Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant [Hardcover]

Carol Felsenthal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 1998

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Originally under contract to Viking, this searing biography of media titan Si Newhouse was canceled, claims Felsenthal Power, Privilege and the Post) in her introduction, by Penguin Putnam chief Phyllis Grann because a friend of Grann's appears on almost every page. To be sure, Felsenthal's work is filled with unflattering descriptions of the men and women found in the top circles of New York's magazine and book publishing scene. She begins, however, with a lengthy history of the media empire?Advance Communications?assembled by Newhouse's father, Sam, a self-made newspaper tycoon born on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The elder Newhouse added Conde Nast to his holdings in 1959; it was these magazines that drew the attention of the younger Newhouse, who, after Sam's death in 1979, left the running of the newspapers to his younger brother, Donald. As Felsenthal charts Newhouse's rising influence in the world of publishing, particularly through his acquisitions of Random House and the New Yorker?trophy companies, she says, meant to increase his prestige among the media elite?she denounces his business style, reporting that under Newhouse's ownership the quality of both the publishing house and the magazine declined dramatically, as did their profitability. It is Advance's newspaper and cable holdings, she contends, that prop up Newhouse's side of the business. Felsenthal misses little in documenting the many hirings and firings that have taken place under Newhouse. Publishing insiders won't learn much here (indeed, most of her financial reporting comes from the Wall Street Journal and other secondary sources), but other readers will find her narrative brimming with dishy suspense. Felsenthal leaves little doubt about what she thinks of Newhouse and his top aides: she calls Alberto Vitale "vile" and Newhouse himself "vacuous and self-indulgent," comparing him unfavorably to William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch. This undisguised contempt for her subject blunts what is otherwise an often penetrating look at the Machiavellian politics that lie just beneath the ultra-sleek facade of the Newhouse empire. Pictures not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The increasing conglomerate control of publishing and the media worries many critics. Felsenthal, whose most recent biography focused on the media empire of Katharine Graham (Power, Privilege and the Post, LJ 12/92), now turns her attention to S.I. Newhouse Jr. One of the richest men in America, Newhouse heads a family business that includes a string of newspapers, cable television companies, and the Conde Nast magazines. (He recently sold off Random House to the mighty German publisher Bertelsmann.) Newhouse guards his privacy closely, and this unauthorized biography struggles to reach beyond public information. While there are many details about hirings and firings at the magazines, including the recent changes at The New Yorker, there is little information is given about the impact of the Newhouse family on publishing and journalism. This second recent biography of Newhouse offers some material not found in Thomas Maier's Newhouse (LJ 10/1/94) and will appeal to readers interested in the inside scoop on the operations of the Conde Nast magazines.?Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press (December 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888363878
• ISBN-13: 978-1888363876
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.6 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,015,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest Reporting Never Goes Unpunished, April 12, 2000

By 

fredric alan maxwell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant (Hardcover)

Carol Felsenthal has made all the right moves in research, writing and having published the excellent biography CITIZEN NEWSHOUSE. She interviewed hundreds of people, came up with a strong story line and kept it up hundreds of pages later. Alas, this readable study of a publisher broke an unwritten rule in the business of publishing writers: don't write about us. When finished, Viking accepted her work then, violating its contract, said it wouldn't publish it because "people we know are on every page." It was left to Seven Stories to pick it up. While Ms. Felsenthal didn't have a fatwa issued against her, any freedom-respecting reader should buy a copy to support those who challenge the powers that be simply by writing the truth.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stranger than Fiction, April 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant (Hardcover)

An enormous undertaking, with awesome research, and a comfortable easy read doesn't improve either the personality of or the aura that has surrounded Si Newhouse since his college years. Ms. Felsenthal's portrayal of this self-concerned, thoughtless print media mogul is written with sharp, honest and precise clarity. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and this author has neatly recorded it all. The print fraternity will not like this one!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As If She were there, March 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant (Hardcover)

This lady has an astounding way of taking you to the moment! The research is awesome and the ability to create the incidents, characteristics, and responses is eerie! It WAS just as Ms. Felsenthal writes.....it was like re-reading a part of my past. This lady's talent is quite remarkable when one considers she's written a page-turner about a somewhat prickly, eccentric, even though very privileged guy!