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"The book is a blow-by-blow account of the steady 'dumbing down' of
programs and news over the years and few of Schechter's former
employers--or celebrity jounalists--escape unscathed...The book's strength
lies in the detail and immediacy of Schechter's experience in the major
media, his fight to insert serious and historical content into the public
domain and alarm at what its absence means to the future of democracy." --Ben Bagdikian, Lead Review, SUNDAY EXAMINER & CHRONICLE, San Francisco
"It's a personal memoir of 30 years of fighting the bigwigs in the news
business, recounting hilarious and revealing stories about life inside CNN
and ABC. It offers a powerful critique of the news business today and
strategies for creating a more democratic journalism...Danny Schechter, it
seems never sleeps, for which he deserves our thanks."
"...witty and engrossing...Schechter is particularly persuasive in arguing that more news coverage is not necessarily better
news coverage. More than anything, he suggests that the cherished ideal of journalism,
objectivity, is too often a shibboleth that many of the best and brightest substitute for thought."
"Thought provoking...shot through with spiky opinions and flashes of
insights. Simply put, Schechter is exasperated. He's convinced that
concentration of ownership puts decision-making in too few hands and that
the context needed to understand complex events is being increasingly
stripped away by sensational infotainment disguised as public affairs...The
result is the 'OJ-ization of TV.'"
"The More You
Watch, The Less You Know
makes clear that
television's world view is severely
cramped by over-riding corporate greed,
journalistic self-censorship and a series
of simple-minded beliefs such as
'presenting both sides' - as though
there were two starkly opposing sides to
every issue and a genuinely 'objective'
middle. (What, for example, is the 'other
side' or the objective view of torture?)...
His book is rich
in historic anecdote, snappy phrase-making
and blood-chilling facts: He reminds us,
for example, that only about 10 huge
conglomerates now dominate all U.S. media
and, as one CNN reporter told him, 'If it
doesn't meet commercial criteria, it
doesn't get aired.'"
Schechter's outsider sensibilities and his insider experiences combine to
give his experiences and insights special force...what's striking about
'The More You Watch, The Less You Know' is that it ends not with despair
but with buoyancy...A reforner to the end, Schechter is full of ideas for
change."
"His book about the industry is also the story of his life, and like his
pursuit of the truth, bars no holds. No one is better prepared to pull the
wool from our eyes, no insider safely cocooned in a corporate job, would
get us to wake up and see what we are doing to ourselves by forgetting what
we are supposed to know, what we are supposed to be seeing. Danny eloquently
protests the dumbing down of America in the race for ratings. As he says,
he became a journalist because he thought reporters were the watchdogs of
the government. Today, he says -- and proves-- that they are lapdogs."
If you really want to know what's wrong with with television news...The
More You Watch, The Less You Know is the perfect textbook
conpanion....Schechter's book is a mixture of memoir and thoroughly-
researched industry expose and he's been at the right place at the right
time....Schechter's book is a suprising reminder of how good television
can, or could actually be."
"Schechter's feisty new book is not an attempt to compensate for daily
conformity. Instead, it's an extension of gutsy endeavours that have
typified his work as a media insider and outsider."
The book weaves between meaty stretches of autobiography and a more
detached big-picture scenario in which he intelligently enumerates how
business interests rule the whole process of reporting news."
"The More You Watch, The Less You Know" is a great job, and I thought the
South African section especially good. I hope the book is widely known and
read."
A sulphuric whiff of Chomskyite conspiracy theory blasts from these pages
but ABC reporter and documentary film maker Schechter is clearly on the
side of the angels. He mixes analysis with anecdotes from his illustious
career in the news media.....
"The feedback has been unanimous: everyone got a lot out of and enjoyed the
(Columbia Journalism Reviw) 'State of the Press Forum,' My deep thanks for
adding so substantivly and with such great wit to the discussion... A great
deal of the credit for the sucess of "Confronting the Crisis" goes to you,
and I am indeed grateful."
