[.ca] News Flash: Journalism, Infotainment and the Bottom-Line ... (ISBN 0787972851)

exposed:
Finally---an insider with enough intestinal fortitude to call a sham a sham!!! One can just imagine the 6 o'clock news being primmed, powdered and perfumed with just enough tear (or smile) to make it palatibly entertaining. Ms. Anderson, with her years of experience and credibility, still believes that the American citizenry is due the news, the whole news, and nothing but the news. Reserve the spin and "holy cows" for the baseball commentators! If the media execs remain stoically entrenched in the annals of the entertainment world, then let them be reminded of the old radio classic, Dragnet, where the byline was...."the facts, Ma'am, just the facts".

The True Story:
Bonnie Anderson's book has brought to the light of day what I have felt has been a problem with the media for some time. Many of the newscasts are more concerned with form, not substance; how they look and not what they say. Her book is a very good read and pulls no punches in pointing out the way many in the media are more concerned with entertainment than hard news coverage. Her description of this type of coverage as "Infotainment" is right on point. News Flash brings to the reader another big problem influencing news coverage which is how mega mergers are affecting the coverage that is being presented to the viewing public. Unfortunately the impact is not good and these large conglomerates are proving the old adage "bigger is not always better" to be very true. From her experience at CNN as a reporter, managing director of a news division and Vice President of Recruitment and Training, Anderson offers the reader a unique perspective as to what goes on inside a large news organization. She provides an in depth look at what takes place behind closed doors when it comes to hiring, firing and staffing in today's media corporations and much of what she reveals should be quite disturbing to the viewing public. This book provides some very interesting statistics about the media and its management which I am sure most of us were never aware of. While Anderson points out numerous things that are wrong with today's TV media and its management, she also brings out the good that the true journalist can and should do. At the end of the book she offers her thoughts on what the media can do to provide the viewing public with quality news coverage. She should be commended for taking a stand and bringing to our attention the problems and proposing solutions to get TV journalism back to the quality we need and deserve. In light of Anderson's criticism of the TV networks and cable news channels, it will be interesting to see if any of the media will afford her the same opportunity to present her views as they did when Bernard Goldberg published his book on bias in the media. If they do not, shame on the media, again.

Read, because the suits at CNN don't want you to:
This is the definite cluetrain (doc searls et al)for broadcasTV news. Much the same way cluetrain sparked a marketing revolution, this does the same for broadcast journalism. I first meet the author when she was interning for Florida Today in Cocca Beach. Every point she makes in this book is vaild. The take on "fox fair and balanced" tells me she won't be on the O'Reilly factor anytime soon. I found only one sort of error. FYI> Matt Lauer does have a broadcast journalism background on the local level. He came out of the same environment that former NBC correspondent and current talk show host (WBUR Boston) Robin Young did, PM Magazine at WJAR TV 10 in Providence Rhode Island. That's the only small flaw I could find in the book. The suits at CNN don't want you to read the book. They are not happy campers and with good reason. The hollywood suits trashed the network big time, and with than came the opening for Fox news to fill. Rick Kaplan is currently doing the same thing for MSNBC that he did for CNN take it down the pike. It's a fast read but once you start you wont' want to stop.

Journalistic Integrity Revisited.:
News Flash appears as a rising meteor against a field of weakening stars. Ms. Anderson's book takes the reader through the shenanigans of the TV news broadcasters in their unadulterated striving for place and profits while leaving behind journalistic investigation and integrity. Her words turn out to be an exciting journey of personal experience and incisive exposure. As a long time news journalist Ms. Anderson sets a fair bar for news organization to reach. Her experiences and reporting often show just how good news organization can function. The same intimacy exposes the petty, inexcusable machinations of networks in journalistic decline. Ms. Anderson's news flashes exposes the perfidy of CNN's executive wing in its Tailwind scandal, the staging of news as presented by NBC's Dateline story on General Motors in 1992 and the apparent homophobia of Roger Mudd given his attitude toward AIDS victims. But indeed, Ms Anderson is not a muckraker. On the contrary, hers is to excite the industry to better, to reset the standard of TV journalism. She gives as examples her own series on drought and famine in Africa bringing a change in American policy on humanitarian aid, or of CNN's initiative in covering the return of twenty-four U.S. Navy spy plane crewmen held in China. While these could be considered scoops, her admiration for her industry is best held by her words on the, "spectacular breaking news coverage of the 9/11 attacks." Ms. Anderson words border on the requirement for broadcast journalism to return to its traditional values and to assure the public a clear and unbiased presentation of the news. Ms. Anderson carries the fight to those in the industry already sullying news broadcasts as entertainment and who have diluted their own professionalism for money, position, or simply hubris.

AUTHOR ANDERSON EXPOSES NETWORKS OF NON NEWS SLANTS:
I was sleepless in San Diego in an all night read absorbing author Anderson's expose of the news networks nefarious publishing practices - for profit. Case-hardened articulate Anderson exhibits professional journalistic integrity to spare in taking on the big guys. Read it and weap about the sad state of sellouts in the non news networks.