How
to Watch TV News
by Neil Postman, Steve Powers
Reviews
Synopsis
A guide to watching television news discusses
the calculated programming, the viewer manipulation, and the big business
behind today's news networks and shows readers how to interpret what they
are hearing and seeing.
Synopsis
An important guide to understanding what
you're getting - and not getting - from TV news. Postman and Powers warn
that anyone who relies exclusively on TV for a knowledge of the world is
making a serious mistake and suggest ways to intelligently evaluate TV
news shows.
Customer Comments
A reader from Greenwich
Village, NYC, September 7, 1999
Very informative - and entertaining!
An informal and informative handbook that's
a fun read. Hey, nobody's perfect, but I'd like to think the ones who control
the news would try a little bit harder. The authors do a good job of explaining
why we shouldn't take TV news at face value.
A reader from Seattle, Washington,
July 2, 1999
How to watch TV News and be informed
at the same time.
An academic and a TV journalist combine
forces to take on the most powerful and pervasive force in our daily lives
and dissect its influence in a way no one's thought of before. Who'd think
that a society so bombarded with information would be the least informed
in the world? This book explains how - and why. And it's quite prescient,
having been written a few years ago, in showing how "news' and "entertainment"
combine to form something that tastes great but is less filling. It's worth
a read for anyone who suspects that "they" are not telling us what we need
to know or want to know - but what "they" decide" we should know. This
is the Rosetta Stone of the Infotainment Age.
A reader from Bridgeport,
CT, June 7, 1999
Deep.
The last thing I thought I'd ever need was
a book telling me how to "watch" TV news. Boy, was I wrong. The meaning,
the subtext, the background, and the message were all there in front of
me - it took a little guidance to "get it." Postman and Powers are two
righteous TV dudes who know how to peel the onion of telecommunications
and exposé the inner workings that, until now, sailed clear over
my head. I have to thank my J-School professor for being cool enough to
make it part of the required reading list. Rather, Brokaw and Jennings
- watch out! We know your secrets now! Five stars.
A reader from Los Angeles,
California, June 2, 1999
Brilliant! As invaluable a TV tool as
the remote!
This is a Fodor's Guide to the tube: perhaps
the first book since McLuhan's to truly cut through the static and reveal
exactly what the media are "really" selling us. I admit, I was initially
attracted by the cover, but once I started reading, found myself enthralled
by the analysis of what on the surface seems so clear - the many layers
of agenda that come between communicators and viewers. It was only upon
finishing the book that I realized I'd read an actual journalistic "textbook,"
though one that's so entertaining, it's tailor-made not only for the classes
- but for the masses! This is a reference book that should be in every
home - stacked alongside Maltin's Video Guide and the instructions to the
VCR. I've found myself reading it while watching the News at 10... then
hanging in til 11 for more, just to see what I'm really watching. Postman's
academic credentials and Powers's experience as a legendary TV newsman
add up to a literary anchor team that, on the screen, would bring us the
real story every night! With "How to Watch TV News," the Postman
rings with twice the Powers of any other guide to the hidden agendas of
a medium that infiltrates every living room in the nation.
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