The Last Newspaperman

Saturday Samplers book group will be present for author Mark Di Ionno's talk on Saturday, April 6th, in the Community Room of Bernardsville Public Library.  Mr. Di Ionno, an award-winning reporter for The Star-Ledger, has authored The Last Newspaperman, an acclaimed piece of historical fiction set entirely in New Jersey. The Last Newspaperman recounts the life and journalistic exploits of fictional reporter Fred Haines, now elderly, who reminisces about the years he spent working in tabloid journalism of the 1930's.

Four sensational episodes in New Jersey history become the framework by which Fred comes to judge the nature of journalism and his own lack of scruples therein. Among those episodes were the Morro Castle fire and the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. In covering these events, Fred must face a number of moral dilemmas which tear away at his reporter's distance and dispassion.  The reader is left to compare this era of celebrity and disaster-driven journalism with that of today's reporting, be it by newspaper or other medium.