A substantial and useful study of the underknown pioneer whose conviction and energy did much to shape the content and...
The man behind Murrow and much more.
Engelman (Journalism/Long Island Univ.; Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History, 1996) examines the life and career of influential and controversial news producer Fred Friendly (1915–98), best known for his long association with crusading journalist Edward R. Murrow. Born Ferdinand F. Wachenheimer, Friendly was one of the most profoundly influential figures in the history of broadcast journalism. After successfully producing a series of innovative news programs for radio, he caught the attention of CBS News, where he teamed with Murrow to create Hear It Now and See It Now, radio and TV documentary series that re-created historic events for audiences. The Friendly/Murrow partnership capitalized on these successes to pursue increasingly provocative subject matter, such as an investigation of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist campaign, that frequently brought them into conflict with CBS founder William Paley. Named head of CBS News in 1964, Friendly resigned his post two years later when the network refused to preempt a rerun of I Love Lucy for live coverage of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee’s hearings on Vietnam. Dramatic, outsized, principled and self-promoting (he sent his letter of resignation to the New York Times), this action encapsulated the many contradictions at the heart of Friendly’s persona. Quotes from colleagues and friends describe him by turns as dynamic and domineering, warm and bullying and passionately idealistic and wearyingly petulant. Friendly continued to wield vast influence over his field after leaving CBS. He taught at Columbia’s Journalism School, established a highly regarded series of public seminars on media and virtually invented the concept of public television. Engelman’s comprehensive research—he cites the dyslexic Ferd Wachenheimer’s school report cards—brings his driven subject into vivid relief. The prose may be dryly academic, but the man, his times and his achievements come through.
A substantial and useful study of the underknown pioneer whose conviction and energy did much to shape the content and character of American broadcast journalism.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-13690-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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