Bad News at Black Rock: The Sell-Out of CBS News

by Peter McCabe

Provides a detailed account of the titanic corporate struggles and often bitter individual rivalries at the legendary television network, focusing on the fall of a morning news program

Genres: Nonfiction

302 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1987

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a detailed and painful account of the end of television news as something other than entertainment and irresponsibility. There are two main themes that I recall: The steady shift away from hard, professional coverage of news in favor of superficial boy-girl chit chat of the type that was capturing huge audiences for ABC's trashy "Good Morning America" format, and the crippling of genuine and timely new coveage in order to promote Dan Rather's superstar image. The book doesn't hit nearly as hard on the corruption of news coverage by Rather and his minions as have some later books but this was one of the eariest glimpses behind the fig leaf.

[F.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bad News at Black Rock was once mentioned in a newspaper article as "A journalistic clone of the Paddy Chayefsky movie "Network", and after reading the book, I see what they were saying.

Penned by someone who had worked on CBS Morning News as a senior producer, the author goes into detail of his experience from when he was hired in March 1985 to his "Unilaterally Termination" 15 months later, his book describes his day-to-day operations, dealing with everyone, etc, etc, and by the end of the book, you get the impression that those in charge seemed to prefer entertainment and high ratings over serious hard journalism, especially towards the end of the shows run.

This book was an interesting read, as well as funny and fascinating , and makes me glad that I don’t work in that kind of environment. I highly recommend it.