1 comments about Raising Her Voice: African-American Women Journalists Who Changed History.

1. This book is an intelligent portrayal of the important role of black women journalists in shaping historical events, a role which has been largely ignored or forgotten by many. This book serves not only as a necessary historical record, but as a lasting tribute to the triumphs of these eleven women.

1 comments about Out of Thin Air: Insider's History of Network News-the Beginning and the End.

1. Though people usually mention CBS, Edward R. Murrow, and Uncle Walter when talking about the golden age of television network news from the 1950s to the 1970s, NBC News dominated during much of that time. Much of the credit belongs to Reuven Frank, twice NBC's president of network news.
   
   In this 1991 memoir, Frank talks frankly about his time at NBC, trying to create programs of substance and on occasion, succeeding. He paired Chet Huntley with David Brinkley, who in turn anchored the dominant nightly news program of the 1960s and early 1970s. After a time away from the boardroom, Frank became president again in time to revamp "Today" and repudiate the duo concept he developed at NBC Nightly News by making Tom Brokaw the sole talking head.
   
   Stilted, cranky, sometimes acidic, Frank's memoir is also fascinating, funny, and perhaps the best means a layman has of understanding the evolution of television news. "Insiders credit adding Huntley to Brinkley with ending the fatuous practices of newsreels as well as stilling the affected resonances of wartime radio, providing news adults could watch without squirming," he writes.
   
   Frank's focus is more on that evolution than himself; he starts with an evocative and detailed account of how NBC covered the 1948 party conventions in Philadelphia, selling co-branding rights to Life magazine, which also made many of the coverage decisions. Radio reporters adapted to the new medium with difficulty; one sat on a barber chair and explained to viewers what was going on while having his hair cut. This, two years before Frank himself was hired, was the imperfect dawning of the new news.
   
   CBS was the first network to figure out what it was doing, with Murrow leading the charge and chairman William S. Paley providing the support NBC parent RCA balked at. Frank's antipathy for CBS is pronounced and often amusing, as when he notes Walter Cronkite's plan to have an "average man" sit beside him at a convention anchor desk so Cronkite could explain to him what was going on, enlightening the audience by proxy. "Whoever vetoed the idea did Cronkite the greatest favor of his career," Frank writes.
   
   Frank doesn't have time for the conventional pieties about Cronkite or other legends; he even sees hollowness in his own achievements. Huntley and Brinkley were best known for an on-air relationship that really wasn't there (their signature "Good night, David. Good night, Chet" was hated by both because, as they complained to Frank, it made them sound like "a couple of sissies.")
   
   Frank spends most of his book discussing the 1950s and 1960s, odd given the fact he had a longer career than that. He hung around long enough to "execproduce" (a verb he inveighs against) the 1984 party conventions before calling it a day, and may have done more in his later years then he realized, as his brainchild "NBC News Overnight," a failure in its 1982-84 run, is widely credited for bringing a polish and sophistication to broadcast news today's cablecasts strive to emulate.
   
   Frank holds back very little, dishing on the likes of Connie Chung, Jessica Savitch, Roger Mudd, Tom Snyder, and others. Even sweet Jane Pauley comes in for scorn, her '80s bob so pronounced Frank says she looked "like a doll peeping out of a haystack." Yet his overall tone is buttoned-down and informative. Even when he is settling scores or rubbing old sores, you never sense he is being abusive, just unguarded.
   
   Frank died earlier this year. By many accounts, he outlived the domination of the mainstream media he helped create by a considerable period. Yet his work lives on, and will as long as people look to television to get an instant understanding of the world as it happens. "Out Of Thin Air" is a great way to get an understanding about how television happened to be there in the first place.

No comments about George Orwell: A Literary Life (Literary Lives).

No comments about Rebel With a Cause.

No comments about Ida Wells-Barnett (Gateway Civil Rights).

No comments about A Mad World, My Masters: Tales from a Traveller's Life.

No comments about Kingsley Amis: A Biography.

1 comments about The Sagebrush Bohemian: Mark Twain in California.

1. Although I have not read this work yet, having only read "Being Frank" by Nigey Lennon, which was a breeze read and quite fun, due in equal parts to what she went through as well as how she put it into words... I just wanted to comment that even though a purple sock-centered sexual relationship with Frank Zappa is no firm indication either way, Nigey is chromosomally confined to a biological committment to "catch" and not "pitch" in a strict reproductive sense... which is to say she is a "she" and not a "he" as the previous reviewer of her work on Sam Clemens has alluded.

1 comments about The Best from Out West.

1. Author Woodbury has selected some of his best writing, taken from his quarterly tabloid, "Out West." Woodbury roams the blue highways and small towns of the Western USA, interviewing those he meets and writing about the places he visits. He has a tremendous sensibility about where to go (and perhaps more importantly, when to stay put), and a newsman's nose for a story. The stories that he digs up are not so much daily news, as people and places that are exemplative of small-town life, forgotten times, and the general oddities that make the world more interesting than yet another faceless mall (or Starbucks or McDonald's).

   Woodbury delights in his subjects, and in many ways, is himself the most interesting subject of his writing. His reactions and feelings (especially his musings about being a wandering journalist) are a cross between reporting and diary-writing, creating a highly engrossing blend. Among the selection in this book are stories of Bill, Wyoming (population 1), eating a plate of cow brains, waging war on chipmunks over Cheezits, sampling potato ice cream and visiting museums and attractions such as Jake the Alligator Man and Death Valley.

   Amazon may be able to find you a copy of this out-of-print gem, or you can get a copy through Woodbury's web-site, www.outwestnewspaper.com.

No comments about Justice to George S. Schuyler.(in-depth biography of conservative black journalist and author): An article from: Policy Review.