Overview

An acclaimed biographer takes on one of the world's most elusive media moguls in Citizen Newhouse. The harvest of four years and over 400 interviews, Carol Felsenthal's book is an unauthorized investigative biography that paints a tough yet even-handed portrait. Here is the father, Sam Newhouse, who developed a formula for creating newspaper monopolies in small metropolitan markets and turned it into a huge family fortune. And the sons- Si in the magazine business, with his crown jewels, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, and Donald, who runs the family's newspaper and cable television companies. Focusing on Si's life and career, Citizen Newhouse takes the measure of one of America's most powerful yet unexamined figures. Felsenthal shows how Si's quirky behavior as a shy and awkward outsider has had a far-reaching impact on the properties he owns, affecting-and in the opinion of some, compromising-the quality of the Newhouse ""product"" across the country and the world. Felsenthal shines a light on the breathtaking changes that have taken place among Si's top editors, and the fabulous perks available to members of this elite. She also lays bare the role played by Roy Cohn in the affairs of both father and son. Citizen Newhouse provides a fascinating account of powerful and glamorous lives-and their impact on the newspapers and magazines we read every day.

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9781888363876

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Reviews

Praise for Carol Felsenthal: Carol Felsenthal tells the inside story . . . with exceptional verve and dilligence . . . . [A] gripping story. -Michael Stern, San Fransisco Chronicle Praise for Carol Felsenthal: Felsenthal lays out facts in a riveting style. -Eric Abeel, New Woman Praise for Carol Felsenthal: [Felsenthal] does a great job of conjuring up . . . characters in all their complexity. -Geraldine Brooks, Wall Street Journal

The elusive publishing mogul Si Newhouse is portrayed with much verve and little sympathy by Felsenthal, who has previously profiled Katharine Graham (Power, Privilege and the Post, 1993). The Newhouse media empire started with Si's father, Sam Newhouse, who kept buying newspapers, most of them mediocre, until he gathered one of the most lucrative chains in the nation. He never dictated policy, never caved to unions, and never sold a paper; he just bought more. To teach them the business, he dispatched sons Si and Donald from city to city on their paper route. When the family enterprise dropped into the laps of the boys, younger brother Donald ran the profitable papers. Si seemed to find his metier in the byzantine culture of magazines when, in 1959, he bought venerable Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue and other valuable periodicals. Under his erring management, Conde Nast endures mercurial masthead changes and, Felsenthal establishes, continuously bleeds money. He bought the renowned New Yorker; since then, there's been internecine warfare and floods of red ink while, in Felsenthal's view, the magazine lost its way under the guidance of Tina Brown (who recently and famously jumped ship). Si captured Random House, too; then, recently, he sold it to a foreign media conglomerate. Felsenthal has a jolly, gossipy time in the worlds of Brown, Diana Vreeland, and Si's old pal, the late Roy Cohn. Much of the text is based on interviews with fugitives from the land of hype and buzz, which lends it a certain ad hominem flair. The Newhouse visage, decor, demeanor, and lack of appropriate philanthropic urge - none quite meet the author's standards (though according to one source, his wife knows how to seat people ). A former girlfriend compliments Si as very sensual in his own wee little way. Here's a sly and occasionally catty story of publishing - an occasionally feline business - and an absorbing study of a feckless billionaire. (Kirkus Reviews)

Praise for Carol Felsenthal: Carol Felsenthal tells the inside story . . . with exceptional verve and dilligence . . . . [A] gripping story. -Michael Stern, San Fransisco Chronicle Praise for Carol Felsenthal: Felsenthal lays out facts in a riveting style. -Eric Abeel, New Woman Praise for Carol Felsenthal: [Felsenthal] does a great job of conjuring up . . . characters in all their complexity. -Geraldine Brooks, Wall Street Journal

Author Information

CAROL FELSENTHAL is the author of several acclaimed biographies, including the best-selling Power, Privilege, and the Post- The Katharine Graham Story; Princess Alice- The Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Longworth; and The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority- The Biography of Phyllis Schlafly.

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