Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media

by Jeff Cohen, Jim Hightower (Foreword by)

Producer, pundit, and media critic Jeff Cohen offers a fast-paced romp through the three major cable news channels--Fox, CNN, and MSNBC--and delivers a serious message about their failure to cover the most urgent issues of the day.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Journalism, History

248 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Jeff B. Cohen is a journalist, media critic, professor, and the founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog group in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Co...

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, but nothing really new and slightly dated. I gave up on all TV news some time ago because of the inaccurate, incomplete, biased, and rating-seeking reporting everywhere. The only thing this book taught me is that I was too patient, and should have done it years ago.

[Todd Huish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never really thought about cable news that much. I don't watch a lot of TV in the first place so cable news has always seemed a poorer choice for news than what I find on the Internet or listening to NPR. What I didn't realize was just how skewed the three cable channels really are. Jeff Cohen tells his tale of three cable companies and his trials and tribulations at them all. An unabashed progressive (he eschews the word liberal) he rails against these companies for not providing any sort of balance to the reporting. The entire book is summed up as When the conservatives allow their extreme far right unfettered airtime why do the media companies think that it is best balanced by someone from the center? It is certainly not an unbiased look at the situation but it -is- refreshing to hear him at least acknowledge this fact so you know exactly where he is coming from. At the -very- least it's a good memoir of one mans struggles trying to fit into a world that didn't want him but instead merely tolerated him. At the best it's an incisive and chilling look into the way corporate media is run and it serves as a warning to us all to pay attention to what we're being fed by these companies.

[Devin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read the searing indictment of corporate cable news, my eyes never wavered off the page. Cohen is a captivating writer with a penchant for turning otherwise dry events into witty circumstances that need to be read. His coverage of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC was (to borrow the phrase of one cable news station) fair and balanced. That is, he threw the whole lot under the bus...for good reason. There were times that made me laugh and times that made my shake my head in disbelief, but all the while it was a tremendous expose of cable news by someone who truly knows what is occurring.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh....somewhat useful, but light on the real analysis. He descrbes his own experience in cable news well enough, but he doesn't really get into too much in terms of the intellectual sinew of what he is supporting.

[Chip · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Moderately interesting and more than moderately depressing. I'd some time ago realized most TV news (and frankly most news period) was lacking in depth and accuracy, but this book made me realize the situation is much worse than I'd thought.