Customer Reviews

Harry Reasoner: A Life in the News (Focus on American History Series)

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I remember watching 60 Minutes and other news shows when I was a kid and always perking up when Harry Reasoner came on. He was wry and warm, friendly and humorous, but always a newsman first and foremost. He's certainly worthy of a thorough biography, and I'm glad that someone as focused and astute as this writer rose to the occasion while there were still plenty of people alive who knew Reasoner well. I think Doug Daniel must have interviewed all of them, yet he managed to shape his voluminous research into a coherent story of a life purposefully but not perfectly lived. You'll find this book particularly fascinating if you're curious about the glory days of network news, an era fast disappearing in the digital age.

Daniel's book on Harry Reasoner works very well on two levels. It tells the story of a talented newsman who sometimes coasted on his skills and was almost destroyed by drinking.
And it tells the story of broadcast news in its glory days, including the formative days of "60 Minutes."

A terrific read.

I thought the author did a great job portraying Harry Reasoner in a way that anyone could appreciate. He provided an extremely objective and well-researched biography. Additionally, Douglass Daniel has a very fluid writing style that I enjoyed. A truly interesting read.

This energetic, entertaining biography serves as more than the life story of journalist Harry Reasoner. It can also be read as a social history of the heyday of network news, and the powerhouse that was CBS News in particular. A fascinating and well-crafted narrative of an imperfect man and his imperfect profession.

Television news matured in the Sixties, and the correspondent who made its prominence most appealing was Harry Reasoner. The golden age of tv news boasted a panoply of stars -- Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America; David Brinkley, of the sardonic wit; Howard K. Smith, the occasionally controversial commentator; and more. Of them all, Harry was the one who seemed most like a close friend, eager to share a story, and least like a college professor, ready to scold our ignorance. Daniel's book examines and animates this Harry, the man whose geniality was so compatible with broadcasting that you could feel its warmth a continent away in your living room. Daniel helps us understand Harry's gifts, his drive, his connections to the heart of America, his professional ethos and concerns about the practice of journalism. For anyone interested in tv news in particular or journalism at large, this bookHarry Reasoner: A Life in the News (Focus on American History Series,Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin) is a delight. Moreover, the author includes a great selection of b/w photos -- from Harry at age 1 to the end of his career.

Douglass K. Daniel deserves kudos for an in-depth, meticulous, but thoroughly engaging look at one of the pioneers in broadcast journalism. Harry Reasoner was a familiar figure to millions of TV viewers, and now his less-than-perfect personal life (which in no way diminishes his professional accomplishments, by the way) has also been chronicled. This book would be interesting and relevant for anyone interested in the history of broadcast journalism, including college students and professors.

A reader will find my name in the introduction and in the text of this book. I am proud to note for those who seek to acquire this book that the quality of Doug Daniel's enterprise in writing about Harry Reasoner matches the quality Harry demanded of himself and of others who dared to take pen, typewriter or computer in hand. This is a poignant, heart rendering at times, superbly written biography done by a true craftsman in the trade of journalism. Harry Reasoner would be proud to know the author.

Douglass K. Daniel is a known left-slanted Associated Press (AP) writer. In fact, it is difficult to find an AP writer who is not a left-winger. This book is also slanted way to the left.

If you enjoy reading paragraph after paragraph of baseless babling of left-slanted rhetoric (just like Daniel's AP stories), then this book is for you!