That's the Way It Is

That's the Way It Is

Author: Charles L. Ponce de Leon

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-09-09

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 022642152X

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Ever since Newton Minow taught us sophisticates to bemoan the descent of television into a vast wasteland, the dyspeptic chorus of jeremiahs who insist that television news in particular has gone from gold to dross gets noisier and noisier. Charles Ponce de Leon says here, in effect, that this is misleading, if not simply fatuous. He argues in this well-paced, lively, readable book that TV news has changed in response to broader changes in the TV industry and American culture. It is pointless to bewail its decline. "That s the Way It Is "gives us the very first history of American television news, spanning more than six decades, from Camel News Caravan to Countdown with Keith Oberman and The Daily Show. Starting in the latter 1940s, television news featured a succession of broadcasters who became household names, even presences: Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Peter Jennings, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and, with cable expansion, people like Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, and Bill O Reilly. But behind the scenes, the parallel story is just as interesting, involving executives, producers, and journalists who were responsible for the field s most important innovations. Included with mainstream network news programs is an engaging treatment of news magazines like "60 Minutes" and "20/20, " as well as morning news shows like "Today" and "Good Morning America." Ponce de Leon gives ample attention to the establishment of cable networks (CNN, and the later competitors, Fox News and MSNBC), mixing in colorful anecdotes about the likes of Roger Ailes and Roone Arledge. Frothy features and other kinds of entertainment have been part and parcel of TV news from the start; viewer preferences have always played a role in the evolution of programming, although the disintegration of a national culture since the 1970s means that most of us no longer follow the news as a civic obligation. Throughout, Ponce de Leon places his history in a broader cultural context, emphasizing tensions between the public service mission of TV news and the quest for profitability and broad appeal."


TV (The Book)

TV (The Book)

Author: Alan Sepinwall

Publisher: Hachette+ORM

Published: 2016-06-28

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1455588202

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Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible? For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down to this: What's the greatest TV show ever? That debate reaches an epic conclusion in TV (THE BOOK). Sepinwall and Seitz have identified and ranked the 100 greatest scripted shows in American TV history. Using a complex, obsessively all-encompassing scoring system, they've created a Pantheon of top TV shows, each accompanied by essays delving into what made these shows great. From vintage classics like The Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy to modern masterpieces like Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, from huge hits like All in the Family and ER to short-lived favorites like Firefly and Freaks and Geeks, TV (THE BOOK) will bring the triumphs of the small screen together in one amazing compendium. Sepinwall and Seitz's argument has ended. Now it's time for yours to begin!


Fall and Rise

Fall and Rise

Author: Mitchell Zuckoff

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 0062275666

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“Better and more comprehensive than any prior account. . . . Those of us who lived through those days will find the book cathartic; those rising generations who were too young to remember 9/11, or who weren’t yet born, will find it revelatory.” — John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission and author of The Ground Truth “With his rigorous research and moral clarity, Mitchell Zuckoff has provided us with an invaluable service. He has deepened our understanding of what happened on 9/11 and recorded the voices of the victims and the survivors. What’s more, he has ensured that we never forget.” —David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon Years in the making, this spellbinding, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting narrative is an unforgettable portrait of 9/11. This is a 9/11 book like no other. Masterfully weaving together multiple strands of the events in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Fall and Rise is a mesmerizing, minute-by-minute account of that terrible day. In the days and months after 9/11, Mitchell Zuckoff, then a reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote about the attacks, the victims, and their families. After further years of meticulous reporting, Zuckoff has filled Fall and Rise with voices of the lost and the saved. The result is an utterly gripping book, filled with intimate stories of people most affected by the events of that sunny Tuesday in September: an out-of-work actor stuck in an elevator in the North Tower of the World Trade Center; the heroes aboard Flight 93 deciding to take action; a veteran trapped in the inferno in the Pentagon; the fire chief among the first on the scene in sleepy Shanksville; a team of firefighters racing to save an injured woman and themselves; and the men, women, and children flying across country to see loved ones or for work who suddenly faced terrorists bent on murder. Fall and Rise will open new avenues of understanding for everyone who thinks they know the story of 9/11, bringing to life—and in some cases, bringing back to life—the extraordinary ordinary people who experienced the worst day in modern American history. Destined to be a classic, Fall and Rise will move, shock, inspire, and fill hearts with love and admiration for the human spirit as it triumphs in the face of horrifying events.


ABC Family to Freeform TV

ABC Family to Freeform TV

Author: Emily L. Newman

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2018-03-02

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1476667357

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Launched in 1977 by the Christian Broadcasting Service (originally associated with Pat Robertson), the ABC Family/Freeform network has gone through a number of changes in name and ownership. Over the past decade, the network--now owned by Disney--has redefined "family programming" for its targeted 14- to 34-year-old demographic, addressing topics like lesbian and gay parenting, postfeminism and changing perceptions of women, the issue of race in the U.S., and the status of disability in American culture. This collection of new essays examines the network from a variety of perspectives, with a focus on inclusive programming that has created a space for underrepresented communities like transgender youth, overweight teens, and the deaf.


