Publishing Talks Interview with Ken Whyte of Sutherland House

I began Publishing Talks a number of years ago as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology. Most of these interviews originally involved the future of publishing, books, and culture, talking with people in the book industry about how publishing is evolving in the context of technology, culture, and economics.

Later this series broadened to include conversations to go beyond the future of publishing. In an effort to document the literary world, I’ve talked with a variety of editors, publishers and others who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing in the past and into the present.

These conversations have been inspirational to me on many levels. I have gotten to speak with visionaries and entrepreneurs, as well as editors and publishers who have influenced and changed contemporary literature and culture. I’ve also had the opportunity to speak with a number of friends and colleagues I have met or worked with during the many years I have been in the book business.

More recently, I’ve been talking to book folks about what is going on in publishing today, quite often about the changes in marketing and promotion that have marked all media industries as social media has overwhelmed traditional media, creating an extremely complex and constantly changing environment.

One thing is certain about publishing – there are no final answers, but there are many really important questions that we should be asking all the time.

I recently had the opportunity to (virtually) meet and talk to Kenneth (Ken) Whyte, founder and president of the Toronto based Sutherland House publishing company. I discovered Ken through his excellent and thoughtful newsletter called SHuSh, where he writes about a wide range of book industry matters as well as people and books he is connected to or has published. Ken started in journalism and magazine writing and publishing, wrote nonfiction books himself, and then started Sutherland House. One might reasonably question why any sane person would start a commercial publishing house in the current troubled media environment, but Sutherland House appears to be successful and is clearly well run and intelligently managed. I thought it would be interesting and valuable to talk to Ken about his thinking about books and publishing. He is an innovator and clearly a smart publisher who has figured out how to sell books.

We talked about a wide range of subjects and concerns that will be of interest to anyone who follows current publishing and media trends. We talked about the current state of Canadian publishing, which is simultaneously similar and very different from the US publishing scene. And we talked as well about many of the challenges and opportunities that exist for publishers and authors in Canada and the USA alike. We talked about AI and its actual uses in publishing, consolidation in retail and how publishers must navigate markets, author income issues, ebooks, book pricing, changes in the overall media landscape, and much more.

From the Sutherland House website:

At Sutherland House, we believe in the power of a distinct aesthetic, and each of our publications reflects the unique essence of our brand. From inception to launch, every title undergoes meticulous market testing to ensure its resonance with our discerning readership. All of our books are simultaneously published in both Canada and the United States, supported by robust sales and distribution channels in both countries. 

Kenneth Whyte was editor-in-chief of Saturday Night Magazine, founding editor of The National Post, editor and publisher of Maclean’s, president of Rogers Publishing, and founding president of Next Issue Canada. He is the author of The Sack of Detroit: General Motors and the End of American Enterprise and The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of Willian Randolph Hearst.

 

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Stanley Flink: Due Diligence and the News

Due Diligence and the News: Searching for a Moral Compass in the Digital Age – Stanley Flink – Center for Media and Journalism Studies at Indian River State College – paperback – 978-0-578-60291-2 – 214 pages – $19.95 – 12/7/2019 – ebook editions available at lower prices.

I was recently introduced to Stan Flink by a mutual friend. I’d known of him for many years as he was a Yalie of some renown, a journalist for many years who later became the editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine and taught journalism at Yale and at other institutions of higher learning.

With his long experience, as a reporter, editor and lecturer, Stan knows and understands the importance of the news media to the functioning of American democracy. Still active at 95 years of age, Stan has worked as a journalist and editor for many years, in many different venues and platforms.

Flink recognizes that democracy has no life without truth. In fact, democracy is predicated on there being an educated and active citizenry, that tries to know as much as possible the truth and nature of events and human affairs. In Due Diligence and the News, Stan reviews, succinctly and gracefully, the relationship between the press and American civic life from colonial days to the digital age. In a series of interlocked essays, he demonstrates succinctly and clearly that while opinions may differ, facts are not optional. He discusses the important question of how it can be possible to assure publication based on verifiable facts without curtailing differing opinions. This is a central issue for us all to face – understanding and resolving the difference between fact and opinion. We need both elements to have equal weight in our political discourse, and we cannot dismiss either.

Some of the questions he raises include:

How can the media restore the trust of the reading/listening public?

Is it ever possible for the news media to create mechanisms, like the Hutchins Commission, that can make workable rules of self-governance and professional standards for itself?

Can government—international, national, state or local—serve as a watchdog on the media without violating the Constitution?

Can the news media, assuming it is truthful, do less than full due diligence in commenting on a public official?

These questions are addressed thoughtfully throughout this well-written book, but no one, not even Stan, can answer them conclusively and for all situations. Ultimately, as Stan takes a look forward into the digital age, the age of learned intelligence, he poses what may be as yet unanswerable questions about the future of the press in our fast-changing society. I think we have alot to learn from this book and the questions that Stan provides are ones we should be discussing far and wide as we try to heighten the importance of truth among our fellow citizens.

