From Butler to Buffett: The Story Behind the Buffalo News

Rating:
Summary: Newspapering in five decades
Review: "From Butler to Buffett" is a must read for anyone interested in the ownership style of billionaire Warren E. Buffett or for serious students of American journalism.

Long-time Buffalo News Editor Murray B. Light tells the story of how he guided this hugely successful regional newspaper into the modern era from the age of copy boys, manual typewriters and telegraph editors with green visors.

With the help of Buffett and his close friend publisher Stanford Lipsey, Light engineered the transformation of Buffalo's Gray Old Lady into a modern metropolitan daily in a city noted for its hard-hitting journalism, hard-drinking journalists and demanding newspaper junkies.

Light's research into the founding Butler family reveals insights into the outgoing founder and his reserved son that were not known outside of a select circle.

But "From Butler to Buffett" comes to life when Warren Buffett purchased the financially struggling enterprise, placed managing editor Light firmly in charge and took on the city's morning paper which had the huge financial backing of a national newspaper corporation.

Light and his newsroom colleagues never seemed to notice that "the guys down the street" with the big Sunday paper (The News was a six-day evening paper), and the guys who delivered in the morning should have won one of the last great Northeast newspaper battles of the 20th Century.

This book is full of the little tales and quick anecdotes that bring 20th century daily journalism to life. Light's newsroom is a newsroom of living characters, described in broad strokes by an editor who spoke the way he writes.

Even though it becomes obvious Light relished the Buffett years, it is just as obvious that he never lost sight of his mentor, the legendary editor Alfred H. Kirchhofer.

This is a journey well worth the effort for anyone who lived through -- or wished they lived through -- the second half of the 20th Century in an American newsroom.

Rating:
Summary: Colorful, Personal History of a Newspaper
Review: "From Butler to Buffett" is a must read for anyone interested in the ownership style of billionaire Warren E. Buffett or for serious students of American journalism.

Long-time Buffalo News Editor Murray B. Light tells the story of how he guided this hugely successful regional newspaper into the modern era from the age of copy boys, manual typewriters and telegraph editors with green visors.

With the help of Buffett and his close friend publisher Stanford Lipsey, Light engineered the transformation of Buffalo's Gray Old Lady into a modern metropolitan daily in a city noted for its hard-hitting journalism, hard-drinking journalists and demanding newspaper junkies.

Light's research into the founding Butler family reveals insights into the outgoing founder and his reserved son that were not known outside of a select circle.

But "From Butler to Buffett" comes to life when Warren Buffett purchased the financially struggling enterprise, placed managing editor Light firmly in charge and took on the city's morning paper which had the huge financial backing of a national newspaper corporation.

Light and his newsroom colleagues never seemed to notice that "the guys down the street" with the big Sunday paper (The News was a six-day evening paper), and the guys who delivered in the morning should have won one of the last great Northeast newspaper battles of the 20th Century.

This book is full of the little tales and quick anecdotes that bring 20th century daily journalism to life. Light's newsroom is a newsroom of living characters, described in broad strokes by an editor who spoke the way he writes.

Even though it becomes obvious Light relished the Buffett years, it is just as obvious that he never lost sight of his mentor, the legendary editor Alfred H. Kirchhofer.

This is a journey well worth the effort for anyone who lived through -- or wished they lived through -- the second half of the 20th Century in an American newsroom.

Rating:
Summary: Colorful, Personal History of a Newspaper
Review: I thought this book would be a dry recital of facts. I thought, what could be more boring than the story of editing stories for a small city paper? Instead I got an indepth look at the vibrant personalities that shaped a newspaper -- including some very interesting personal stories about the editors, publishers, and reporters for the news that I'm not sure we should be reading. All in all a great book.