, inexperience, and cluelessness of the individuals profiled.

I appreciated her admission that she couldn’t objectively discuss her work and exit at the NYT. This self-awareness lent more credibility to her accounts of legacy media and their concerns.

While the “boomer hates the youngs” trope in the critical reception seems overblown, I do think her background and preconceptions led to these problems. It seems her history in a senior position in legacy media, with attendant research aids and low-level contributing reporters, may have meant she didn’t see the issue with framing a freelance journalist’s interview as an original interview in the text. She also may have overstated the primacy of style in new media to the extent that she omitted inconvenient nuances of those examples she was trying to use to illustrate her points.