In mediabistro.com’s latest “Hey, How’d You…” interview, Steve Weinberg talks up his new Ida Tarbell biography, explaining to Noah Davis what drew him to the story of the woman who took on the Rockefeller empire and won:
“I finally got around to reading Ida Tarbell’s History of the Standard Oil Company, which had come out in 1904 and which I’d heard about in my American history courses but I had never bothered to read. It had been long out of print, in the days when being out of print actually meant out of print. I read it, all 800 pages and I thought, ‘Wow, this is one of the best pieces of investigative journalism I’ve ever read.’ It was 100 years old at the time I read it, but it could have been written yesterday about Microsoft or McDonalds or Starbucks.”
As for the example Tarbell’s career set, “how many journalists are going to do a great job explaining the big institutions that are dominant in our time?” Weinberg wonders. “There are a few journalists who do that on a regular basis but not a lot. The investigative reporting—I’m generalizing of course—tends to ignore the corporate sector and look more at government… I don’t think anyone has done Microsoft or Starbucks or McDonalds or you can fill in the blank as well as Tarbell did Standard Oil.” Any books you think fit the bill? Be sure to mention them in the comments section…
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