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The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway
A struggle is taking place--not just among corporate titans, but among entire industries. At stake is control of the world's fastest-growing communications. The contestants are Hollywood studios, television networks, and cable, telephone, computer, publishing, and consumer-electronics companies. All are vying to collect a toll on the information superhighway. And as they jockey for control, they tread on volatile ground, as one fixation after another (cable, interactive TV) is dumped in favor of the next (satellite, the Internet).
There is no better account of this turmoil than the one provided here by Ken Auletta, bestselling author of Three Blind Mice ("the best book ever written on network television"*) and Greed and Glory on Wall Street , who for five years has brilliantly tracked the communications industry for The New Yorker . Auletta's access to the principal players is unparalleled (six days with Rupert Murdoch, summit meetings with John Malone), and his grasp of the issues--from boardroom politics to regulatory and technological pressures--is unmatched by any other journalist.
In this riveting collection of his best pieces Auletta takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes tour of such companies as Disney, Viacom, Microsoft, Time Warner, and Telecommunications, Inc., and keenly chronicles the vanities and visions of the new Highwaymen--Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, Bill Gates, and more. Just as Three Blind Mice was heralded as "the new bible of the broadcasting business," The Highwaymen will be received as an indispensable guide to the future of this explosive new world.
* Frank Stanton, former president of CBS
There is no better account of this turmoil than the one provided here by Ken Auletta, bestselling author of Three Blind Mice ("the best book ever written on network television"*) and Greed and Glory on Wall Street , who for five years has brilliantly tracked the communications industry for The New Yorker . Auletta's access to the principal players is unparalleled (six days with Rupert Murdoch, summit meetings with John Malone), and his grasp of the issues--from boardroom politics to regulatory and technological pressures--is unmatched by any other journalist.
In this riveting collection of his best pieces Auletta takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes tour of such companies as Disney, Viacom, Microsoft, Time Warner, and Telecommunications, Inc., and keenly chronicles the vanities and visions of the new Highwaymen--Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, Bill Gates, and more. Just as Three Blind Mice was heralded as "the new bible of the broadcasting business," The Highwaymen will be received as an indispensable guide to the future of this explosive new world.
* Frank Stanton, former president of CBS
346 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
11 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Ken Auletta
32 books98 followersKen Auletta has written Annals of Communications columns and profiles for The New Yorker magazine since 1992. He is the author of eleven books, including five national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed And Glory On Wall Street: The Fall of The House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled, The End of the World As We Know It, which was published in November of 2009.
Auletta has won numerous journalism honors. He has been chosen a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and one of the 20th Century's top 100 business journalists by a distinguished national panel of peers.
For two decades Auletta has been a national judge of the Livingston Awards for journalists under thirty-five. He has been a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival. He was a member of the Columbia Journalism School Task Force assembled by incoming college President Lee Bollinger to help reshape the curriculum. He has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror and a Trustee of the Nightingale-Bamford School. He was twice a Trustee of PEN, the international writers organization. He is a member of the New York Public Library's Emergency Committee for the Research Libraries, of the Author's Guild, PEN, and of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Auletta grew up on Coney Island in Brooklyn, where he attended public schools. He graduated with a B.S. from the State University College at Oswego, N.Y., and received an M.A. in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Auletta has won numerous journalism honors. He has been chosen a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and one of the 20th Century's top 100 business journalists by a distinguished national panel of peers.
For two decades Auletta has been a national judge of the Livingston Awards for journalists under thirty-five. He has been a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival. He was a member of the Columbia Journalism School Task Force assembled by incoming college President Lee Bollinger to help reshape the curriculum. He has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror and a Trustee of the Nightingale-Bamford School. He was twice a Trustee of PEN, the international writers organization. He is a member of the New York Public Library's Emergency Committee for the Research Libraries, of the Author's Guild, PEN, and of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Auletta grew up on Coney Island in Brooklyn, where he attended public schools. He graduated with a B.S. from the State University College at Oswego, N.Y., and received an M.A. in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 15, 2015
Its not about highways or the road industry :)
A very interesting compilation of stories published in the New Yorker - about the media, cable, and content industry and the consolidation boom in the 1990s.
Key takeaways: technological change is difficult to handle.
Outsized egos are difficult to control.
The news is always willing to crown someone a hero, and mr. market will take away that title in a few years time.
People with cash dont know what to do with it
I didnt know that Microsoft had its own version of moonshots ala Google
Really long book - and a few of the chapters should be skipped. The first few and the last couple are the best.
A very interesting compilation of stories published in the New Yorker - about the media, cable, and content industry and the consolidation boom in the 1990s.
Key takeaways: technological change is difficult to handle.
Outsized egos are difficult to control.
The news is always willing to crown someone a hero, and mr. market will take away that title in a few years time.
People with cash dont know what to do with it
I didnt know that Microsoft had its own version of moonshots ala Google
Really long book - and a few of the chapters should be skipped. The first few and the last couple are the best.
August 6, 2007
beyond media moguls "who's who" the writer was a fly on the wall - we get to know everything! wish he did the same with more - these stories are quite dated...
January 5, 2019
Funny to read this now, or just look at the cover. This was just as the dot.coms were taking off and the established view was these media companies were in control.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews