Quincy native pens book on lying

Veteran author and journalist James B. Stewart's new book, "Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America," uses more familiar case studies to demonstrate the extent of dishonesty in high-profile circles.

Barry Bonds, Scooter Libby, Bernie Madoff and Martha Stewart are examined in extraordinary detail.

David Kamp in Business Week magazine describes the work as "tweezer journalism at its finest," storytelling that takes readers inside the moment these well-known liars "made the fateful choice to lie."

Stewart is uncharacteristically critical of President Bush's not firing Karl Rove or Richard Armitage in the episode wherein Scooter Libby illegally revealed CIA employee Valerie Plame's identity. Bush's failure to hold those two accountable was "rank hypocrisy," Stewart writes.

He won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for his Wall Street Journal articles about the dramatic 1987 upheaval in the stock market and insider trading. A contributor to The New Yorker and an editor at Smart Money, Stewart's other books include "Den of Thieves," "DisneyWar" and "Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries."

Magazines offer glimpses of people behind WIkiLeaks

Most people hadn't heard of WikiLeaks.org when the organization this summer released tens of thousands of military documents about the war in Afghanistan to three respected news operations: the New York Times, the Guardian in the United Kingdom, and Der Speigel in Germany.

But readers of the New Yorker magazine had, thanks to a superb piece of magazine journalism by Raffi Khatchadourian in the June 7 issue. "No Secrets: Julian Assange's mission for total transparency" is informative feature writing, with insight, detail and depth.

Check it out: www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian

More recently, Rolling Stone magazine published Nathaniel Rich's piece on WikiLeaks' technical wizard, Jacob Appelbum, in its current issue's "The most dangerous man in cyberspace."

That story is still on newsstands, but here's a link to a telling excerpt: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/17389/192242

Some magazines prospering in Great Recession

Some periodicals that target specialty or affluent audiences did well in the last year, a time when the magazine industry suffered a significant loss of ad revenue -- and a few titles went out of business.

Organic Gardening, Scholastic Parent & Child and Fitness were a few that benefited from redesigns, stunts and just plain luck, reports Joan Voight.

Read the complete MediaPost news piece here -- http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=111510