Sleep-deprived reporters. Spin doctors. Deadlines. All constants in the world of television election reporting. But do they alone explain why television coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign looked the same night after night across the broadcast/cable media divide? Matthew Robert Kerbel says no, pointing instead to the shared interests and perspectives of news workers that bridge network differences. Edited for Television explores those common orientations as it tells the story of the 1992 election in the voice of a one-time television newswriter and the media personnel he skillfully...

You've been watching television news forever. You're intimately familiar with the friendly faces and soothing voices that nightly tell you what's wrong with the world. You think you know everything there is to know about them. You're wrong.If It Bleeds, It Leads takes us minute-by-minute through two-and-one-half real hours of syndicated, local, and network information programming to uncover the truth behind what passes as news. Why is the only real difference between Jerry Springer and Dan Rather that Dan's guests usually don't need medical attention? How did a load of baking powder spark two...

Given how the media portray the political system, how can we educate ourselves about politics without feeling alienated? The amount of information now available to the public about government is without precedent, and contemporary media bring the political action closer than ever before. But in an age when reports on the manipulative behavior and c