If journalism is a working history book, it should come as no surprise that many chapters are missing. Whether a story was cut and replaced at the last minute, or frowned upon by an editor before it could gestate, those in the business control the recording of history. New York journalist David Wallis' book, Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot to Print, shares some of the stories that originally didn't make it past the shredding eyes of an editor. Wallis is also the founder of Internet syndicate Featurewell.com, to which many of these stories were originally submitted. It's through his work on the syndicate that he fully realized the vulnerability of even strong journalistic works.
Though the title conjures up thoughts of Project Censored, which annually rounds up the most underreported stories, Wallis' work includes fewer exposés about evil corporate America, instead providing pieces that didn't jibe with various newspaper's politics, like Mike Sager's "Travels with Bassem," killed by the Washington Post Magazine in 1988. The smoothly written story documents the author's experiences living with average Palestinians during the first intifada. The story never appeared in the magazine, which could be a result of the publication's pro-Israeli stance, or it could simply be that the editor who commissioned and stood behind it was fired, and the story got swept under the rug.
Then there's Betty Friedan's piece about women not getting enough out of college in the late 1950s, focusing on finding a man rather than earning an education. Her story was killed by McCall's in 1958 and later became the basis for her book The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963.
"The Stranger-Than-Truth Story of The Body Shop" was killed by Vanity Fair out of fear of litigation in 1994. The story, by Jon Entine, explores the hypocrisy, lies and environmentally unfriendly practices of Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop. The Body Shop has a history of suing on libelous grounds—and it does so in Britain, where it's easier to win such suits because the burden is on the defendant to prove, beyond a doubt, the falsity of the allegations.
The 24 pieces are mostly page-turners; some are even laugh-out-loud funny, like Tad Friend's "Jesus Worms," about British travel writer Redmond O'Hanlon, who can't seem to complete a sentence without talking about his penis or referencing some orifice. While camping with Friend near a small pond, O'Hanlon spies a newt. "Look there, a newt pretending he's invisible, hanging like a weed stalk," he says. "You're staring down the butthole of a newt!" It was killed by Vogue in 1993. Other delights include a humor travel essay through war-torn Lebanon by P.J. O'Rourke, a book review by George Orwell, an essay about smoking cigarettes with John Mellencamp by Erik Hedegaard, and more. It's a book you can read sporadically or in longer sittings, kept interesting by strong writing and diverse topics. Next, Wallis plans to put out a book of killed cartoons.