Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History
Katy Tur, 2017
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062684929
Summary
Called "Disgraceful," "third-rate," and "not nice" by Donald Trump, NBC News correspondent Katy Tur reported on—and took flak from—the most captivating and volatile presidential candidate in American history.
Tur lived out of a suitcase for a year and a half, following Trump around the country, powered by packets of peanut butter and kept clean with dry shampoo. She visited forty states with the candidate, made more than 3,800 live television reports, and tried to endure a gazillion loops of Elton John’s "Tiny Dancer" —a Trump rally playlist staple.
From day 1 to day 500, Tur documented Trump’s inconsistencies, fact-checked his falsities, and called him out on his lies. In return, Trump repeatedly singled Tur out. He tried to charm her, intimidate her, and shame her. At one point, he got a crowd so riled up against Tur, Secret Service agents had to walk her to her car.
None of it worked. Facts are stubborn. So was Tur. She was part of the first women-led politics team in the history of network news. The Boys on the Bus became the Girls on the Plane. But the circus remained. Through all the long nights, wild scoops, naked chauvinism, dodgy staffers, and fevered debates, no one had a better view than Tur.
Unbelievable is her darkly comic, fascinatingly bizarre, and often scary story of how America sent a former reality show host to the White House.
It’s also the story of what it was like for Tur to be there as it happened, inside a no-rules world where reporters were spat on, demeaned, and discredited. Tur was a foreign correspondent who came home to her most foreign story of all. Unbelievable is a must-read for anyone who still wakes up and wonders, Is this real life? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1983
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California-Santa Barbara
• Awards—AP Best Spot Coverage; Walter Cronkite Award
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Katharine Bear Tur is an American author and broadcast journalist. Following her year-and-a-half-long coverage on the presidential campaign trail of Donald Trump, Tur published her memoir, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American HIstory (2017), which almost immediately became a New York Times bestseller.
Early life and education
Tur was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of journalists Hanna Zoey Tur and Marika Gerrard. She graduated from Brentwood School in 2001 and from the University of California-Santa Barbara in 2005 with a BA, Philosophy.
Career
Tur has reported for KTLA, HD News/Cablevision, News 12 Brooklyn, WPIX-TV, and Fox 5 New York. Later on, Tur worked as a storm chaser for The Weather Channel on the network's VORTEX2 team.
In 2009, Tur joined NBC's local station in New York City, WNBC-TV, and then rose to the flagship NBC News at the national network level, becoming the network's embedded reporter for the Donald Trump presidential campaign. She was responsible for informing the Trump campaign about the Access Hollywood tape that NBC possessed.
Several times during his campaign rallies, Trump singled out Tur in his criticism of the press. At an event in Florida, Tur was booed by Trump supporters and, according to other journalists, was subjected to verbal harassment. According to Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, "[Trump] didn't mean it in any malicious way," nor did he intend for anyone to attack or harass her.
In an article for Marie Claire, Tur reflected on covering the Trump campaign and his treatment of her at campaign rallies. She expanded that account into a full-length book, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History.
Personal life
From 2006 to 2009, Tur dated then MSNBC political commentator and sportscaster Keith Olbermann. In 2017, she became engaged to Tony Dokoupil, a correspondent at CBS News.
Awards
2009 - AP’s Best Spot News Award for coverage of the March 2008 crane collapse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan
2017 - Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/12/2017.)
Book Reviews
Tur's short and breezy campaign memoir is the story of how she soldiered on. It is also the familiar tale of how a relatively inexperienced woman is looked down on and underestimated, both by the candidate she covered and by her network superiors. By the end of Unbelievable it's clear how wrong they all were in thinking they could run over "Little Katy" (Trump's snide name for Tur).… Like a plucky Jean Arthur character in a '30s screwball comedy, Tur evolved into a seasoned campaign reporter and never let Trump get under her skin. Meanwhile, in between the personal blasts — and in a pattern typical of his love/hate relationship with the press — Trump granted her interviews. He hated what reporters wrote about him but he could not exist without their attention. Tur does a good job explaining the dynamics of this weird, symbiotic relationship. The more personal story Tur tells in Unbelievable is also compelling.
Jill Abramson - New York Times Book Review
A must-ride roller coaster of a memoir.… Unbelievable is best read as a reminder that it really did happen that way, we aren’t all crazy, it was that crazy.
Hugh Hewitt - Washington Post
The razor-sharp observations of Tur’s book …are the sort of thing you hear nowadays on The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert’s Late Show and never, ever, on any of the networks’ evening news broadcasts.
Guardian (UK)
A quick and enjoyable read.… The chapters switch between key points in the campaign and Election Day, enhancing the feel of chaos that must have been a big part of covering the Trump campaign.
Associated Press
Tur’s narrative is light on political analysis… [but her] brisk behind-the-scenes account …delivers on its promise: "I won’t pretend to explain it," …but "I will tell you what I saw."
Publishers Weekly
On the potholed presidential trail during 2015–16, NBC reporter Tur was routinely scorned by Republican candidate Donald Trump…. Incensed viewers responded vigorously by tweeting #imwithtur.
Library Journal
[H]er own back-of-the-envelope analyses are borne out by subsequent events, as when she writes, "Trump is crude, and in his halo of crudeness other people get to be crude as well." A thoughtful account.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Unbelievable … then take off on your own:
1. Why was Katy Tur, a self-described "political novice," chosen from the NBC press pool to cover the Donald Trump campaign?
2. Why did her bosses tell Tur the campaign stint would last "six weeks, tops." What did she begin to see and understand about the campaign and Trump's supporters that many missed? What were your own predictions when he first announced his candidacy?
3. Talk about Trump's treatment of Tur? Why did he single her out? What was his attitude toward her?
4. What revelation most surprised you in Tur's account?
5. What was life like on the press trail, physically and mentally? How would you hold up under such a grueling schedule?
6. Tur writes that "Trump is crude, and in his halo of crudeness other people get to be crude as well." What does she mean by that observation?
7. Has this book changed or confirmed your attitude toward the media? Have you come away with a different attitude or new understanding of the media's role in political coverage?
8. How would you describe both candidate and President Donald Trump's relationship with the media?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)