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Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and Media
Renata Adler is one of the most original, incisive and witty writers active in American letters today. Whether it be fiction, reportage or essay, her work is marked by a truly extraordinary intellect and a luminous prose that is penetrating, precise, deft and, often, very funny. In this new collection-which includes the early and definitive profile of the National Guard; the widely discussed and still controversial review of Pauline Kael; and the first major piece about foreign contributions to American political campaigns-Adler's wide-ranging reflections become focused on two increasingly fused the politics which govern our public world and the media, which now actively distort and misrepresent information about that world.
For anyone seriously interested in politics and the media Canaries in the Mineshaft is yet another proof that Renata Adler is one of the most delightful and brilliant writers of our day.
For anyone seriously interested in politics and the media Canaries in the Mineshaft is yet another proof that Renata Adler is one of the most delightful and brilliant writers of our day.
- GenresEssaysNonfictionPolitics
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Renata Adler
23 books266 followersBorn in Milan, Italy, Adler grew up in Danbury, Connecticut after her parents had fled Nazi Germany in 1933. After attending Bryn Mawr, The Sorbonne, and Harvard, she became a staff writer-reporter for The New Yorker. She later received her J.D. from Yale Law School, and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Georgetown University.
Adler’s essays and articles have been collected in Toward a Radical Middle (1969) and A Year in the Dark (1970), Reckless Disregard (1986), and Canaries in the Mineshaft (2001). Renata Adler is also the author of two successful novels Speedboat (1976) and Pitch Dark (1983). Both novels are composed of seemingly unconnected passages that challenge readers to find meaning. Like her nonfiction, Adler's novels examine the issues and mores of contemporary life.
In 1987, Adler was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. That same year, she received an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University. Her "Letter from Selma" has been published in the Library of America volume of Civil Rights Reporting. An essay from her tenure as film critic of The New York Times is included in the Library of America volume of American Film Criticism. In 2004, she served as a Media Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute.
Adler’s essays and articles have been collected in Toward a Radical Middle (1969) and A Year in the Dark (1970), Reckless Disregard (1986), and Canaries in the Mineshaft (2001). Renata Adler is also the author of two successful novels Speedboat (1976) and Pitch Dark (1983). Both novels are composed of seemingly unconnected passages that challenge readers to find meaning. Like her nonfiction, Adler's novels examine the issues and mores of contemporary life.
In 1987, Adler was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. That same year, she received an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University. Her "Letter from Selma" has been published in the Library of America volume of Civil Rights Reporting. An essay from her tenure as film critic of The New York Times is included in the Library of America volume of American Film Criticism. In 2004, she served as a Media Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 28, 2022
Reading Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and Media by Renata Adler has taught me things I never knew about Watergate, the national guard, the Biafra war of independence and the game-show Jeopardy, which received hate-mail complaining that there were so many Jewish contestants on the program it should be renamed “Jewpardy.”
March 21, 2023
Reckless Disregard—Renata Adler
Canaries in the Mineshaft—Renata Adler
In both of these books, Renata Adler shows herself to be an astute observer of news media and a sedulous reader of transcripts. The chief targets in each are reporters whose sense of righteous unassailability allows them to skirt the facts in pursuit of a news story. In Reckless Disregard, Adler examines two libel cases brought against two news organizations (CBS and Time) at the same time in 1985, in which she observes the way in which both organizations refuse to acknowledge that their news reporting could not be confirmed, had no basis in fact, and was shielded with appeals to anonymous sources. Further, as she carefully follows the cases in real-time and via readings of the pre-trial depositions, she observes how news reporting about the trials is curiously oblivious to what is really happening day by day and how reporters are easily misled by obfuscating lawyers and lying witnesses.
Similarly, in several of the essays in Canaries in the Mineshaft, where the cases under consideration are Nixon/Watergate and Starr/Clinton, Adler is able to demonstrate the way depositions and pre-trial documentation are used by lawyers less to clarify than to befuddle; at the same time, she shows how a careful reading reveals contradictions, lies, inconsistencies, and omissions that reveal a wholly buried story that reporters have overlooked. When Adler shows us how she “follows the money” via the documentation surrounding Watergate, it becomes clear why Nixon was prepared to resign rather than face exposure of additional facts that would have unquestionably led to an ignominious impeachment. While Nixon’s crew leaked information to forestall observation of greater crimes, Starr’s crew leaked information to draw attention to extra-legal matters that could make their way into his “report”. On such occasions, Adler points out, news reporters are duped into becoming conduits of (dis)information/innuendo, maintained by reporters guilelessly thinking they are “protecting” their sources.
