Located in Washington, DC, within eyeshot of the Capitol dome on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Newseum presents itself as the pinnacle of the press's institutional might. The First Amendment is etched into the structure's imposing stone facade. And visitors can absorb the power of journalism through countless media relics—1968 presidential-campaign buttons, former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee's press pass, the first satellite news truck, and much more—across multiple floors.
In January 2016, the museum made a fitting location for an invitation-only gathering of more than 300 Pulitzer Prize winners toasting the awards' centennial. But for all the self-importance that oozed from the Newseum that night, a pall of uncertainty hung over the media luminaries in attendance. As Jill Abramson recounts in the opening pages of her new book, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts, “The party celebrated journalism's golden age, but the celebrants were living through journalism's Age of Anxiety.” The Internet had wiped out all the old ways of making a buck in the media, and many traditional outlets had slashed their staffs, scaled back their ambitions, and watched—often powerlessly—as their collective influence on public affairs waned. Adding to the trepidation was Donald Trump's then still-improbable presidential bid and all the simmering media hatred it had activated.
