Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media-Jeff Cohen

[RamboLiberal]

From Amazon.com the release date is Sept 28th.

Book Description

Producer, pundit, and media critic Jeff Cohen offers a fast-paced romp through the three major cable news channels — Fox, CNN, and MSNBC — and delivers a serious message about their failure to cover the most urgent issues of the day. Propelled by amusing anecdotes featuring famous pundits and media personalities, Cable News Confidential highlights the foibles, hypocrisies, and absurdities Cohen witnessed at news organizations run by entertainment conglomerates.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-cohen/being-a-tv-expert-means-n_b_26547.html

In the months before the invasion of Iraq, I worked at NBC's cable news channel, MSNBC, as an on-air commentator and as senior producer on its most watched show, "Donahue." That show was terminated for political reasons three weeks before the war. I tell the whole story in my upcoming book, "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media."

Unlike McCaffrey (and Rumsfeld), I warned over and over on the air that invading Iraq would lead to disaster, a quagmire, and hatred for our country in the Muslim world. I repeatedly questioned the evidence that Iraq was an imminent threat. So did my colleague Phil Donahue, in primetime. We were on the money. And now we're off the air.

But TV "experts" like Gen. McCaffrey, who echoed White House claims of an Iraqi threat and cheered our country into the war, are still on the air. And they never have to say they're sorry.

On MSNBC two months before the war, McCaffrey warned that Iraq was in current possession of "thousands of gallons of mustard agents, sarin, nerve agent VX."

But how do we hold NBC and MSNBC and McCaffrey accountable? Too bad there aren't term limits for TV pundits and "experts." For getting such a huge story so totally wrong, one might expect an apology. Don't hold your breath.

[mirandapriestly]

1. Any hints as to who or what is behind

the rise in cable news propaganda? I always felt Donohue was canceled for political reasons , he had Kristin Breitweiser, a 911 widow, on his show questioning Bush's activities the day of 9-11, this was totally verboten then.
Does the author spend much time describing who makes the decisions as to what can and can not be said?