News from Nowhere: Television and the News

by Edward Jay Epstein

In an age when the American public relies more on television for its news than any other medium, Edward Jay Epstein's detailed, probing analysis of the decision-making process in network news organizations has achieved the status of a classic. Mr. Epstein shows how internal corporate policy and budget requirements shape the direction of television news coverage. What we see on the network evening news, he demonstrates, does not mirror reality because TV's essential aim is not to inform but to excite viewers enough to induce them to "stay tuned." "The best book ever written about any aspect of television."―Richard Schickel. "The book is burnished with insights on virtually every page. Epstein's analysis seems to me incontestable, and is offered with great cogency, elegance, and sophistication."―Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University. "A complex, fascinating book....Mr. Epstein shows that no educated citizen should rely exclusively or principally on TV news, but also that none should fail to watch it."― Wall Street Journal .

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism

347 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Edward Jay Epstein (born 1935) was an American investigative journalist and a former political science professor at Harvard, UCLA, and MIT. While a graduate student at Cornell University in 1966, he published the book Inquest, an influential critique of the Warren Commission probe into the John F. Kennedy assassination. Epstein wrote two other books about the Kennedy assassination, eventually collected in The Assassination Chronicles: Inquest, Counterplot, and Legend (1992). His books Legend (1978) and Deception (1989) drew on interviews with retired CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Jesus Angleton, and his 1982 book The Rise and Fall of Diamonds was an expose of the diamond industry and its economic impact in southern Africa.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a bore because nothing much has changed in this area except the amount of money spent on the tv newscast. We are certainly better informed today and more timely. One thing that I thought was interesting was about how much the communications transfer over the phone lines cost. wow, now I do remember how we would be so careful to limit our talk when on a long distance call. There was some info about the FCC and its rules over the networks. This would have been so much more interesting if I had read it 30 years ago.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, exhaustive, scary, dull. It's all that and then some. We may not live in the world of the big three news stations, but how the news is made hasn't changed a bit. Most of his research comes from a year of observing the NBC newsroom up close but there's plenty of other statistics thrown in.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enough to be frightened.

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very academic and a bit hard to read, but that's expected since it was Epstein's Harvard thesis. Would definitely recommend to others curious about how television news works.