"The book is a rare inside report by one of the players who helped shape
the history of American television....Selcom have the inner workings of
commercial television with its immense Washington lobby and its collusion
with regulatory agencies been so ruthlessly exposed> Schechter's keenly
etched portrait of Turner and Murdoch and his analysis of their phony "war"
would alone make the book worth reading. "
"Skip television for a few days and read Danny Schechter's brilliant, funny,
insightful and outrageously intelligent insider's story of his life in the
medium. This delicious book will wake you up from the hypnotic spell the
media controllers, with a combination of narrow vision and electronic
manipulation, have cast on the nation. A collection of stories that a
wroiter of good fiction would envy, the book is a news-analysis-entertainment better than anything on the tube. Catch some of
Danny Schechter's fire, imagination and chutzpah and rediscover how a good
read can be infinitely more enjoyable than the evening news."
"The book is both a dissection of the failures of the modern news media and
an instructive memoir of a life in the field...despite his scathing
critique of current trends, he still sees the potential of the media to
improve our world. "
"An intelligent and saddening yet humorous depiction of the inner workings
of giant media groups and behind the scenes forces that often mold public
reaction to world events....particularly thought provoking. "
"Danny Schechter traces the trend of 'saturation covereage' to the Gulf
War in his new book, The More You Watch, The Less You Know."
"Informative and sometimes hilarious...This is a sophisticated, irreverent
look at television that will make readers wince--and cry."
"Hearing what you had to say was most informative and entertaining and I'm
sure many of our listeners will be heading to the store to find your book,"
"Danny Schechter, a kind of journalist without borders, has shaken up public
broadcasting, among many other media institutions, in the course of his
career as a self-styled 'news dissector' and human rights advocate....This
is a cautionary tale as much for those who believe in grand conspiracies as
for those who refuse to belive that owners mess with the news. It's a
terrific testament to the limits of commercial media."
"Schechter knows whereof he writes...written with a sparkling sesne of wit,
this book is a fabulous read no matter what your opinion about television
news."
"Schechter combines scholarly chops--a Nieman Fellow at harvard, London
School of Economics grad--with street smarts--he was a Saul Alinsky style
organizer for a war on poverty program with an instinct to stir things up.
He has created a book that is as entertaining as it is informative."
"Like Tolkien's dragon-slaying Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, Schechter has found
the soft underbelly of the wealth encrusted media monopoly and he tells us
where to aim our arrows so that we may bring down the beast...For an
insider's look at the modern media beast, The More You Watch is hard to
beat."
"Schechter does an exceptional job in the end of unmasking the media
puppeteers. He provides a clear explanation of the media merger mania...you
have to admire the guy. In the face of media power and greed, the needling
accomplished by the few Danny Schechters stil aloft may be all that's
keeping us zombielike viewers connected to anything that remotely resembles
reality."
"The More You Watch, The Less You Know is loaded with fascinating and
globally importtant news stories that were withheld from public consumption
for any number of shameful reasons....Schechter's information is sugar for
any greedy news junkie."
"Schechter's travails as a 'media mole' at various networks punctuate the
back-alley shenanigans of the globe's communications tycoons who are
profiled in hilarious detail.....A valuable insider's history of 20th
Century Journalism, this book is also a resource for monitoring the globe's
media..."
"Schechter bites the hand that feeds....He's not out to savage television,
but he makes no apologies if he offends some people."
"In his new book, Schechter explains why the media is in such a mess, how
it got that way, and what can be done to remedy its problems."
"He does America a service by warning of the problems inherent in a
society in which journalism has become synonymous with entertainment and
media mergers mean news that is one sided and sanitized. Not one to
simply whine, Schechter closes the book with suggestions about what
journalists and the American public can do to change the status quo."
"In the era of the incredibly shrinking soundbite...producer Danny Schechter stands apart."
"Schechter has a keen sense of what is happening in network news." |
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© 1997, Danny Schechter |
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