Mnookin, Seth

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Mnookin, Seth

PERSONAL:

Born in Newton, MA. Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1994.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, journalist. Former journalist for Inside.com, Brill's Content, Forward, Palm Beach Post, Addicted to Noise, and the New York Observer; Newsweek, senior writer, 2002-03; Vanity Fair, contributing editor.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Joan Shorenstein fellow, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, 2004; Best Book of the Year, Washington Post, 2004, for Hard News: The Scandals at the "New York Times" and Their Meaning for American Media.

WRITINGS:

Hard News: The Scandals at the "New York Times" and Their Meaning for American Media, Random House (New York, NY), 2004, revised edition published as Hard News: Twenty-one Brutal Months at the "New York Times" and How They Changed the American Media, 2005.

Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including the New Yorker, New York, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, Spin, Slate, and Salon.com.

SIDELIGHTS:

A journalist for such publications as Newsweek and Vanity Fair, Seth Mnookin has written award-winning and best- selling books about the media and corporate sports. In Hard News: The Scandals at the "New York Times" and Their Meaning for American Media, Mnookin looks at the Jayson Blair affair of 2003, in which a New York Times journalist was found to have fabricated his news stories. That Blair was a highly touted young African-American reporter further complicated the issue. The other main personality in Hard News is Howell Raines, the executive editor who antagonized much of the newsroom with his brash style and who missed the plagiarism and lies of Blair, a new reporter. The affair shook the foundations of the New York Times, which styles itself as the nation's "paper of record," and ended the careers of both Blair and Raines. Mnookin intended his book not only as a recounting of the incident, but also as a call to action on the part of newspapers large and small to be more vigilant in fact checking. Nicholas Fonseca, writing in Entertainment Weekly, commended Mnookin's "vigorous, purposeful prose and a killer knack for building suspense." David Nyhan, writing for Nieman Reports, also had praise for Hard News, noting that "Mnookin drills deep into the culture of the Times, exhuming a culture of management-by-exhaustion and methods of promotion just as quixotic, perplexing and occasionally mean-spirited as would be found in many other newsrooms."

In Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top, Mnookin examines the John Henry-Tom Werner ownership of the Boston Red Sox which led to that team's winning season of 2004. Mnookin, a longtime Red Sox fan, covered the team's 2004 season as a journalist, and was later given access to the team's administration in order to present an overview of the corporate team that put together the winning baseball team. Mnookin also offers a concise history of the Boston Red Sox, noting that the team's last world championship had been in 1918, and that it was the last team in baseball to integrate, in 1959. Among Mnookin's cast of characters are members of the team, members of the "suits" or management, members of the press, and even the team's home, Fenway Park. A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt "there is enough inside stuff here to send the average Red Sox fan into baseball ecstasy." Gilles Renaud, writing in the Library Journal, described Feeding the Monster as "a behind-the-scenes baseball book that is also about the business of success and an in-depth guide to financial rewards on the diamond." Reviewing the same work in Entertainment Weekly, Dan Fierman called Mnookin an "an expert at dissecting the inner workings of creative organizations," and further praised the "solid reporting and writing" in the book. Writing in Business Week, Mark Hyman termed the book "a revealing and largely flattering account that should engage even readers with little attachment to Red Sox Nation."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Boston Magazine, July 1, 2006, "Fenway Confidential," p. 22.

Business Week, July 24, 2006, "Pulling up the Red Sox," p. 97.

Columbia Journalism Review, November 1, 2004, "Ship's Log of a Mutiny: Why Howell Raines Had to Walk the Plank," p. 63.

Commentary, December 1, 2004, "Scandal in Black and White," p. 78.

Economist, January 22, 2005, review of Hard News: The Scandals at the "New York Times" and Their Meaning for American Media, p. 80.

Entertainment Weekly, November 12, 2004, Nicholas Fonseca, review of Hard News, p. 128; July 14, 2006, Dan Fierman, review of Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top, p. 83.

Library Journal, June 1, 2004, Barbara Hoffert, review of Hard News, p. 104; August 1, 2006, Gilles Renaud, review of Feeding the Monster, p. 96.

New York, November 15, 2004, "The Worst of ‘Times’," p. 116.

New York Times Book Review, December 26, 2004, "Troubled Times," p. 13; July 30, 2006, "TBR: Inside the List," p. 18; August 13, 2006, "The Boston Red Suits," p. 1.

Nieman Reports, spring, 2005, David Nyhan, "The New York Times's Travails in the Reign of Raines."

Publishers Weekly, March 28, 2005, "From Times to Sox," p. 10; June 26, 2006, review of Feeding the Monster, p. 47.

Washington Post Book World, November 14, 2004, Michael Getler, review of Hard News, p. 3; July 9, 2006, "Behind the Scenes with Beantown's Beloved Sluggers and Hurlers," p. 2.

WWD, August 1, 2005, "Seems Like Old Times," p. 28.