Unsilent Revolution: Television News and American Public Life, 1948–1991

by Robert J. Donovan , Raymond L. Scherer

• ISBN13: 9780521428620
• ISBN10: 0521428629
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-03-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In four decades since its first broadcasts, television news has revolutionized public life and political policy making, transformed political careers, advanced civil rights, and radically changed newspapers and magazines. In Unsilent Revolution, veteran journalists Robert J. Donovan and Ray Scherer recount key episodes and analyze the areas of American public life most affected by television news. The authors' spirited accounts derive from research, analysis, professional experience, and previously unpublished accounts of people behind as well as in front of the camera. The stories they tell are among the most important of the past four decades: the civil rights struggle in the South, the downfall of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the assassination and funeral of President John F. Kennedy, the ups and downs of President Richard Nixon, the Iranian hostage crisis and President Jimmy Carter, manned space flight, and relief of the Ethiopian famine in 1984. The authors also describe and reflect on the impact of television news on presidential and congressional politics through the Reagan years and into the Bush administration and address the changes in newspapers and magazines caused by the rise of television journalism. In 198991, three gripping events - the students' protest and its suppression at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Communist empire in Eastern Europe, and the war in the Persian Gulf - riveted the American public. Television news was central to each event, and this book explains why.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part I. Twelve Episodes: 1. Police dogs, firehoses, and television cameras: shockwaves from the South

2. Exit Joe McCarthy

3. Television news and the ups and downs of Richard Nixon: the 1960 election

4. Television's march on Cape Canaveral

5. Television's supreme hour: the Kennedy funeral

6. In the eye of the storm: television news and the urban riots

7. Vietnam, 1965-1967

8. Vietnam, 1968-1975

9. Nixon's presidency: a difficult time for television news and the press

10. Nixon in China and Watergate

11. Infuriating pictures from Iran: television news, Jimmy Carter, and the Iranian hostage crisis

12. The call: relief for the Ethiopian famine, 1984

Part II. Ongoing Impact: 13. The White House in the television age

14. The television president: Reagan on prime time

15. The television occupation of Capitol Hill

16. From Dulles to Gorbachev: diplomacy and terrorism in the television age

17. Television and the transformation of American politics, 1952-1984

18. 1988

19. Profound change in print journalism: the invasion by television news

20. Newspapers in the age of television

21. Television's intrusion in the press box

22. Two different mediums: newspapers and television news

23. Conclusion: Tiananmen Square, the Berlin Wall, the Persian Gulf War, and the Russian coup

Notes

Index.