Book read: My Trade by Andrew Marr

I previously had read a history of modern Britain by Marr and really enjoyed it. This book is older written in 2004 and is about journalism from the early days to the modern era.

It gives good historical details about how papers developed, and how they took advantage of improved communications to far flung places and correspondents. It also goes into detail about the modern journalist and how things have changed in Marr's working life.

It sometimes paints a bleak picture for "hacks" with big business running papers and caring little for the people who write the stories - a very hire and fire business it seems. Also the dumbing down of the newspaper and a slow death of dedicated foreign journalism. It is not all doom and gloom though, the lower end of the paper market is dying leaving only the more serious papers in years to come.

I had not known the Marr himself was an editor for a paper, during a turbulent time too and he describes what that was like in detail.

Overall a good read, thought provoking and well written.