The final essay in Canaries combines all of these elements: a news organization ready to rise in defense of its own when its news reporting is called into question and the close, penetrating analysis of a text that in plain sight offers up information that refutes the organization’s stance: Adler’s 1999 book about The New Yorker (Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker) was critical of the book editor at the New York Times (when he was at the New Yorker), and a brouhaha erupted when the Times review of the book cited an incident about another book review. Asked at The New Yorker, when she was a staffer there in 1979, to review former federal judge John Sirica’s ghosted autobiography, she declined, saying she thought that “contrary to his reputation as a hero, Sirica was in fact a corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest figure, with a close connection to Senator Joseph McCarthy and clear ties to organized crime.” When challenged by Sirica's son (a NY Times reporter) and a week’s worth of articles in the Times to substantiate this statement, Adler pointed to the autobiography and demonstrated again how a close reading could reveal facts that lay in plain sight, detailing Sirica’s connections to McCarthy and to bootlegging and illegal boxing.
Bottom line: Renata Adler—in defense of open/honest reporting that does not rely on clandestine/unverifiable “sources”—reads sharply and skewers shoddy reporters/reporting and the sanctimonious news organizations who choose to stonewall to protect their reputation(s) rather than get at the facts behind a story.
Canaries in the Mineshaft—Renata Adler
In both of these books, Renata Adler shows herself to be an astute observer of news media and a sedulous reader of transcripts. The chief targets in each are reporters whose sense of righteous unassailability allows them to skirt the facts in pursuit of a news story. In Reckless Disregard, Adler examines two libel cases brought against two news organizations (CBS and Time) at the same time in 1985, in which she observes the way in which both organizations refuse to acknowledge that their news reporting could not be confirmed, had no basis in fact, and was shielded with appeals to anonymous sources. Further, as she carefully follows the cases in real-time and via readings of the pre-trial depositions, she observes how news reporting about the trials is curiously oblivious to what is really happening day by day and how reporters are easily misled by obfuscating lawyers and lying witnesses.
Similarly, in several of the essays in Canaries in the Mineshaft, where the cases under consideration are Nixon/Watergate and Starr/Clinton, Adler is able to demonstrate the way depositions and pre-trial documentation are used by lawyers less to clarify than to befuddle; at the same time, she shows how a careful reading reveals contradictions, lies, inconsistencies, and omissions that reveal a wholly buried story that reporters have overlooked. When Adler shows us how she “follows the money” via the documentation surrounding Watergate, it becomes clear why Nixon was prepared to resign rather than face exposure of additional facts that would have unquestionably led to an ignominious impeachment. While Nixon’s crew leaked information to forestall observation of greater crimes, Starr’s crew leaked information to draw attention to extra-legal matters that could make their way into his “report”. On such occasions, Adler points out, news reporters are duped into becoming conduits of (dis)information/innuendo, maintained by reporters guilelessly thinking they are “protecting” their sources.
The final essay in Canaries combines all of these elements: a news organization ready to rise in defense of its own when its news reporting is called into question and the close, penetrating analysis of a text that in plain sight offers up information that refutes the organization’s stance: Adler’s 1999 book about The New Yorker (Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker) was critical of the book editor at the New York Times (when he was at the New Yorker), and a brouhaha erupted when the Times review of the book cited an incident about another book review. Asked at The New Yorker, when she was a staffer there in 1979, to review former federal judge John Sirica’s ghosted autobiography, she declined, saying she thought that “contrary to his reputation as a hero, Sirica was in fact a corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest figure, with a close connection to Senator Joseph McCarthy and clear ties to organized crime.” When challenged by Sirica's son (a NY Times reporter) and a week’s worth of articles in the Times to substantiate this statement, Adler pointed to the autobiography and demonstrated again how a close reading could reveal facts that lay in plain sight, detailing Sirica’s connections to McCarthy and to bootlegging and illegal boxing.
Bottom line: Renata Adler—in defense of open/honest reporting that does not rely on clandestine/unverifiable “sources”—reads sharply and skewers shoddy reporters/reporting and the sanctimonious news organizations who choose to stonewall to protect their reputation(s) rather than get at the facts behind a story.
April 18, 2016
Stunningly researched, carefully considered, astoundingly written. I wish I'd made friends with Adler's acid wit 10 years ago.
September 2, 2010
pulls no punches, spares no sacred cows - just the way i like my critics
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews