The Control Room

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Plissner, the former executive political director of CBS News, offers a spirited, if not entirely persuasive defense of how network news organizations cover presidential elections. Beginning in 1952, the first year that TV reporters roamed the floor at the Republican and Democratic conventions, Plissner traces the growing influence of the men in the network control rooms. Though he quickly dismisses the notion that TV producers and reporters form "a small and unelected elite," he acknowledges some of the dismaying byproducts of TV news coverage: feeding frenzies in New Hampshire and Iowa, nominating conventions with second-by-second scripts, obsessive polling to track the presidential "horse race." But these trends don't really seem to bother him, and he offers a weak defense of the tenor of campaign coverage: networks cover the horse race because it is "the only thing a good many viewers want to know in the first place." Plissner does better when he sticks to anecdotal evidence, as when he recounts the backstage maneuvering that led to Dan Rather's explosive 1988 interview with George Bush, in which Bush finally snapped: "How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?" At such points, the book is gripping. Ultimately, however, Plissner never goes beyond engaging eyewitness accounts to offer meaningful analysis of how the networks cover campaigns. He should have taken off the gloves and cast a more critical eye on his own profession. (May)

Library Journal

Plissner, the recently retired political director of CBS News, examines the role of television networks in transforming presidential elections. He argues that, given the pursuit of ratings (and the financial rewards that follow), campaigns have become almost exclusively creations of and responses to the demands of the networks. Lacing his narrative with inside stories and personal anecdotes, Plissner disputes theories of political bias in the news, arguing instead that while the "men and women who call the shots at the network news divisions do have an agenda," it is not to propagandize in favor of one party but to attract "the largest possible viewership at the lowest possible cost." On the proper relationship of the press to politics, Plissner says, "Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good." Admirable words but difficult to achieve--especially given the high stakes of the television ratings game. An elegant, persuasive book.--Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles

Kirkus Reviews

A CBS veteran's look at television coverage of presidential elections is more entertaining than reflective. As executive political director of CBS News, Plissner (now retired) was in a very good position to observe the impact of television on politics. While he concedes that impact has been major—no surprise there—he argues that those on the political left and right "who worry about this worry too much." Employing his insider's perspective to unveil the factors that determined what went on the air, Plissner offers a pastiche of media history, first-person accounts, and second-hand reporting very much in the television tradition of "just the highlights, please." Nevertheless, these snippets are revealing as well as amusing, effectively portraying television's coverage over the years of party conventions, the election-night race to call the winner, election-year polling, presidential debates, and the nightly news. The competition among networks is always at the forefront, with only the financial bean-counters reining in efforts to score journalistic coups and come out on top in the ratings. We also see a progression in the relationship between the media and politicians. Party conventions, for example, initially involved gavel-to-gavel coverage, which produced conventions increasingly managed for television consumption, which resulted in boring conventions that receive decreased coverage because there is no news. This example suggests a problem with Plissner's belief that we need not worry about the medium's impact on politics. Even granting his contention that television's election-coverage agenda is commercial rather than political, the reader may still wonder why the authorbelieves media bias is therefore benign. Indeed, the idea that television's power is wielded without regard to its considerable political impact is most discomfiting; more introspection on this thorny subject would have been comforting. Not a book to pick up for insightful analysis, but the stories will amuse most readers.

From the Publisher

Mark Shields (PBS) Somewhere there may be somebody who knows more about national politics than Marty Plissner does. And there may also be somebody who knows more about television than does Marty Plissner. But you can be sure there is nobody anywhere who knows more about both American politics and television than Marty Plissner -- and nobody writes more knowledgeably and insightfully about the stormy shotgun marriage of American television and American politics than Marty Plissner.