Product Details
If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy Of Television News

If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy Of Television News
By Matthew Robert Kerbel

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Product Description

You’ve been watching television news forever. You’re intimately familiar with the friendly faces and soothing voices that nightly tell you what’s wrong with the world. You think you know everything there is to know about them. You’re wrong.If It Bleeds, It Leads takes us minute-by-minute through two-and-one-half real hours of syndicated, local, and network information programming to uncover the truth behind what passes as news. Why is the only real difference between Jerry Springer and Dan Rather that Dan’s guests usually don’t need medical attention? How did a load of baking powder spark two minutes of high-strung local news coverage? It’s all here: the personal revelations of talk show guests; the dangers lurking in your neighborhood; sports; sex; celebrity; power; and weather updates every ten minutes--all real material taken from real broadcasts designed to keep viewers glued to the screen.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #311699 in Books
  • Published on: 2001-03-13
  • Original language: English
  • Dimensions: .47 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 176 pages

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-From his first words, "WARNING: Everything you are about to read is true," readers know that they are in for a scathing look at television news. Kerbel deconstructs two-and-one-half hours of syndicated, local, and network information programming by analyzing an amalgam of news scripts from four of the largest U.S. media markets on a minute-by-minute basis. His tone is made clear in his Fundamental Rule of televison: "It is a pretend medium." Headlines for each news segment grab readers' attention. Kerbel gives readers a chance to put what they have read into practice by playing a game to create their own lead local story from a list of standard phrases. The author loves stock phrases, often referring to the "newswriter's bible, The Thesaurus of Clich‚s and Aphorisms." One of his favorites, "Please, use good judgment," allows weathercasters to make only slightly annoying weather conditions look dangerous, if not life threatening, to please their news directors and build their ratings. Kerbel drives home his points with a biting sense of humor. Students will look at the news with a new sophistication after reading this book.-Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Prince William, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Kerbel, a former news writer for television and radio, provides a frank and cynical look at how television news and talk shows are produced and presented. He examines the common elements of attention-grabbing promos, the sensual and violent content, and the hyperkinetic hosts, anchors, and subjects. Kerbel takes a real-time look at two and a half hours of syndicated talk and news programming, pointing out that the formulaic approach of most shows allows people, places, and events to be easily plugged in and substituted, with little local flavor or thoughtful analysis. Kerbel compares the techniques used by Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake with those of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and local anchors as television news adopts a format similar to that of the talk shows. Kerbel uses material from actual broadcasts of national and local news and syndicated talk shows and provides cogent analysis of why and how the shows rely on brevity, simplicity, and shock value to entertain and inform. Vanessa Bush

Publishers Weekly
"[U]ncannily re-creates and simultaneously exposes superficial reporting, titillation and trivial distraction in television news."