"Killed"

I got a great new book a few days ago called "Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot to Print". It's about articles written for newspapers or magazines that were "killed" or scrapped for one reason or another.

In some cases, stories were killed because the publishers didn't want to offend the advertisers. Then, they paid for scrapping the stories when another publisher paid the author more money and ran the articles. What justice!

Some of the stories go back to 1942. The most recent included in the book were from 2003.

Here's a list of some of the publications that killed perfectly good stories for political or advertising or other reasons:

Esquire
Vanity Fair
The Washington Post Magazine
Vogue
The New York Times Magazine
GQ
The New Yorker
Rolling Stone
Detroit Free Press

One of the stories that I look forward to reading is called "The Clinton Legacy and America." Another one is "The Lay-Z-Boy Position", whatever that is.

It's 428 pages of interesting articles that never made it to press, and I might even get adventuresome and share some excerpts with you!

For instance, in the introduction, David Wallis, the editor, says, "In 1997, Playboy pulled Glenn O'Brien's piece, 'How to Pick Up Princess Di,' which was filed days before her fatal accident." What if that had actually been printed just before her accident? That could have been a really bad faux paux.

Okay, I know. I'm kind of a nerd for getting a journalism book instead of a good mystery or romance or something. OH WELL!! I don't like those books as well! If my hubby, the Terrible Swede, can get math, physics and chess books to read for fun, I can get books about journalism! He, he!