MEDIA POWER: Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?

This is one man's view of the ubiquitous media. We've heard the premise before: the media's distillate of current events is an inescapable part of the modern environment, but what is the news purveyors' social responsibility? Stein, editor of McCalls, is best when discussing the vagaries and difficulties of achieving responsible journalism in a corporate framework. For example, the media feed, if not create, the cult of personality; Jacqueline Onassis gets more ink than starving Biafran children; NBC pays Sirhan $15,000 for an exclusive interview. An early chapter on the McLuhan and Agnew views on broadcast media is long on prejudice (Stein has little use for either seer) and short on insight. However, the discussion of cable television makes a strong case for CATV's potential to control the public consciousness. Stein believes reporters must find ways to stretch their traditionally objective approach (as have the new journalists and the underground press) to accommodate moral perspectives and must transcend the language of power to describe what is happening to the have-nots, ""whose lives constitute the vast reality that lies beyond power."" A very personal, sometimes biased, occasionally perceptive book.