It's alive! Book

Cuozzo writes with anecdotal wit of his experiences at the nation's oldest continuously published daily newspaper, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. His story begins in 1972, when he debuted as a copyboy and The Post was still Dorothy Schiff's respectable but flagging liberal afternoon paper. When Rupert Murdoch became the once and future proprietor in 1977, he immediately infused the pages with energy, reenvisioning their politics, their prose, their sensibility. Call it loud, call it brassy, but the reinvented Post became "the engine of the shift in the popular imagination" that drove the renewal of America's healthy tabloid culture. It's Alive! is also the inside account of how the paper became a tabloid saga in itself. Its will to live was remarkable. In 1987, when Murdoch lost his battle with the FCC to own both The Post and six television stations, his first tenure on South Street came to an end, precipitating the paper's first brush with death. What lay ahead was a "harrowing five-year parenthesis in The Post's rightful ownership." Under new owner Peter Kalikow, the paper was soon locked in the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash and a death-duel with the archenemy Daily News. In fits and starts, The Post ground its way into 1993, bouncing checks and praying for credit. When Kalikow, in personal bankruptcy, announced suspension of publication, mystery man Steven Hoffenberg at first appeared to be a savior. But with his own assets frozen by a federal court, Hoffenberg faced travails worse than Kalikow's. Desperate for credibility and cash, he brought in literary legend Pete Hamill as editor, and parking garage magnate Abraham Hirschfeld as a partner. Hirschfeld wrested control, dumped Hamill for controversial Amsterdam News publisher Wilbert Tatum, and announced a far-fetched plan to "combine" the two papers. Cuozzo tells the riveting - and hilarious - story of how executives and union members alike banded together to oust Hirschfeld from the sc