[Alexander Zaitchik] reviews [John Hess]' [MyTimes] book (ISBN:1583226222 ) about the NyTimes. Hess describes a royally self-satisfied, openly corrupt newsroom culture where leading Times figures reveled in their roles as access sluts, where licking the palms of officialdom in exchange for crumbs was understood as "the transaction of commerce."... The Times' function as a loyal mouthpiece for the eastern establishment, Hess explains, grows out of the paper's very origins. The group of Wall Street financiers that helped a failed Tennessee businessman named [Adolph Ochs] keep the struggling daily afloat was making a strategic political investment. Led by J P Morgan, the backers wanted to keep the paper alive as a "responsible" Democratic Party bulwark against the Popul Ist challenge of William Jennings Bryan, who was then attacking WallSt in front of receptive audiences across the country. The Times was to lead the counterattack.

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