News Flash: Journalism, Infotainment and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News

by Bonnie M. Anderson

Book Overview

While talking heads debate the media's alleged conservative or liberal bias, award-winning journalist Bonnie Anderson knows that the problem with television news isn't about the Left versus the Right-- it's all about the money. From illegal hiring practices to ethnocentric coverage to political cheerleading, News Flash exposes how American broadcast conglomerates' pursuit of the almighty dollar consistently trumps the need for fair and objective reporting...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787972851
• ISBN13: 9780787972851
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Chomsky was right, and Anderson has the proof.

From her insiders view of the whole industry, Bonnie Anderson delivers a searing indictment of our corrupt, sensationalistic television news. She lays out fact by fact, and name by name, just how, why, and most importantly who is to blame for this once esteemed institution's downward slide into the very muck it used to deplore. For years, Noam Chomsky's theories about the corruption of the news media have grown less alarmist and eerily more prescient as the infotainment age reaches its belligerent maturity. But while Chomsky was lecturing about it, Ms. Anderson was out in the field living it. She recounts, with a journalist's eye for detail, all that went astray within our large media conglomerates. The cast of characters are all to familiar, Browkaw, Jennings, Schwarzenegger, Striesand, O.J., Clinton, Leo, Lewinsky, and Lettermen, as Ms. Anderson makes a compelling case for the media's distortion from a revered source of accurate information to an increasingly grotesque and obvious fountain of entertainment. "If it bleeds it leads" is the mantra of newsrooms of our day, and may truth and rational perspective be damned. Everything of value is jettisoned in light of shocking and sensational video footage about any subject, no matter how irrelevant and trivial. No one will hear about the latest civil war in Africa when every second of news time is dedicated to footage of a shark attack in Florida, human interest stories, a surfing cat, or another excessive Hollywood wedding.

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.

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.

HEAR THE WHISTLE BLOW- INFOTAINMENT FOR PROFIT EXPOSED

Recent reports that CNN is engaging it's battery of lawyers to put the kibosh on Bonnie Anderson's NEWS FLASH prompted me to take a read.Author Anderson even handedly exposes CNN's calculating prejudice for profit, Fox's funnies and MS-NBC's news negligence. She leaves no maleficent media stone unturned. This veteran Journalist tears down the infotainment news wall and lifts the lid on how the networks spoon feed the prurient appetite of the public for rating and the bottom line. Anderson's News Flash shines a laser light on the nefarious networks. It's a tutorial that teaches us how to read between the non news media lines.

Brilliant Account of Journalism Today

I have been so frustrated with what's shown on the news these days. It's biased, boring and simply doesn't give a clear picture of what is happening in the world. As an example, I have no idea how Iraqi people truly feel about the war, their exiled leader, their new government and the United States. No news organization has conducted any in depth investigation, interviewed civilians, and exposed the good as well as the bad in the lives of the people living in the area.Ms. Anderson's book tells us why we don't have the full story in a way no other can, because she has lived and breathed journalism for over 25 year. I was amazed to read her stories about Ethiopia and about trying to hire news anchors for CNN. I was appalled at the focus on the bottom line versus providing ethical, unbiased accounts of what is happening in the world today.Read the book. It's riveting and honest, and it presents a point of view that you may not agree with, but will certainly think about.