If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy Of Television News [Hardcover]

Matthew Robert Kerbel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2000

You’ve been watching television news forever. You’re intimately familiar with the friendly faces and soothing voices that nightly tell you what’s wrong with the world. You think you know everything there is to know about them. You’re wrong.If It Bleeds, It Leads shows you why. In an unprecedented real-time look at television news shows, If It Bleeds, It Leads takes you minute-by-minute through two-and-one-half riveting hours of syndicated, local, and network information programming to uncover the truth behind what passes as news. Why is the only real difference between Jerry Springer and Dan Rather that Dan’s guests usually don’t need medical attention? How did a load of baking powder spark two minutes of high-strung local news coverage? It’s all here: the personal revelations of talk show guests; the dangers lurking in your neighborhood; sports; sex; celebrity; power; and weather updates every ten minutes -– all real material taken from real broadcasts combined into 150 minutes of the most electrifying newscast you’ve ever seen.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-From his first words, "WARNING: Everything you are about to read is true," readers know that they are in for a scathing look at television news. Kerbel deconstructs two-and-one-half hours of syndicated, local, and network information programming by analyzing an amalgam of news scripts from four of the largest U.S. media markets on a minute-by-minute basis. His tone is made clear in his Fundamental Rule of televison: "It is a pretend medium." Headlines for each news segment grab readers' attention. Kerbel gives readers a chance to put what they have read into practice by playing a game to create their own lead local story from a list of standard phrases. The author loves stock phrases, often referring to the "newswriter's bible, The Thesaurus of Clich‚s and Aphorisms." One of his favorites, "Please, use good judgment," allows weathercasters to make only slightly annoying weather conditions look dangerous, if not life threatening, to please their news directors and build their ratings. Kerbel drives home his points with a biting sense of humor. Students will look at the news with a new sophistication after reading this book.-Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Prince William, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Kerbel, a former news writer for television and radio, provides a frank and cynical look at how television news and talk shows are produced and presented. He examines the common elements of attention-grabbing promos, the sensual and violent content, and the hyperkinetic hosts, anchors, and subjects. Kerbel takes a real-time look at two and a half hours of syndicated talk and news programming, pointing out that the formulaic approach of most shows allows people, places, and events to be easily plugged in and substituted, with little local flavor or thoughtful analysis. Kerbel compares the techniques used by Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake with those of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and local anchors as television news adopts a format similar to that of the talk shows. Kerbel uses material from actual broadcasts of national and local news and syndicated talk shows and provides cogent analysis of why and how the shows rely on brevity, simplicity, and shock value to entertain and inform. Vanessa Bush

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 164 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1 edition (January 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813368367
• ISBN-13: 978-0813368368
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,911,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How true! If it bleeds it does lead., February 8, 2000

By 

Larry Teti (Haverford, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy Of Television News (Hardcover)

The night before I read this hilarious book the lead story on my local news was a "this just in" double murder with on the spot reactions that could have come right out of the book. The thesis of the book is that TV news, both local and network, is dominated by formulae almost identical to those that govern talk shows like Springer. Kerbel substantiates his thesis via a running, and very funny, commentary on real news broadcasts from around the country. He also shows how the actual content of the news - the fearful, the bizarre, the outrageous and, of course, sex - stays the same while the putative actual subjects change from day to day. Is this depressing? Beats me, I just watch for the weather and sports(and he has some funny things to say about that too). If you want a good send up of the media this is for you.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Leads to Brilliance, March 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy Of Television News (Hardcover)

Matthew Kerbal gets it right every step of the way. By merely stating the obvious Kerbal makes us all aware of the dementia running through telelvision's need to please and worse, to fill too much air time. Staying out of the way, Kerbal brilliantly illuminates the uselessnes of TV News and with a great sense of humor he brings out the stranger-than-fiction aspects of American society. Bravo. A truly excellent read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Critics reconsider..., June 30, 2002

By 

Michael A. Males (Oklahoma City, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy Of Television News (Hardcover)

I can't figure out what the critics hated about this book. Kerbel makes a fascinating connection between popular TV (talk shows) and the news and follows up with incisive, often hilarious line-by-line dissection of the formulaic venality of editorial decisions governing what we see on TV news. Perhaps it is Kerbel's implied message that we viewers, and our baffling craving to be scared and misled, are to blame for the grotesque caricature that news-at-5 and -11 has become. TV, and its interrelated fact and fiction programming, is nothing more than the sum of we the viewers' flawed values, and this is Kerbel's unsettling message behind the humor. Buy it.