Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media

by Jeff Cohen and Jeff Cohen

Book Overview

Producer, pundit, and media critic Jeff Cohen offers a fast-paced romp through the three major cable news channels--Fox, CNN, and MSNBC--and delivers a serious message about their failure to cover the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 097606216X
• ISBN13: 9780976062165
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Polipoint Press
• Length: 221 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Begins to explain the horse race politics has become

Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) had some faith in the budding, at the time, cable news. It was, he felt, a phenomenon that could take the place of that joke which we colloquially refer to as TV news. He was surprised. As a little background, I won't allow television news on in my house. Long, long ago I was a television addict; that's what I used to keep myself occupied in my lonely days in high school. However, the summer before I was a senior in high school I was in a nearly fatal automobile accident which kept me in the hospital for some time. While there, I had little to do but watch television. Like a bad hangover can cure a potential drunk, being forced to watch the idiot box convinced me that the television is an idiot's medium. So I've sworn off it. In Cohen's case, he was an ACLU attorney. He was disillusioned with what he saw as a right-leaning medium. When "cable news" came about, CNN, the pioneer, offered him a job. Now, I don't want to go into details of Cohen's life then. Read the book if you want to find out about that. But he opened my eyes to a few things. First of all, while I've never been a CNN fan, it seemed better that Faux. ANYTHING is better than Faux, right? That's why I was surprised that Faux was not first on Cohen's list. But Cohen admits early in the book that Faux didn't start the rightward swing, but the pioneer, CNN did. Cohen pointed out that all his tenure at CNN consisted of was the shouting matches. It's drama so it sells... The 2nd section of the book is on Faux, for which Cohen worked for 5 years. (!) His witty descriptions of his time there include, of course, his run-ins with o'leilly. In fact, I appreciate his description of Billow, that o'leilly is a good debater, but ill-prepared, for example, and that o'leilly really does see himself as the little guy taking on the big, bad "liberal" monster. That o'leilly is grandly deluded is not a surprise to anyone, I suppose, but it's interesting to hear it from someone who worked so closely with him. Another interesting tidbit of Jeff's tenure with Faux is that he was to debate the Grande Dame of shock jocks, Ann Coulter, but, despite Jeff's extensive preparation for the experience, Coulter wouldn't appear with him! That demonstrates what I've always believed of Coulter, that she has no guts, just the right lines for the audience she knows all too well. Then onto MSNBC. Now, I'm an Olbermann fan. I don't watch him on the tube but I do tune into his web page frequently as I think he as something intelligent to say. (And I can tell he does as the "right" despises him!) So I was surprised to hear of their, for a start, gutlessness. Cohen took a job with them as he was happy that MSNBC was hiring Phil Donahue. Indeed, Cohen was Donahue's producer. But even those "liberals" who tuned into Donahue did so less. It seems MSNBC's management was telling Donahue that he's too far left, that your flag waving "silent majority" was, in the

Cohen explains my frustrations well

A big thanks to Jeff Cohen for confirming that I'm not crazy. He "found inside cable news was a drunken exuberance for sex, crime and celebrity stories, matched by a grim timidity and fear of offending the powers-that-be -- especially if the powers-that-be are conservatives. The biggest fear is of doing anything that could get you, or your network, accused of being liberal." If you keep in mind, it's not news (never was), then it makes it easier to swallow. After reading Cohen's account, you realize that Walter Conkrite would never get hired today in the face of fools like Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity, and Biff O'Really.

Review: Cable News Confidenial

An excellent insight into the inner workings of cable news. I had no prior understanding of the increadable bias that exists on cable TV news. I highly recomment this book!!!!

A must read!

For anyone who watches cable news, Jeff Cohen's book is essential reading. He reveals how much corporations that own news outlets shamelessly distort the news. I hold this up there with Howard Kurtz's 2000 book "The Fortune Tellers." Cable news has harmed the world, and reading these books will show you one of many ways they do so.

Cohen's Book Offers Rare Insider Insight on Cable News

Jeff Cohen's new book Cable News Confidential offers readers a rare behind the scenes look at the 24 hour cable news world. Cohen describes his experiences at CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. He offers many personal stories, which were always engaging and often quite humorous. They painted a clear picture of how conservatives control and frame the news we see on cable. While I have read many other books on this subject, I have never seen a book that offers as many crisp, clear examples of the way today's cable news industry operates. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the news media, politics, or the future of our country.