The Platinum Age of Television

The Platinum Age of Television

Author: David Bianculli

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 1101911328

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Television today is better than ever. From The Sopranos to Breaking Bad, Sex and the City to Girls, and Modern Family to Louie, never has so much quality programming dominated our screens. Exploring how we got here, acclaimed TV critic David Bianculli traces the evolution of the classic TV genres, among them the sitcom, the crime show, the miniseries, the soap opera, the Western, the animated series, the medical drama, and the variety show. In each genre he selects five key examples of the form to illustrate its continuities and its dramatic departures. Drawing on exclusive and in-depth interviews with many of the most famed auteurs in television history, Bianculli shows how the medium has evolved into the premier form of visual narrative art. Includes interviews with: MEL BROOKS, MATT GROENING, DAVID CHASE, KEVIN SPACEY, AMY SCHUMER, VINCE GILLIGAN, AARON SORKIN, MATTHEW WEINER, JUDD APATOW, LOUIS C.K., DAVID MILCH, DAVID E. KELLEY, JAMES L. BROOKS, LARRY DAVID, KEN BURNS, LARRY WILMORE, AND MANY, MANY MORE


Keepers of the Flame

Keepers of the Flame

Author: Travis Vogan

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2014-03-15

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0252096274

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NFL Films changed the way Americans view football. Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media traces the subsidiary's development from a small independent film production company to the marketing machine that Sports Illustrated named "perhaps the most effective propaganda organ in the history of corporate America." Drawing on research at the NFL Films Archive and the Pro Football Hall of Fame and interviews with media pioneer Steve Sabol and others, Travis Vogan shows how NFL Films has constructed a consistent, romanticized, and remarkably visible mythology for the National Football League. The company packages football as a visceral and dramatic sequence of violent, beautiful, graceful, and heroic gridiron battles. Historically proven formulas for presentation--such as the dramatic voiceovers once provided by John Facenda's baritone, the soaring scores of Sam Spence's rousing background music, and the epic poetry found in Steve Sabol's scripts--are still used today. From the Vincent Price-narrated Strange but True Football Stories to the currently running series Hard Knocks, NFL Films distinguishes the NFL from other sports organizations and from other media and entertainment. Vogan tells the larger story of the company's relationship with and vast influence on our culture's representations of sport, the expansion of sports television beyond live game broadcasts, and the emergence of cable television and Internet sports media. Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media presents sports media as an integral facet of American popular culture and NFL Films as key to the transformation of professional football into the national obsession commonly known as America's Game.


Who Needs the ABC?

Who Needs the ABC?

Author: Matthew Ricketson

Publisher:

Published: 2022-02

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781922310927

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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is under an existential threat, especially from the conservative federal government, even though it is the best-trusted news organisation in Australia, and plays a vital role in Australian life. For years, the ABC's funding has been slashed, forcing it to let go journalists with decades of experience in asking hard questions about anyone and everyone, including government. It has been besieged by written complaints from ministers, hectoring by prime ministers, and intense pressure on its most senior executives. Its board has been stacked with a succession of political appointees. It has been relentlessly, often baselessly, attacked by the Murdoch media. Apart from the external attacks, the ABC has also inflicted damage on itself. It has not only shed staff but has cut important programs; contentious enterprises have been dropped and replaced by benign, inoffensive ones. It is not surprising that staff morale at the ABC has sunk in recent years. This book details how the travails of the ABC in this period fit into a global debate about the role of public broadcasting in the modern era. Who Needs the ABC? also takes seriously the arguments made for the ABC's break-up and privatisation, and offers a rejoinder to those calls. It doesn't shy away from the failings that have led to the ABC's current parlous position, but it identifies the vital role that it plays in Australian cultural and democratic life, and argues for a continuation of that role -- and shows how it can be done.


Tube of Plenty

Tube of Plenty

Author: Erik Barnouw

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1990-05-31

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13: 019977059X

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Based on the classic History of Broadcasting in the United States, Tube of Plenty represents the fruit of several decades' labor. When Erik Barnouw--premier chronicler of American broadcasting and a participant in the industry for fifty years--first undertook the project of recording its history, many viewed it as a light-weight literary task concerned mainly with "entertainment" trivia. Indeed, trivia such as that found in quiz programs do appear in the book, but Barnouw views them as part of a complex social tapestry that increasingly defines our era. To understand our century, we must fully comprehend the evolution of television and its newest extraordinary offshoots. With this fact in mind, Barnouw's new edition of Tube of Plenty explores the development and impact of the latest dramatic phases of the communications revolution. Since the first publication of this invaluable history of television and how it has shaped, and been shaped by, American culture and society, many significant changes have occurred. Assessing the importance of these developments in a new chapter, Barnouw specifically covers the decline of the three major networks, the expansion of cable and satellite television and film channels such as HBO (Home Box Office), the success of channels catering to special audiences such as ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) and MTV (Music Television), and the arrival of VCRs in America's living rooms. He also includes an appendix entitled "questions for a new millennium," which will challenge readers not only to examine the shape of television today, but also to envision its future.


The Returned

The Returned

Author: Jason Mott

Publisher: Harlequin

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1460330080

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The National Book Award–winning author of Hell of a Book shares “a breathtaking novel that navigates emotional minefields with realism and grace” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Harold and Lucille Hargrave’s eight-year-old son, Jacob, died tragically in 1966. In their old age they’ve settled comfortably into life without him. . . . Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, still eight years old. All over the world people’s loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why, whether it’s a miracle or a sign of the end. But as chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality. With spare, elegant prose and searing emotional depth, award-winning poet Jason Mott explores timeless questions of faith and morality, love and responsibility. This acclaimed debut novel marked Mott’s arrival as an important new voice in contemporary fiction.