An exclusive look inside the hard legal decisions behind some of the Times's most controversial and impactful stories of the twenty-first century, McGraw's memoir is not only a captivating narrative of the nation's best journalists in the trenches but a love letter celebrating freedom of the press.'-Dust jacket.David McCraw is one of America’s leading First Amendment lawyers, or, as a veteran New York Times reporter once put it, “the lawyer every journalist dreams of having.”ĭavid has spent the last 17 years at The New York Times, where he serves as the newspaper’s top newsroom lawyer. From Hillary Clinton's email investigation to Trump's tax returns, McGraw is at the center of the editors' decisions about what news is fit to print. shares McGraw's battle experiences as The Times's Deputy General Counsel since 2002, leading the paper's fight for freedom of information, defending it against libel suits, and providing legal counsel to the reporters breaking the biggest stories. With President Trump's declaration of the media as 'the enemy of the American people' and a rallying cry from increasingly volatile quarters dismissing reports as 'fake news,' protecting the First Amendment's freedom of the press has never been more important in the country's history. McGraw's intent wasn't partisan or political, but to stand against any individual or administration trying to suppress journalists from reporting the truth, and he found himself hailed as a hero of press freedom.

His letter went viral, embraced by liberals as an anti-Trump message and by women as a voice against sexual harassment. McCraw sent a scathing letter of refusal that dismissed the libel claim, defended the reporters' work on the article, and championed the rights of the women sharing their story as a cornerstone of American democracy. In October 2016, Donald Trump's lawyers demanded that The New York Times retract an article about two women who accused the then presidential candidate of touching them inappropriately. McGraw recounts his experiences as the top newsroom lawyer for The New York Times during the most turbulent era for journalism in generations.

Truth in Our Times by David E. McCraw