CBS News profiled Talese's rise from copyboy at The New York Times to author of The Kingdom and the Power (1969), his bestselling account of newsroom politics and institutional power. The piece frames Tales from Gay Talese as a towering, if contested, figure whose career spans roughly seven decades of American journalism.
Modern media rewards speed and reaction over patient reporting that maps how institutions actually work. Talese's approach—treating newsrooms, celebrities, and power brokers as systems with habits, vanity, and hierarchy—still works. Tales from Gay Talese reminds us that readers still want stories explaining how power operates inside the room, not just what trended outside it.
Talese helped define literary journalism: reported nonfiction with scenes, character, and narrative drive. His legacy includes scrutiny over sourcing in later work, which matters. Great stylists are not exempt from the basic reporting test.
The lesson from Tales from Gay Talese is not nostalgia for a classier newspaper age. Deep reporting takes time, and time is the first thing media companies cut when traffic softens. Talese built a career on the difference between a story that explains power and one that just aggregates it. Plenty of outlets now act as if a thumbnail can replace six years of reporting.
Filed to the Media desk · 2 days ago