Overview

Television news made meteoric progress in the 1950s. It rose from being a plaything for the rich to a major factor in informing the American public, and an aggressive rival to newspapers, radio, and news magazines. This volume is an insider's account of the arduous and frequently critical steps undertaken by inexperienced staffs in the development of television news, documentaries, and sports broadcasts. The author, the first president of CBS News, provides a treasure trove of facts and anecdotes about plotting in the corridors, the ascendancy of stars, and the retirement into oblivion of the less favored. This volume is an important contribution to the history of television journalism and will appeal both to journalism and broadcasting scholars and to those interested in the meteoric rise of television.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sig Mickelson
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint:   Praeger Publishers Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.624kg
ISBN:  

9780275955670

ISBN 10:   0275955672
Pages:   264
Publication Date:   27 August 1998
Recommended Age:   From 7 to 17 years
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

"Introduction: The Decade That Shaped Television News The Search for a Road Map The First Awkward Steps A New Star on the Horizon Driving Television's Golden Spike A New Species of Documentary: The Birth of ""See It Now"" Breaking New Ground Blacklisting and the Exploitation of Fear Not So Strange Bedfellows: Politics and Television Television News Comes of Age The Great Airplane Race The Corporation Declares a Cease-Fire Aftermath of the Cease-Fire Spare the Rod but Don't Spoil the Picture Combat in the Corporate Stratosphere The Changing of the Guard Filling the ""See It Now"" Void: The Birth of ""CBS Reports"" The Happy Couple: Pigskin and Image Orthicon Tube Carrying the Olympic Torch to Television In Pursuit of the Dollar The End of the Decade Bibliography Index"

Reviews

Libraries with active media collections and readers more interested in straight scoop than titillating gossip will want to consider this analysis from the first president of CBS News....Mickelson's narrative may be most valuable for discussing topics glitzier media surveys underplay, for example, technological developments that allowed TV news to define a role for itself different from both print and newsreels, the slow building of national networks (and national audiences)....Worthwhile. -Booklist This is an important book for its focus on the behind-the-scenes world of changing technology while a new journalism medium was being invented. Mickelson writes well and sheds considerable insight on events still helping to shape the current world of television news. -CBQ He offers the reader an interesting, management-level account of numerous challenges faced, and decisions made, regarding prominent individuals, such as Edward R. Murrow, and the evolution of news programming. -Journal History ?He offers the reader an interesting, management-level account of numerous challenges faced, and decisions made, regarding prominent individuals, such as Edward R. Murrow, and the evolution of news programming.?-Journal History ?This is an important book for its focus on the behind-the-scenes world of changing technology while a new journalism medium was being invented. Mickelson writes well and sheds considerable insight on events still helping to shape the current world of television news.?-CBQ ?Libraries with active media collections and readers more interested in straight scoop than titillating gossip will want to consider this analysis from the first president of CBS News....Mickelson's narrative may be most valuable for discussing topics glitzier media surveys underplay, for example, technological developments that allowed TV news to define a role for itself different from both print and newsreels, the slow building of national networks (and national audiences)....Worthwhile.?-Booklist

A gee-whiz celebration of the 1950s communications revolution that in the end manages to inspire awe for the time when public affairs mattered and people cared. Mickelson (From Whistle Stop to Sound Bite, 1989, etc.), the first president of CBS News, at first forces an unnecessary technical study of the progress and setbacks of coaxial cables and microwave relays - ingredients in the painful birth of the medium, and painful reading. In the personal account that follows, though, the author places the birth of TV at the 1948 political conventions and continues on through the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates, by which time television was as formidable a political force as either candidate. The long, arduous decade in between brought red-baiting, threats of government interference, and the 1959 quiz scandals, all seemingly quaint in the era of Jerry Springer and deregulation. But Mickelson makes it fresh, spinning it into a seamless narrative driven by a cast that even Network couldn't replicate, including the brash and ingenious neophyte Don Hewitt, who went on to create 60 Minutes. Cavalier star personality Edward R. Murrow, whose driving ambition was to redress wrongs and excoriate the rest of television programming for its decadence, escapism, and insulation, was alienated from the network for refusing to temper his progressive standpoint. (He and producer Fred Friendly presented the case that brought Senator Joseph McCarthy down.) Mickelson, who unjustifiably downplays his own role in the formation of broadcast news, offers up priceless anecdotes of a history he and his colleagues helped to shape, faltering only when he tries to articulate the magic of it all. As a bonus, he throws in the story of the fantastic, symbiotic relationship that turned Sunday afternoons into must-see-TV and the lackluster game of football into the close second as national pastime. No paean to CBS, this brings some sense to the creation of a monster and restores some noble prestige to a medium that has all but lost it. (Kirkus Reviews)

