An informative account of how made-for-the-medium showman Roone Arledge turned ABC TV's news operation into a popular and respected source of programming. Drawing on interviews with a host of those involved (including eight with Arledge himself), Detroit Free Press reporter Gunther (Basepaths, 1984; Monday Night Mayhem, 1988) provides savvy perspectives on his enterprising subject's freewheeling stewardship. Although he'd already made a name for himself in sports, Arledge had little credibility with serious journalists when he took charge of the network's ailing news division in 1977. An imaginative and innovative broadcaster, however, Arledge eventually silenced his more vocal critics, bringing to the air World News Tonight, Nightline, This Week with David Brinkley, 20/20, Prime Time Live, and other programs that made ABC News a class act with mass appeal. Noting that the parent organization's profitability gave Arledge the means to develop talent (Sam Donaldson, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Geraldo Rivera, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters) during the 80's, Gunther points out that he also had the savvy to make creative use of technological advances. As times changed, however—and competition arose, notably from CNN—it became harder for Arledge to meet corporate bottom- line demands, especially when media stars were also becoming more independent and less willing to accept direction from their former mentor. While his career and authority fade slowly to black, the author implies, Arledge may take cold comfort from the likelihood that he could prove irreplaceable. While Gunther apparently couldn't bear to omit any of the gossipy details he unearthed about anyone ever connected with Arledge, his up-close and personal take on an elusive, albeit consequential, impresario sheds considerable light on the way the Global Village now gets and views its news. (Eight pages of b&w photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: March 10, 1994
ISBN: 0-316-33151-1
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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