Items related to The Hard Way: The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor
Synopsis
The story of how the author built the rundown weekly Star in Kennebunk, Maine, into a prize-winning crusader for open government and environmental responsibility in the face of awesome political and commercial pressure.
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About the Author
Alexander B. Brook was a Navy fighter pilot in World War II before completing his formal education at Yale. He worked as a fisherman, ranch hand, reporter and lumberjack before becoming a Wall Street executive. In 1958 he decided to leave the urban business life and bought Maine's Kennbunk Star, which he published for 20 years, expanding it and eventually renaming it The York County Coast Star. The New England Press Association elected him to its Hall of Fame in 2000. Brook and his second wife, Kelly, now live in Newcastle, Maine.
From Kirkus Reviews
The gritty memoir of a rugged individualist whose 20-year stint as proprietor of a debt-burdened community newspaper in coastal Maine was soul-satisfying--if less than idyllic. In 1957, Brook (then 35) forsook a secure niche as a Manhattan business executive and borrowed most of the $30,000 he needed to buy Kennebunk's York County Coast Star. While he soon restored the run-down weekly's long-lost credibility with on-the-ground reporting and contentious editorials, he endured the constant financial pressures imposed by a backwater market largely reliant upon the summer tourist trade. Brook nonetheless managed to make his award-winning journal a force to be reckoned with in the small towns it served. A born boat-rocker, he crusaded against venal politicians, crooked lawyers, aberrant zoning decisions, heedless utilities, developers with little care for the fragility of the local environment, and other targets. Here, using generous samples of his own work and that of colleagues, the author also recalls the high costs (personal as well as business) of taking on the Down East establishment. Over a two-decade span, the enterprise grew without ever prospering, thanks in no small measure to the publisher's in-your-face approach to readers and advertisers. For years, the Star masthead featured ``T.H.W.T.B.'' as a banner slogan; depending on their identity, those who asked were told that the cryptic initials meant either ``The Hard Way's the Best'' or ``To Hell with the Bastards.'' Eventually, the going got too tough even for the resilient, resourceful Brook, and he (along with a pair of minority partners) sold out for over $1.6 million. H.L. Mencken once enjoined the press to comfort the afflicted- -and to afflict the comfortable. Brook's lively, unsentimental account of how he struggled against the odds to abide by this demanding credo makes for an engaging and entertaining, if cautionary, tale. (Maps, eight pages of photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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- PublisherBridge Works
- Publication date1993
- ISBN 10 1882593006
- ISBN 13 9781882593002
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages306
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The Hard Way : The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor
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The Hard Way: The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor
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Hard Way
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The Hard Way The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Inside the offices of a small-town weekly newspaper run by a former Wall Street executive. Story of the Kennebunk Star in Maine (later the The York County Coast Star) from the 1950s-1970s. 306 pages, b/w photo section. Some fading to jacket. Dust Jacket condition very good. Seller Inventory # 9959
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The Hard Way: The Odyssey of a Weekly Newspaper Editor
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ISBN 10: 1882593006
ISBN 13: 9781882593002
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