Breaking News - Hardcover

Macneil, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038542020X ISBN 13: 9780385420204

Publisher: Nan A. Talese, 1998

Synopsis

Famous for his nearly forty years in broadcast journalism, Robert MacNeil is one of the most respected television journalists in America. Now in Breaking News, a blistering, behind-the-scenes novel about the savagely competitive world of television news, he writes about this world he knows best--a world where integrity is held hostage in the relentless pursuit of the bottom line.

Anchorman Grant Munro is at what should be the pinnacle of a brilliant career. Having covered every major story from the Kennedy assassination to the Clinton sex scandals, Munro has won the admiration, respect, and trust of his viewers. About to turn sixty in an industry no longer controlled by top-notch journalists but by profit-hungry conglomerates, Munro suddenly feels his career threatened--especially when Bill Donovan, a handsome reporter with little experience but a high Q rating, vies for his anchor post. Dragged into a media circus where "soft news" and tabloid television are becoming the staples of nightly news broadcasts, Munro negotiates a minefield of scheming, greed, and betrayal to hold onto what he prizes. Acclaimed for his two previous novels, Robert MacNeil is a proven storyteller, now triumphantly on his home turf. Breaking News is not only an intimate look at a fascinating industry, but a profound study of character under pressure.

About this title

Review

When he looks in the mirror, Grant Munro is no longer sure what he sees. Is he gazing upon a celebrated journalist and anchor man or an aging icon who should step aside and let the younger generation take over? This question is at the heart of Breaking News, in which PBS poster boy Robert MacNeil leads us on an entertaining romp through the messy, greed-driven, back-stabbing world of TV news. Our hero, in fact, questions the very use of the word news to describe cheap entertainment, warm sops for increasingly limited attention spans, filler between commercials. Soon, however, Grant finds himself on the defensive, riddled with self-doubt and fighting for his life (not to mention his $5 million-plus salary).

While much of what MacNeil has to say about the state of TV news is itself hardly news, he does provide an intriguing set of characters and a rich layer of sleazy detail. He also offers a wired version of the Greek chorus in the person of Hollygo Lightly, a self-described "First Electronic Black Drag Queen Gossip Columnist." And when Hollygo fingers Grant's potential replacement as an aggressive blonde bombshell with not a jot of journalistic integrity, the novel shifts into narrative high gear. Also on hand are a dim blackmailer, a smarter private detective, and some rather too revealing snapshots of the aforementioned blonde. Will the pics see the light of day and sink a career or two? Will Grant give in to pressure to have a face lift and turn his news program into a circus? And will TV news ever be the same? All we can say is, tune in. --Marianne Painter

From the Publisher

"A provocative cri de couer at...our national news media wrapped neatly in a shiny literary package. Jim Lehrer's loss is fiction's gain."
--Eric Alterman, New York Times Book Review

"MacNeil calls it a novel but here, in delightfully readable style, may be the best explanation yet of that which ails television news."
--Walter Cronkite

"MacNeil has written a page-turning novel that gripped me and never let go until I reached the last page. On one level, it explores the collision between commerical and news values. On a deeper level, it is a rich human drama."
--Ken Auletta

"Breaking News is a fly on the wall of every network newsroom. Journalistic integrity battles the bottom line and guess who wins? It's also a study of the seduction of the not-so-innocent, with all the attendant absurdities."
--Morley Safer

"This is a reporter's notebook, a fly-on-the-wall account of what really goes on behind the facade of the television news business. And you'll recognize a lot of today's news heavy-hitters in the 'fictional' cast of characters Robert MacNeil has so entertainingly assembled."
--Mike Wallace

>"A devastating portrait of American TV news."
--Max Frankel

About this edition

• Publisher: Nan A. Talese
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 038542020X
• ISBN 13: 9780385420204
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384