The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections [Hardcover]

Martin Plissner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 1999

"Thirty-five years ago, sad to say, CBS, NBC, and ABC created the modern New Hampshire primary." So says The Control Room, a gritty look at how network news has come to dominate every stage of presidential selection from the earliest announcements to the final swearing in. As we embark on another of the quadrennial circuses that determine how the world's most powerful country passes its crown, The Control Room shows us who really cracks the whip.

Martin Plissner, former political director of CBS News, has played a central role in the network coverage of every presidential campaign since 1964. Now, drawing on his intimate knowledge of life inside the control room, he provides a lively and authoritative account of the ways television has come to dominate presidential politics in the final third of the twentieth century. Blending personal anecdotes with fascinating mini-histories, Plissner shows how all the elements of the contest for national power in America -- the primaries, the conventions, and the final counting of the ballots -- are shaped by the struggle among the networks for supremacy in viewership and breaking news on ever-dwindling budgets.

How did Ross Perot trounce both George Bush and Bill Clinton in primaries he never entered? And how did Pat Buchanan's far-right call to arms become the main event at the 1992 Republican National Convention? Why did the country expect a Carter-Reagan photo finish in 1980 and a Clinton landslide in 1996 -- neither of which happened? The answers to all of these questions begin in the network control rooms.

As the race for the White House heads toward a new century, Plissner reveals how television news coverage will decide who gets attention and when, who is on the rise and who is down the chute, when the race begins and when it ends, and what you care about when you vote for president. "The men and women who call the shots at the network news divisions do have an agenda," writes Plissner. Find out what it is in this fascinating insider's report.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Having worked at CBS News for three decades, most recently as executive political director, Martin Plissner has witnessed the behind-the-scenes decisions that determine how the networks cover presidential campaigns. In The Control Room, he suggests that presidential campaigns have, in response to that coverage, become one big staged (or, rather, televised) event in which candidates spend their days flying from place to place shaking hands, attending festivals, and giving speeches--all in the hope that it'll generate a broadcast-worthy image or sound bite.

Having so much control over what most Americans learn about presidential candidates makes TV powerful indeed, but Plissner dismisses the notion that producers and executives have a political agenda: "Their goals are for the most part the largest possible viewership at the lowest possible cost and the gratification that comes from scoring any kind of competitive edge over their television rivals." Exactly right--and increasingly corrosive to the political process. In 1952, when the first political convention was televised nationwide, the party's nominees were still chosen at the conventions; the 1976 conventions were the last at which there was even a hint of mystery over who the nominees would be. With the final selections now obvious months in advance, conventions have lost their news value and become political extravaganza shows. But in trying to tightly script their conventions for the television audience, political operatives have outsmarted themselves: the conventions have become so canned, so staged, and so devoid of any spontaneity that in 2000 it's possible the only live coverage will be of the nominees' acceptance speeches. According to Plissner, that might not be such a bad idea. --Linda Killian

From Publishers Weekly

Plissner, the former executive political director of CBS News, offers a spirited, if not entirely persuasive defense of how network news organizations cover presidential elections. Beginning in 1952, the first year that TV reporters roamed the floor at the Republican and Democratic conventions, Plissner traces the growing influence of the men in the network control rooms. Though he quickly dismisses the notion that TV producers and reporters form "a small and unelected elite," he acknowledges some of the dismaying byproducts of TV news coverage: feeding frenzies in New Hampshire and Iowa, nominating conventions with second-by-second scripts, obsessive polling to track the presidential "horse race." But these trends don't really seem to bother him, and he offers a weak defense of the tenor of campaign coverage: networks cover the horse race because it is "the only thing a good many viewers want to know in the first place." Plissner does better when he sticks to anecdotal evidence, as when he recounts the backstage maneuvering that led to Dan Rather's explosive 1988 interview with George Bush, in which Bush finally snapped: "How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?" At such points, the book is gripping. Ultimately, however, Plissner never goes beyond engaging eyewitness accounts to offer meaningful analysis of how the networks cover campaigns. He should have taken off the gloves and cast a more critical eye on his own profession.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1St Edition edition (May 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068482731X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684827315
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,945,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rare Insider's View, January 16, 2002

By 

William Hare (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections (Paperback)

Martin Plissner is a veteran CBS political journalist who joined the network just as it was wresting the number one spot away from NBC's Chet Huntley-David Brinkley team with the avuncular, everybody's neighbor, Walter Cronkite, whose familiar folksiness achieved great success.

Plissner talks about the atecedent event which, in additon to Cronkite's popularity, benefitted his network. It was CBS which, in 1962, initially forecast Richard M. Nixon's loss in the California governor's race against incument Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, beating Huntley and Brinkley to the punch.

The informative Plissner does not just write about CBS triumphs. He mentions that the cautionary approach in 1976 that enabled the network to correctly forecast a Jimmy Carter victory in the highly competitive 1976 Wisconsin Democratic Presidential Primary after NBC and ABC had jumped the gun and called the race for early frontrunner, Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona, worked against the network four years later election night with the Carter-Reagan race. Walter Cronkite, calling his last presidential election, bowed out on an embarrassing note. Not wanting to risk an early misfire, as occurred with its competitors in 1976, CBS withheld its call. It did not put its seal on Ronald Reagan's decisive victory over Jimmy Carter until the incumbent president, influenced by the other two network calls, had conceded defeat.

Plissner gives his own account of the rollicking Dan Rather live interview of George Bush during the 1988 primary campaign. Plissner finds it highly improbable that media claims of CBS planning to ambush Vice-President are valid. He maintains never having heard anything to this effect, leaving the impression that, had such a ploy been in the offing, he would have known. Plissner also notes that, given media concern about Bush's potential involvement in the Iran-Contra arms for hostages scandal, any responsible reporter would have questioned him in that area, as Rather did, arousing ire and prompting complaints on the Vice-President's part.

Another point Plissner covers is the successful safety ploy on the part of the major parties to lock up party presidential nominations as far in advance of the convention as possible. He notes the unfortunate consequences of the process, a crowded early primary season followed by dull conventions and ennui until the fall battle has hopefully awakened citizen interest.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting commentary of current political campaigning, November 19, 2000

By 

Tracy (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections (Hardcover)

Very adept account of how the medium of television can alter (and, sometimes even shape and define) the directions into which the various political candidates run their individual campaigns. Very interesting read. Very astute rundown of the intracasies, regarding the very unique partnership--between the individual campaigns and television--which has become the modern-day, run for the presidency (in America).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Details, Bland Writing, September 27, 2002

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections (Hardcover)

The author, an ex CBS political director, takes the reader through the evolution of how the networks cover the presidential election process from the primary process, the convention and to the final vote. He provides a book full of interesting details on how the process works and what got it there. There are also a number of insider stories on the interaction of the campaigns and the networks. The main focus of the book is to show how the campaigns are big-time shows that the networks run with and the candidates use the networks as much as the networks use the candidates. If you follow politics you already new this to be the case so from a stand point of the book breaking news it fell short.

For me the most interesting parts of the book were the details of how the networks show the conventions. The author details one story of how the Republicans dealt with providing Ford the time for a speech but doing it at a time they new the networks would be performing other on air duties thus ensuring that the viewing public never heard the speech. The book is full of stories along this line. Overall the book was interesting to a political junky, the writing was a bit bland therefore if you do not have a high level of interested you may find it difficult to keep reading.