Wordsmith: My Life in Journalism

AL SMITH covered a big-time mafia boss, crooked cops and mad Governor Earl Long until booze busted him off two New Orleans dailies. Sobering up on a Kentucky weekly,he began buying newspapers and launched a TV career. He worked for two U.S. presidents in Washington and won acclaim as a "National Rural Hero" for his efforts in journalism. From his boyhood in a Sarasota mansion to living poor on a rundown Tennessee farm and winning a national speech championship, this is the colorful life story of an engaged and revered journalist who believes in truth and fairness and always has a cause to champion.