Prime Times, Bad Times [Paperback]

Ed Joyce (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Describing his near-30-year career, " in more detail than most readers will want," the former CBS News president writes also of the events and infighting that led to his 1986 dismissal. "A fascinating look at how news organizations work," commented PW , this memoir "will deservedly shake readers' faith in television journalism."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Joyce's insider book is a tale full of sound and fury told by no idiot. A career CBS man, news vice-president under Van Gordon Sauter, and president until forced to resign in 1985, Joyce has written a defensive, descriptive, dialogue-filled account of the dirty deeds done to him by the network. He depicts himself as a talented and misunderstood manager who did the best he could with budget and personnel in troubled times. Boyer, New York Times television critic and formerly a media critic for CBS News, describes Joyce as an inaccessible, aloof, and unpopular executive nicknamed the "Velvet Shiv." Of veteran newsman Charles Collingwood's funeral, Boyer writes, "The infidels, Joyce and Sauter, were inside the cathedral; corruption was complete, it could get no worse. But of course, it did." Other CBS insider books include Bill Leonard's In the Storm of the Eye ( LJ 5/15/87) and Peter McCabe's Bad News at Black Rock ( LJ 4/15/87). Robert Slater's This Is CBS ( LJ 6/15/87) is mostly narrative history. Joyce and Boyer cover the Westmoreland trial, William Paley, Sauter, the Cronkite-Rather feud, mass firings, the evening and morning news, Phyllis George, and takeover attempts; Boyer brings us to 1987 with Larry Tisch's successful takeover. The two approach CBS at different angles and levels of objectivity, but would probably concur that wounds inflicted are wide open. Jo Cates, Poynter Inst. for Media Studies Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; First Anchor Edition edition (February 27, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385261020
• ISBN-13: 978-0385261029
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,913,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insider's Subjective Account, June 29, 2003

By 

Dr. W. G. Covington, Jr. (Edinboro, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prime Times, Bad Times (Paperback)

It seems to be a common desire that once a person leaves a media organization, he or she wants to give a personal account of the "inside" view following the severing of the ties. That's the genre for this book. In February 1986 Joyce tendered his letter of resignation to Gene Jankowski. He begins his tale of the events leading up to that action by first describing the early years of the organization he left, CBS. "CBS News consistently measures itself by its past" he writes. He talks about the "glory days" of Edward R. Murrow and the "handful of young men" who created broadcast news from scratch, with no model to follow.
It is hard to comprehend how corporate decisions are made. Dan Rather inherited a prestigious news organization as far as ratings were concerned. While his performance has kept the network at or near the cellar the entire time he's been in the anchor slot, he seems arrogantly secure in his position. Joyce points out that both inside CBS and outside there was concern when Walter Cronkite announced he was stepping down, that Rather did not have the qualities necessary for the anchor slot. It was assumed Roger Mudd would be next in line to replace Cronkite. Subsequent ratings all these decades later showed Joyce's observation at the time was correct. Evidently the decision-makers at CBS have an agenda other than public preference.
There are other glimpses of the inner workings of CBS during the 1980s. For anyone still interested in CBS, perhaps better phrased, for anyone interested in corporate bureaucracy this book is full of examples of decisions that were not always the most logical.