No Time To Think: The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle - Hardcover

Howard Rosenberg; Charles S. Feldman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826429319 ISBN 13: 9780826429315

Publisher: Continuum, 2008

Synopsis

An eviscerating look at the state of journalism in the age of the 24 hour news cycle by a Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic and a veteran news correspondent.

No Time To Think focuses on the insidious and increasing portion of the news media that, due to the dangerously extreme speed at which it is produced, is only half thought out, half true, and lazily repeated from anonymous sources interested in selling opinion and wild speculation as news.  These news item can easily gain exposure today, assuming a life of their own while making a mockery of journalism and creating casualties of cool deliberation and thoughtful discourse.  Much of it is picked up gratuitously and given resonance online or through CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other networks, which must, in this age of the 24-hour news cycle, "feed the beast."



In dissecting this frantic news blur, No Time to Think breaks down a number of speed-driven blunders from the insider perspective of Charles Feldman, who spent 20 years as a CNN correspondent, as well as the outsider perspective of Howard Rosenberg, who covered the coverage for 25 years as TV critic for The Los Angeles Times.


No Time to Think demonstrates how today's media blitz scrambles the public's perspective in ways that potentially shape how we think, act and react as a global society. The end result effects not only the media and the public, but also the government leaders we trust to make carefully considered decisions on our behalf.  Featuring interviews ranging from former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw to internet doyenne Arianna Huffington to PBS stalwart Jim Lehrer to CNN chief Jonathan Klein to a host of former presidential press secretaries and other keen-eyed media watchers, this incisive work measures lasting fallout from the 24-hour news cycle beginning in 1980 with the arrival of CNN, right up to the present.

About this title

About the Author

Howard Rosenberg earned a Pulitzer Prize and numerous other honors during his 25 years as TV critic for the Los Angeles Times. His anthology, "Not So Prime Time: Chasing the Trivial on American Television," was published in 2004, winning wide praise and a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He teaches critical writing and news ethics at the University of Southern California, USA.

Charles S. Feldman's nearly 20 years as an investigative television and print journalist have straddled the crucial juncture of "old-fashioned" reporting and the introduction of the 24 hour news cycle and lend him an unique perspective to the advantages and pitfalls that this change has brought about.

In the course of his career, Feldman's experience has ranged across all media platforms: television, radio, newspapers, magazines and online. He worked as an on air correspondent for CNN in New York and Los Angeles reporting on terrorism and organized crime, among other things. He is currently a regular contributor to the CBS all-news radio station in Los Angeles as well as the CBS Radio Network.

Feldman has written and/or reported for publications such as, New York Magazine, Parade, The New York Post, The New York Daily News; Playboy (International Edition); Philadelphia Magazine and The Catholic Digest, among others. He was also a regular contributor to the Reuters News Service.

Feldman holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and a master's degree in journalism from New York University. Born in Brooklyn, he has lived most of his adult life in New York City. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he previously taught at the University of Southern California School of Journalism, and currently serves as a freelance journalist and media consultant.

Reviews

Pulitzer Prize winner Rosenberg teams with veteran journalist Feldman to argue that the 24-hour news cycle has degraded the news media and failed consumers in this indignant, often reactionary examination. The authors' premise, that a demand for a constant flow of information via the Internet and cable news networks has led to inaccuracies in reporting, is a popular refrain and one with merit. The many quotes the authors have collected from media giants such as Jim Lehrer and Arianna Huffington present the challenges facing news outlets as changing technologies, most notably the Internet, interact with traditional media. However, the book's heavy-handed editorializing and unfocused gaze muddle the argument, and the many regressions into finger pointing and personal attacks seem out of place amongst such serious considerations. While the authors' ultimate conclusion-that consumer literacy is the best defense against biased and untrustworthy news-is well-taken, flippant dismissals of bloggers (referred to as "nimble-fingered Crackerjacks"), multi-media reporting and alternative news sources undermine this larger point and don't provide any new answers.
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*Starred Review* The breezy style of this critique belies the incredible research behind it, as Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Rosenberg and investigative journalist Feldman explore the impact of the amped-up, overwrought nature of modern news gathering. The authors talked to a wide range of reporters, including Arianna Huffington, Jim Lehrer, Tom Brokaw, and others, from sources as divergent as CNN News, the Drudge Report, and Access Hollywood, to present a look at the competitive forces at work in speeding news coverage at the cost of accuracy, never mind insight and reflection. Amid predictions that politics this year is moving at the speed of the Internet, with the blogosphere kicking around reaction to campaign news that has yet to make it onto television, Rosenberg and Feldman worry that the speed of news gathering is shaping the news, and not for the better. They offer a history of increasingly speedy news coverage from newsreels to radio and television to the Internet, as well as a diary of blogging and an absorbing dialogue between the two as they look back over their own careers and experiences. Often humorous, completely engrossing. --Vanessa Bush

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826429319
• ISBN 13: 9780826429315
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240