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Inside the last great television news war
Free Press
October 2007
On Sale: October 9, 2007
480 pages
ISBN: 0743299825
EAN: 9780743299824
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings: They were on a
first-name basis with the country for a generation, leading
viewers through moments of triumph and tragedy. But now that
a new generation has succeeded them, the once-glittering job
of network anchor seems unmistakably tarnished. In an age of
instantaneous Internet news, cable echo chambers and iPod
downloads, who really needs the evening news? And, by
extension, who needs Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and
Charlie Gibson? But the anchors still have a
megaphone capable of cutting through the media static. Their
coverage of Iraq helped turn the country against that bloody
war, and they are now playing a leading role in chronicling
the collapse of George Bush's presidency and the 2008 race
to succeed him. Yet, even as the anchors fight for ratings
supremacy, the mega-corporations they work for have handed
them a bigger challenge: saving an American
institution. In this freewheeling, intimate account
of life atop the media pyramid, award-winning bestselling
author Howard Kurtz takes us inside the newsrooms and
executive suites of CBS, NBC, and ABC, capturing the
deadline judgments, image-making, jealousies, and gossip of
this high-pressure business. Whether it is Couric trying to
regain her morning magic while coping with tabloid stories
about her boyfriends, Williams reporting from New Orleans
and Baghdad while worrying about his ailing father, or
Gibson weighing whether to follow his wife into retirement
while grappling with having to report the explicit details
of sex scandals, Kurtz brings to life the daily battles that
define their lives. The narrative reflects an
extraordinary degree of access to such corporate chieftains
as Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves, star correspondents, and the
anchors themselves. Their goal: create an on-screen persona
that people will tune in to and trust. Yet they are faced
with a graying, shrinking audience as younger viewers flock
to Jon Stewart, whose influence on the real newscasts is
palpable. Here is the untold story of what these
journalistic celebrities think of their bosses, cable
competitors, bloggers, and each other.
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