The Yellow Kids

Gary Dikeos deserves a medal for making *The Yellow Kids* feel like a thriller disguised as history. His narration isn’t just smooth—it’s propulsive, shifting effortlessly between the hushed awe of a library’s first major leak and the unhinged energy of a newsboy hawking a scandal sheet. The story itself is a masterclass in contrasts: Pulitzer’s visionary manipulation of public opinion against Hearst’s bare-knuckle opportunism, all filtered through the lens of the reporters who made it happen. Milton’s research is impressive, but the real magic is in how she ties the reporters’ personal dramas—gambling debts, rivalries, outright fraud—to the tectonic shifts in media. My only quibble? The book occasionally lingers too long on the minutiae of circulation wars, which slows the pace when the bigger picture demands momentum. And while Dikeos is phenomenal, his portrayal of Hearst’s bombast occasionally veers into caricature, which undercuts the nuance Pulitzer deserves. But these are minor flaws in a gripping listen that’ll make you see modern media’s DNA in a whole new light. If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at the phrase ‘fake news,’ this book will show you it didn’t start with Twitter.