Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

Finally---an insider with enough intestinal fortitude to call a sham a sham!!! One can just imagine the 6 o'clock news being primmed, powdered and perfumed with just enough tear (or smile) to make it palatibly entertaining. Ms. Anderson, with her years of experience and credibility, still believes that the American citizenry is due the news, the whole news, and nothing but the news. Reserve the spin and "holy cows" for the baseball commentators! If the media execs remain stoically entrenched in the annals of the entertainment world, then let them be reminded of the old radio classic, Dragnet, where the byline was...."the facts, Ma'am, just the facts".

Bonnie Anderson has been a journalist for 27 years, including ten years each with NBC and CNN. She starts this book with the story of working with the recently hired head of programming for CNN. He came from NBC Entertainment. One of his first questions to her was, "What's a journalist?" He then answered his own question by saying, "We need younger, more attractive anchors (male and female) who project credibility." Note project credibility, not have credibility. And this was at CNN.

She then contrasts the way Arnold Schwarzenegger played the media during his election with the way Ronald Regan was treated by the media in 1966 when he ran for Governor. The difference is the development of Infotainment. Both candidates knew how the media worked and played it well.

We are now in the midst of a presidental election. What has the television news media told us about either candidate. Not much. Yet from what we see on television we are supposed to make up our minds about our leaders.

Ms. Anderson lived throught the time when the changes from straight news to infotainment were being made. Hers is a story worth knowing.

Having noticed that our news shows have slipped from news reporting to entertainment stories, I've often wondered why. Anderson tells it to us straight. She explains the Networks' competition for profits and tricks they use to make what they have seem live and immediate. Anderson brings our attention to why we are fed endless commentary about Survivor or Jackson or Peterson. I've had enough. At last I understand. CNN and the other networks for that matter aren't honest and can't be trusted with the news if they trick us and turn the news into efforts to push their other programs. Ugh!

Anderson takes a huge risk with this book. She seems to be a pioneer in an effort to bring the truth back to news and stop the news media from eating away at the First Amendment. Truth brings its dangers and its hatred by the bosses. Her expose is going to make plenty of network media bosses angry. Lucky for us, we have people like Anderson in this world. I hope she is able to have an effect on the media bosses or we're in very deep trouble as a nation. A news media in the hands of a few and weak in terms of unslanted, full and honest news coverage is very dangerous for a democracy. This book is a must read, thoughtful and very scary.

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.

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.

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 media it seems, is becoming far more dangerous than the Government. Driven by greed and still blessed with the peoples trust, they hold tremendous power. Know one knows it or tells it better than Bonnie Anderson. With her lifelong experience and natural insticts she goes right to the heart of the issue and reveals all in a straight forward, no holds barred approach. We should all be thankful there are still real journalist out there willing to put their reputations on the line to keep us informed. Bravo Bonnie!

I was sleepless in San Diego in an all night read absorbing author Anderson's expose of the news networks nefarious publishing practices - for profit.

Case-hardened articulate Anderson exhibits professional journalistic integrity to spare in taking on the big guys.

Read it and weap about the sad state of sellouts in the non news networks.