Not So Prime Time: Chasing the Trivial on American Television

Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. xviii, 269 pages; 24 cm. PRESENTATION COPY. Signed and warmly inscribed by the author in 2005. A fine copy. Dust jacket protected in a mylar cover. "In this witty and candid perspective on American television, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Howard Rosenberg traces a disturbing pattern: TV's relentless pursuit of the mundane in its seeming quest to dumb-down America. And, he writes, it may be succeeding. The longer mediocrity endures, Mr. Rosenberg advises, the greater the chance we will become permanently desensitized to it--and seduced by it--making third-rate the standard." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Team coverage of breaking news; Poor Richard's almanac of horrors; Obsession, not proportion, drives television news; Her nose makes news; Private lives and prying public; First amendment, shmendment; When ride-alongs take the public for a ride; Foreign news? It's all alien to the networks; Let's hear it (again) for old glory; A lox named fox; If you're not for yourself, who will be for you?; The blurred lines of today's "reality"; Celebrating fiction as fact; Paul goes home; Propping up the Berlin Wall; Out of the anchor chair, into the fray; The Russian roulette of live news coverage; To air is human, especially when it's live; Live from Iraq, ready or not; Publicity, they name is Schwarzenegger; The day the world shattered; Ratting on Bill was her duty; Wanna confess? Call Montel; How was poor Jenny to know he was a ticking time bomb?; Communing with nature by destroying it; Transgressing all the way to the bank; The art of rebounding; When crummy acting and writing equal fun; In "ark," Noah plays friars club; A tale of two miniseries; The face that launched a thousand cliches; Infomercials disguised as conventions; Judging political parties by their stagecraft; And now, for my next rehearsed ad lib; Do great moves make great presidents?; When his presence is the message; Our president: man or mannequin?; Bush's image fails to fill the screen; When no news is big news; White meat or dark?; D-day and the resonance of war now and then; Looking to the past to see the present; A new war, but the same old tube; War as a sales tool; Seeking symbolic moments in the tides of history; Talking the talk before taking the walk; Ultimate reality; Timothy McVeigh: the closed circuit; Let's bring cameras to death's door; O.J. on trial; The year of Simpson; The case for cameras in courtrooms; Give Bin Laden his (televised) day in court; One picture can be worth a thousand clips; The death of Challenger recalled; Columbia: freeze this frame; High noon in television's high court; TV keeps the dreams, and dross, alive; Big man, big laughs, big legacy; Excellence, from "Marty" to the mafia; I confess! I did watch Perry Mason!; A toast for Kuralt and one for the road; Contemplating Cosell; The life of a national hero has its perils; A "masterpiece theatre" of pomp and puff; When the coverage is as senseless as the tragedy.. SIGNED. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.