The Fall of the House of Forbes The Inside Story of the Collapse of a Media Empire

by Pinkerton, Stewart

• ISBN13: 9780312658595
• ISBN10: 0312658591
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-09-27
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

A Forbes insider's riveting true-life business thriller reveals the hubris, greed, personal quirks and awful decisions that helped bring down a media icon In this no-secret-left-uncovered look at the rise and fall of the Forbes family, veteran financial journalist Stewart Pinkerton, who worked there for 20 years, brings to life the often incredible machinations and foibles of a century-old media dynasty that rose to glittering heights and crashed just as spectacularly. This is the first book that takes us to the ritualized formal lunches inside the mansion-like headquarters building at 60 Fifth Ave in New York, the lavish advertiser parties on board the family yacht, The Highlander, through the glory days of the ad-stuffed magazine edited by the legendarily irascible Jim Michaels, to the devastating family split over digital strategy that ultimately led to investors, including the rock musician Bono, removing the family from day-to- day control. It offers telling new details of the often-outrageous behavior of motorcycleriding, hot-air ballooning, Liz Taylor-squiring, Malcolm Forbes and his shy, sometimes bumbling son Steve, the erstwhile presidential candidate, and a hopelessly divided family unable to protect the family jewels.

Author Biography

STEWART PINKERTON is former Managing Editor of Forbes Magazine and former Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Table of Contents

"Interesting reading...insightful...breezily written."— Kirkus Reviews          

"Insider Pinkerton bares all: B.C.'s boldness, Malcolm's man-chasing, Jim Michaels' tyrannically brilliant editing, and the failure of the distracted grandsons to stem the decline." — Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief, ProPublica

 "Forbes used be an important source of of business and finance insights, bristling with capitalist attitude, puncturing stuffed shirts, and breaking major news. But it's become increasingly trivial, unreliable, and irrelevant. With wit, depth and eyewitness authority, veteran journalist Stewart Pinkerton tells the astonishing story of how this happened. Here's all the dirty laundry—shocking and darkly comic." — David McClintick, author of Indecent Exposure