The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections

(Paperback)

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Description

Published as the 2000 US presidential election moves into full swing this is a behind-the-scenes account of the way television has transformed the political process during the last thirty years.

Reviews

Walter Cronkite (CBS) The Control Room brought back so many memories, and revealed so much I never knew, that I have found it hard to put down. It is a fine story and invaluable history lesson. For the buffs, here is the fascinating inside story of politics and television as told by a talented researcher-reporter who observed, indeed participated in, almost every step of the mating dance. For historians, the book is an invaluable documented source on how television forever changed the very fundamentals of our election process. Diane Sawyer (ABC) Marty Plissner is a political sharpshooter -- daring, surprising, provoking sleepy journalists to pay attention. And he always finds that bullseye where polls, politics and people meet. Robert Novak (CNN) If anybody had any doubts about the impact of the television industry on whom we elect as presidents, this book will dispel them. Marty Plissner was present as a TV insider from the beginning, and he tells the story with verve and insight. E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Why Americans Hate Politics and They Only Look Dead Marty Plissner knows more than anyone about the long, strange, and fascinating courtship between television and politics. Thank goodness he has given us this book. Its serious, its fun, and its essential. Mark Shields (PBS) Somewhere there may be somebody who knows more about national politics than Marty Plissner does. And there may also be somebody who knows more about television than does Marty Plissner. But you can be sure there is nobody anywhere who knows more about both American politics and television than Marty Plissner -- and nobody writes more knowledgeably and insightfully about the stormy shotgun marriage of American television and American politics than Marty Plissner.

Author Bio

Martin Plissner is recently retired from his position as Executive Political Director of CBS News. He lives in Washington, D.C.