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Rating: 
Summary: Network insiders weigh in on THE CONTROL ROOM:
Review: "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 an 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." Walter Cronkite (CBS) "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." Diane Sawyer (ABC) "If anybody had any doubts about the impact of the television industry on who 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." Robert Novak (CNN) "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." Mark Shields (PBS)
Rating: 
Summary: A must-have insider's look.
Review: It's been a few years since I read "The Control Room," but as I remember it was wonderful reading, very easy to get through. Plissner worked for CBS over a span of several decades and witnessed first-hand the evolution of media coverage of the presidency. His anecdotes are invaluable and often hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have insider's look.
Review: It's been a few years since I read "The Control Room," but as I remember it was wonderful reading, very easy to get through. Plissner worked for CBS over a span of several decades and witnessed first-hand the evolution of media coverage of the presidency. His anecdotes are invaluable and often hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Insider's View
Review: Martin Plissner is a veteran CBS political journalist who joined the network just as it was wresting the number one spot away from NBC's Chet Huntley-David Brinkley team with the avuncular, everybody's neighbor, Walter Cronkite, whose familiar folksiness achieved great success. Plissner talks about the atecedent event which, in additon to Cronkite's popularity, benefitted his network. It was CBS which, in 1962, initially forecast Richard M. Nixon's loss in the California governor's race against incument Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, beating Huntley and Brinkley to the punch. The informative Plissner does not just write about CBS triumphs. He mentions that the cautionary approach in 1976 that enabled the network to correctly forecast a Jimmy Carter victory in the highly competitive 1976 Wisconsin Democratic Presidential Primary after NBC and ABC had jumped the gun and called the race for early frontrunner, Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona, worked against the network four years later election night with the Carter-Reagan race. Walter Cronkite, calling his last presidential election, bowed out on an embarrassing note. Not wanting to risk an early misfire, as occurred with its competitors in 1976, CBS withheld its call. It did not put its seal on Ronald Reagan's decisive victory over Jimmy Carter until the incumbent president, influenced by the other two network calls, had conceded defeat. Plissner gives his own account of the rollicking Dan Rather live interview of George Bush during the 1988 primary campaign. Plissner finds it highly improbable that media claims of CBS planning to ambush Vice-President are valid. He maintains never having heard anything to this effect, leaving the impression that, had such a ploy been in the offing, he would have known. Plissner also notes that, given media concern about Bush's potential involvement in the Iran-Contra arms for hostages scandal, any responsible reporter would have questioned him in that area, as Rather did, arousing ire and prompting complaints on the Vice-President's part. Another point Plissner covers is the successful safety ploy on the part of the major parties to lock up party presidential nominations as far in advance of the convention as possible. He notes the unfortunate consequences of the process, a crowded early primary season followed by dull conventions and ennui until the fall battle has hopefully awakened citizen interest.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Details, Bland Writing
Review: The author, an ex CBS political director, takes the reader through the evolution of how the networks cover the presidential election process from the primary process, the convention and to the final vote. He provides a book full of interesting details on how the process works and what got it there. There are also a number of insider stories on the interaction of the campaigns and the networks. The main focus of the book is to show how the campaigns are big-time shows that the networks run with and the candidates use the networks as much as the networks use the candidates. If you follow politics you already new this to be the case so from a stand point of the book breaking news it fell short. For me the most interesting parts of the book were the details of how the networks show the conventions. The author details one story of how the Republicans dealt with providing Ford the time for a speech but doing it at a time they new the networks would be performing other on air duties thus ensuring that the viewing public never heard the speech. The book is full of stories along this line. Overall the book was interesting to a political junky, the writing was a bit bland therefore if you do not have a high level of interested you may find it difficult to keep reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting commentary of current political campaigning
Review: Very adept account of how the medium of television can alter (and, sometimes even shape and define) the directions into which the various political candidates run their individual campaigns. Very interesting read. Very astute rundown of the intracasies, regarding the very unique partnership--between the individual campaigns and television--which has become the modern-day, run for the presidency (in America).
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