For man reportedly with next to no affinity for reading, US President Donald Trump has sure inspired a lot of interest in the written word.
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In his book Fire and Fury, writer Michael Wolff wrote “Trump didn’t read. He didn’t really even skim. If it was in print, it might as well not exist”.
Yet this is the guy who has spawned an industry of words about him.
Since he became president last year, there has been a constant stream of Trump books.
Every week there is another Trump-themed tome on the bookstore shelves.
Trump is also reportedly the spark for substantial spikes in subscriptions to major US newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Though those subscriptions are not coming from those dolts who use that “fake news” phrase (which is often a solid indicator of a person who doesn’t have much of an interest in reading, by the way).
The work of The Times in the Trump era is the focus of the four-part series The Fourth Estate now airing on SBS Viceland (episodes two and three screen on Thursday).
I've only seen the first episode, but I feel comfortable in saying it’s a fantastic series – and not just because I’m a journalist.
The coverage of Trump doesn’t show a whole lot that’s new – and it’s not really supposed to as the reporters are seen covering breaking stories that happened last year.
But what it does do really well is give a deep view inside the workings of a modern newspaper office.
So we see the paper’s office space shrinking to save money, we see journalists having to push out their stories on various social media platforms even before the article is finished and we see the decisions that are taken to create a story.
It’s hard to make a series about reporters look exciting, given most of what we do is talking on phones and typing at a keyboard, but The Fourth Estate has managed it.