On and off the air : an informal history of CBS News /

The thesis of this volume is the relatively tired one that television news has suffered a decline since the era of Edward R. Murrow, principally at the hands of corporate managers who have no news experience. Equally shopworn is the story the author narrates of who pushed whom off which rungs on the corporate ladder, an account limited, despite the subtitle, to the small world of CBS News, not TV news in general. Schoenbrun, who died a year ago, joined CBS in 1941, served as CBS Paris bureau chief for 17 years, then was recalled to become Washington bureau chief, scoring his greatest scoop in reporting the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis. He broke with the network after his Sunday news show was cancelled. Despite inside stories of Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace, this autobiography covers well-trodden ground. Photos not seen by PW. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Just when you thought you knew everything about CBS News Bill Leonard's In the Storm of the Eye ( LJ 5/15/87), Ed Joyce's Prime Times, Bad Times ( LJ 7/88), Robert Slater's This is CBS ( LJ 6/15/88), Peter J. Boyer's Who Killed CBS? ( LJ 7/88), and Peter McCabe's Bad News at Black Rock ( LJ 4/15/87), here is another account of its evolution. Schoenbrun, whose manuscript was nearly complete when he died in 1988, was a broadcast jounalist who ``bucked management'' and left CBS in the early 1960s. He frequently criticizes CBS news management, its anchors, and reporters, but this is not so much an angry chronicle as an exploration of the history of the network and the ``seeds of destruction and who planted them and under what condition.''-- Jo Cates, Poynter Inst. for Media Studies Lib . , St. Petersburg, Fla. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A chatty, knowledgeable, and altogether engaging account of how TV news evolved--if not matured--during the post-WW II era. Schoenbrun (who died unexpectedly last year after all but completing the manuscript for this book) knows his subject at first hand. A disciple of the legendary Edward R. Murrow, he was for many years the CBS network's Paris correspondent. A graceful writer with such titles as Soldiers of the Night, America Inside Out, and As France Goes to his credit, the author recalls TV's early days, when many radio broadcasters were reluctant to switch to the new show-biz medium. He reminisces about Eisenhower's 1952 presidential campaign (the first to be televised), Murrow's confrontation with Senator Joe McCarthy, and other landmark events. Included as well are scores of affectionate anecdotes on Walter Cronkite, Douglas Edwards, Eric Severeid, Howard K. Smith, Mike Wallace, and a host of other luminaries. If Schoenbrun is less charitable toward the careerist likes of Fred Friendly (whose adoptive name is explained in detail), Don Hewitt (the celebrated producer of 60 Minutes), and Harry Reasoner (a fish out of water away from CBS), he's scrupulous about giving equal time to their achievements. The text effectively ends with a rundown on the author's brief stint as chief of the network's Washington bureau and his subsequent departure from CBS (in the early 1960's) under acrimonious circumstances. In the meantime, though, Schoenbrun has deftly conveyed the judgment that TV news is a public trust as well as a bottom-line business. His consistently entertaining narrative shows how the first generation of TV journalists lived up to this credo and affords an appropriate memorial for a broadcast correspondent of uncommon integrity. There are a dozen halftones (not seen). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.