Life in the Wrong Lane |  | Author: Greg Dobbs
Publisher: iUniverse.com
List Price: $13.95
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as of 11/24/2009 05:14 CST details
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Seller: critic_l
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 816682
Media: Paperback
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.5
ISBN: 1440152764
Dewey Decimal Number: 70
EAN: 9781440152764
ASIN: 1440152764
Publication Date: August 18, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The book is called Life in the Wrong Lane because that's where journalists live: in the one lane heading toward a catastrophe. Everyone who's normal is in the other lane, any other lane, going the other way. They're getting out. Although Dobbs's travels, first for ABC News and now for HDNet Television, have taken him to many troubled corners of the country and the world, Life in the Wrong Lane isn't a travel guide about exotic places or a contemporary history of the events he covered. Rather, it's about all the funny, bizarre, scary, stupid, dangerous, distasteful, unwise, and unbelievable things that journalists experience just getting to the point of reporting a story, experiences that possibly are even more interesting than the stories being covered, but which never become part of the stories they finally report to their audiences.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
Brings back a lot of memories November 24, 2009
Robert Dutru (N/F. Canada)
I enjoyed Greg's book immensivly. I worked with Greg for severl years when I was in london with abc, in fact I'm the "Bob' he mentioned that he went to Libya with and filmed Ed Taylor, It was filled with lots of the interesting experiences youmeet when you work for television and go around the world at the drop of a hat or abeeper going off,if he ever rreads this- jello Greg- nice to hear from you again and contact me at rdutru@cogeco.ca in Niagara Falls where I finally laid my trusted ikigemi down to rest.
What compels people to dive right into the storm at its worst? November 10, 2009
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
What compels people to dive right into the storm at its worst? "Life in the Wrong Lane: Why Journalists Go In When Everyone Wants Out" explores the journalistic tendency to go into the most dangerous areas in the planet in the name of the news. Telling the stories of these apparently insane journalists, Greg Dobbs presents a story of why these people do what they do and presents an entertaining book in the process. "Life in the Wrong Lane" is a read for anyone who ponders Journalism and the people behind it.
 The Facts About the News November 9, 2009
Bruce Hall
I should begin my letting you know that Greg Dobbs is a friend of mine. We got acquainted working together during the twenty years I was a videotape editor at ABC News. I am not writing this just to plug a friendl's work, however (I have other friends who have written books, but have never reviewed them). It just occurred to me that since I know the world Greg is writing about, my comments might in fact be helpful. This is, quite simply, the best book I have read as far as giving a feeling for what is is like to work in network news. It is not, as Greg admits, a book of historical insights into great events. It is a personal account of his adventures, a collection of the kind of stories we tell each other over drinks at the end of the day. He conveys the excitement of a job in which you don't know, when you wake up, where you will be at the end of the day, a job in which everywhere you go there is at least the possibility that something of national interest is going on. He conveys the wackiness that often results from these assignments, and the frustration when you knock yourself out to get a story, only to have it bumped from the show from lack of time. Greg is a very funny guy who usually keeps his sense of humor out of his work. Here he relaxes and has come up with a book that is a fast, funny read. If you are interested in what it is like to be a foreign correspondent or work for network news, this book captures the flavor of that experience better than any other book I know.
Stories Behind the News from a World-Class Foreign Correspondent September 11, 2009
Brent Green (Denver, CO United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For many years I have had the privilege of watching parts of this book unfold as Greg Dobbs dispatched his personal reports of worldwide travels to family and friends, sharing remarkable stories behind the stories he was covering. Some of these reports were written close to the bone as Greg returned from distant locations, often exhausted, with details and back-story vivid in his mind. As I read his harrowing chronicles of a reporter covering Hurricane Katrina, cocaine trafficking in Columbia and bewildering third-world inconveniences of Russia today, I realized how little I understood about the enormous responsibilities and challenges of a heretofore romantic and mysterious profession known as "foreign correspondent."
These are stories of a special breed of men and women who lunge into the middle of major news unfolding, often risking personal security and safety in their quest for truthful witness and reporting of major events shaping our lives. These are stories of fortitude, daring, irony, inconvenience, risk, exhilaration and unlimited curiosity. These are stories that provide surprising and entertaining insights into the operations and demands of modern news media, a true and unvarnished presentation of how "freedom of the press" finds contemporary realization with instantaneous, satellite- and internet-delivered, 24/7/365 electronic news coverage.
This finely written book not only presents the craft of a seasoned writer and journalist, making it an inspiring and fun-to-read page-turner, it also provides an insider's glimpse into what it really takes to be a world-class journalist -- the personal qualities that go beyond mere skill at gathering information, interviewing, assembling, editing and delivering the news before a camera. Greg Dobbs' accounts demonstrate raw ingredients of success, not only in journalism, but in all professional endeavors, qualities such as tenacity, risk-taking and finely honed competitive instincts.
Hated for It to End September 7, 2009
F. Shook (Denver, CO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As I read Greg's book, I could almost hear him sitting in the same room, telling me his stories. Crisp, clear, conversational writing brings his real-life adventures to life. His writing makes history interesting, makes it feel spontaneous, and infuses it with humanity. I love his sideway glances at journalism as a profession as he hurries toward the next story. Along the way he validates the vocation's worth and underscores why journalists of his stature are among a society's most important eyes and ears.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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