Libraries with active media collections and readers more interested in straight scoop than titillating gossip will want to consider this analysis from the first president of CBS News....Mickelson's narrative may be most valuable for discussing topics glitzier media surveys underplay, for example, technological developments that allowed TV news to define a role for itself different from both print and newsreels, the slow building of national networks (and national audiences)....Worthwhile. -Booklist He offers the reader an interesting, management-level account of numerous challenges faced, and decisions made, regarding prominent individuals, such as Edward R. Murrow, and the evolution of news programming. -Journal History This is an important book for its focus on the behind-the-scenes world of changing technology while a new journalism medium was being invented. Mickelson writes well and sheds considerable insight on events still helping to shape the current world of television news. -CBQ ?He offers the reader an interesting, management-level account of numerous challenges faced, and decisions made, regarding prominent individuals, such as Edward R. Murrow, and the evolution of news programming.?-Journal History ?This is an important book for its focus on the behind-the-scenes world of changing technology while a new journalism medium was being invented. Mickelson writes well and sheds considerable insight on events still helping to shape the current world of television news.?-CBQ ?Libraries with active media collections and readers more interested in straight scoop than titillating gossip will want to consider this analysis from the first president of CBS News....Mickelson's narrative may be most valuable for discussing topics glitzier media surveys underplay, for example, technological developments that allowed TV news to define a role for itself different from both print and newsreels, the slow building of national networks (and national audiences)....Worthwhile.?-Booklist

?Libraries with active media collections and readers more interested in straight scoop than titillating gossip will want to consider this analysis from the first president of CBS News....Mickelson's narrative may be most valuable for discussing topics glitzier media surveys underplay, for example, technological developments that allowed TV news to define a role for itself different from both print and newsreels, the slow building of national networks (and national audiences)....Worthwhile.?-Booklist

Libraries with active media collections and readers more interested in straight scoop than titillating gossip will want to consider this analysis from the first president of CBS News....Mickelson's narrative may be most valuable for discussing topics glitzier media surveys underplay, for example, technological developments that allowed TV news to define a role for itself different from both print and newsreels, the slow building of national networks (and national audiences)....Worthwhile. -Booklist He offers the reader an interesting, management-level account of numerous challenges faced, and decisions made, regarding prominent individuals, such as Edward R. Murrow, and the evolution of news programming. -Journal History This is an important book for its focus on the behind-the-scenes world of changing technology while a new journalism medium was being invented. Mickelson writes well and sheds considerable insight on events still helping to shape the current world of television news. -CBQ ?This is an important book for its focus on the behind-the-scenes world of changing technology while a new journalism medium was being invented. Mickelson writes well and sheds considerable insight on events still helping to shape the current world of television news.?-CBQ ?He offers the reader an interesting, management-level account of numerous challenges faced, and decisions made, regarding prominent individuals, such as Edward R. Murrow, and the evolution of news programming.?-Journal History ?Libraries with active media collections and readers more interested in straight scoop than titillating gossip will want to consider this analysis from the first president of CBS News....Mickelson's narrative may be most valuable for discussing topics glitzier media surveys underplay, for example, technological developments that allowed TV news to define a role for itself different from both print and newsreels, the slow building of national networks (and national audiences)....Worthwhile.?-Booklist

Author Information

SIG MICKELSON is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor of Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. He has served as Vice President of CBS, Inc., and was the first president of CBS News. He is the author of America's Other Voice (Praeger, 1983) and From Whistle Stop to Sound Bite (Praeger, 1989), and the editor of The First Amendment—The Challenge of New Technology (Praeger, 1989).

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