STANLEY FLINK grew up in a New Jersey. He entered Yale University a few months after Pearl Harbor and soon after enlisted in the Army. After service in the Pacific, he returned to Yale to continue his education. He graduated in 1948 and became a correspondent for Time, Inc. in New York and then in California, where he reported on such people as William Randolph Hearst, Richard Nixon, and the first appearances of Marilyn Monroe.

In 1958 he transferred to television news at NBC and later CBS. In 1962 he took up a series of assignments in London where he lived for eight years. In 1972 he returned to Yale to become the founding director of the Office of Public Information. From 1980 to 2010 he taught an undergraduate seminar called “Ethics and the Media.” In 1994 he was awarded the Yale Medal.

Stanley Flink is the author of many articles and profiles, and among his books are a novel called But Will They Get It In Des Moines? about television, published by Simon & Schuster; and Sentinel Under Siege, an historical analysis of freedom of the press in America, published by Harper Collins.

Mr. Flink and his second wife (of 45 years) Joy, live in a retirement community in North Branford, Connecticut, where he still lectures on the media. Through it all, he has never lost his deep affection for golden retrievers. He celebrated his 95th birthday in May, 2019.

Watch this video of Stan talking about the ethics of journalism here.

Support independent bookselling by buying the book online from our friends at R.J. Julia Booksellers.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Paul Conroy: Under the Wire: Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment

978-1602862364 – Weinstein Books – hardcover – October 8, 2013 – $26.00 (ebook versions available, prices vary depending on retailer)

Marie Colvin was an award-winning journalist who wrote principally for the London Sunday Times for almost thirty years until she was killed covering the siege of Homs in Syria in February, 2012.  She was raised in Oyster Bay (Long Island), NY, graduated from Yale in 1978 who worked for the British newspaper The Sunday Times from 1985 until her death.

Marie was an activist journalist in the best sense of the word, committed to reporting the lives and conditions of the oppressed and especially civilians suffering in wars, armed conflicts and governmental actions.  Her writing was vivid and clear, gripping and very muscular.

Colvin specialized in the Middle East, but also worked in East Timor, Sri Lanka, Chechniya and the Balkans. She was recognized by the British Press awards for her reporting in Chechniya (and an amazing escape from that war zone, also grippingly reported). In East Timor in 1999, she helped save the lives of 1,500 refugees stranded in a United Nations compound that was surrounded by the Indonesian Army after the Timorese chose independence from Indonesia in a referendum.  Colvin and two other journalists refused to leave and forced the UN to stay as well, and eventually the refugees were extracted and taken in by Australia.

In 2001 she became the first Western journalist in years to enter Tamil Tiger rebel territory in northern Sri Lanka. When she returned to the government-controlled area, her group was fired on by Sri Lankan military, and she was wounded by shrapnel, losing the use of an eye.  She famously wrote a 3,500 word dispatch about her adventure while in the hospital in NY for surgery. From that time onward, her black pirate-style eye-patch became  the emblem that represented her irrepressible spirit to all.

John Burns, the veteran New York Times foreign correspondent, called her “one of the most respected and celebrated reporters on Fleet Street…She was, of course, absolutely fearless, though she knew the dangers well.”

Alan Philps, a former Telegraph foreign correspondent said: “What she brought to journalism was being a great eyewitness and being incredibly brave. It was a role she settled into and she never saw another form of journalism she wanted to do, but that meant she sacrificed everything for the job.”

In 2010 at a London newspaper industry service for fallen British journalists, she gave a moving speech about the work and risks of foreign correspondents: “We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?

“Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price.”

Marie Colvin reported from Libya in the middle of many battle zones during the revolution against Qadaffi, where she worked with photographer Paul Conroy, who became a close friend of Colvin’s.  In 2012, the two of them, working for the Sunday Times, made their way into Homs in Syria, where the government was bombarding the local population into submission.

Under the Wire is Conroy’s story about his friendship and work with Marie Colvin in Libya and Syria.  Most of the book is a blow by blow account of their time in Homs, where Marie was killed while trying to leave Homs after many days in terrible danger, along with French photographer Remi Ochlik and Conroy was grievously wounded as well.

The book is a vivid and powerful account, not only of the work of the foreign correspondents who went to Syria to document what was going on there, but of the people in the country on the rebel side, who wanted Marie, Paul and other western journalists there to report what was happening.  Acts of bravery, selflessness and heroism abound.

Paul Conroy’s story is a gripping and painful celebration of the human spirit, full of bravery and hope and a wonderful memorial to the work and life of Marie Colvin.  It’s also a reminder, as the civil war in Syria continues, of how much we need people like Marie to serve as a public conscience in the face of oppression and state sponsored violence.

Marie Colvin’s work has been published as On the Front Line: The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin.   Visit her website to learn more about her life and work, and the Marie Colvin Memorial Fund.  The Colvin family has established a memorial fund in honor of Marie. The fund will direct donations to charitable and educational organizations that reflect Marie’s lifelong dedication to humanitarian aid, human rights, journalism and education.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download