The Media Show: The Changing Face of the News, 1985-1990

by Edwin Diamond

The Media Show is a lively analysis of one of the underreported major stories of our time: the growing power and influence of the media. In these essays and reports critic Edwin Diamond takes a hard look at the methods of the American media during a period of heightened competition and increased conglomeration, focusing on the way news stories are shaped, and sometimes distorted.Diamond first considers some of the consequences of the new order created by richer technologies and lowered aspirations. He explores the mixed results of this new system, including marked changes in American broadcasting as the networks downsize their expenditures to news and public affairs coverage. There is, he notes, often a serious conflict within networks between the public good and the bottom line, a conflict that the news media generally chooses not to examine.Diamond then scrutinizes the role of style and personality on television. Next he turns to specific examples of television coverage of the defining topics of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the arrival of cable technology and CNN, which changed the way wars and crises are covered; how some members of the media practiced "unsafe journalism" in their reports on AIDS; the role the media assumed as the "moral police" in recent election campaigns; the way race and class influenced crime stories such as the Tawana Brawley and the Central Park jogger cases; how the media has often seemed "married to the mob" in its reporting about reputed godfather John Gotti; and the changes in White House press coverage as Ronald Reagan was succeeded by George Bush. Diamond concludes by proposing several ideas for creating new media structures.Edwin Diamond is Professor of Journalism at New York University, where he directs the News Study Group, and he is media columnist for New York magazine. His previous books include Good News, Bad News, Sign Off. The Last Days of Television, and The Spot: The Rise of Political Advertising on Television.

244 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 1991

About the author

Edwin Diamond was born in Chicago and was a reporter, writer and senior editor at Newsweek from 1958 to 1970, where he covered the space program. He later worked at The New York Daily News, Adweek magazine, New York magazine, The Washington Journalism Review and in television in Washington.

Among his professional awards was the Page One Award, which he received from the Newspaper Guilds of Chicago, Washington and New York.

Diamond received bachelor's and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago. He wrote 11 books, including The Rise and Fall of the Space Age (Doubleday, 1964), The Spot The Rise of Political Advertising on Television (M.I.T. Press, 1984), and Behind The Times Inside the New New York Times (Villard Books, 1993). His articles appeared in many publications, including Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and The Nation.

Diamond was also a professor at the Department of Journalism at New York University from 1984 to 1997. He was a fellow, lecturer and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1970 until 1985, where he was also head of the news study group and a frequent contributor to The New York Times.

Edwin Diamond, PhB'47, AM'49, a journalist, author, and NYU professor, died due to heart failure on July 10, 1997 at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 72. After starting his career as a science writer with the International News Service in Chicago, he joined Newsweek in 1957, becoming a senior editor in 1962. He was an on-air commentator for the Washington Post Co., editorial director of Adweek, and cofounder of the Washington Journalism Review. A WWII veteran and a Korean War Army intelligence officer, Diamond received both a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. An associate editor of the New York Daily News in the early 1980s, and a media columnist for New York magazine for 10 years, Diamond was a visiting professor of political science at MIT before joining NYU's faculty in 1984. He wrote a dozen books and won numerous awards for writing, editing, and classroom teaching, as well as a 1994 Professional Achievement Award from the U of C's Alumni Association. He is survived by his wife, Adelina Lust Diamond, AB'47; three daughters, including Ellen Diamond Waldman, AB'73; a sister, Natalie Diamond Peiser, AB'50; and six grandchildren.