Articles by Ken Auletta
HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S LAST CAMPAIGN
THE NEW YORKER - MAY 30, 2022
How the Hollywood producer lost control of the story during his criminal trial in New York. An excerpt from the new book Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence.
Illustration by Joan Wong; Source from AP; Getty
The Pirate
The New Yorker - November 13, 1995
Rupert Murdoch is sixty-four, and his shoulders stoop slightly. His voice is soft, and his manner is unfailingly courteous, as he sits with one leg tucked under the other. Only the hard brown eyes suggest that he is a predator. Murdoch is the chairman, C.E.O., and principal shareholder of a company, the News Corporation, that produced nearly nine billion dollars in revenue this year and more than a billion in profits, but he feels frustrated. He is frustrated by China. He is frustrated because he has no international news network to supply his Fox network here, or his Sky or Star satellite services in Europe and Asia, while Ted Turner has CNN. And until last month he was frustrated because he owned the rights to televise sporting events all over the world but didn’t own a sports network, like ESPN.
2024 Update : Ever curious about Murdoch, what drives him, his succession, his legacy, Ken is currently reporting a filmed documentary, "The Murdoch Puzzle."
How the Math Men Overthrew the Mad Men
The New Yorker - May 21, 2018
Once, Mad Men ruled advertising. They’ve now been eclipsed by Math Men—the engineers and data scientists whose province is machines, algorithms, pureed data, and artificial intelligence. Yet Math Men are beleaguered, as Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated when he humbled himself before Congress, in April. Math Men’s adoration of data—coupled with their truculence and an arrogant conviction that their “science” is nearly flawless—has aroused government anger, much as Microsoft did two decades ago.
Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O. of Facebook, testifying before Congress about data privacy and security, in April. Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux for The New Yorker
The Rise, Reign, and Fall of W.P.P.’s Martin Sorrell
The New Yorker - April 17, 2018
The founder and C.E.O. of the world’s largest advertising-and-marketing holding company had said, “I will stay here until they shoot me!” Then, in a sense, they did.
THE HIDDEN SUCCESSION NEWS IN RUPERT MURDOCH’S SALE OF FOX ENTERTAINMENT TO DISNEY
The New Yorker - December 15, 2017
Murdoch faces a “Sophie’s Choice” between his sons Robert and Lachlan. The sale turns Fox into a company focussed on news and sports, which are Lachlan Murdoch’s great passions.
Photograph on Esquire.com by Getty Images
Don’t Mess with Roy Cohn
Esquire - December 1978
Roy Cohn was once the most feared lawyer in New York City. A ruthless master of dirty tricks, he smeared the reputations of his political enemies, helped send the Rosenbergs to the electric chair, and had more than one Mafia don on speed dial. But his most enduring legacy is Donald Trump, whom he took under his wing in the 1970s. In Ken Auletta's 1978 Esquire profile, we meet the man who tutored the president in the dark arts of gossip, power, and politics.
PLUS: on the Esquire Classic podcast, Ken discussES Cohn’s unrelenting cruelty and drive, and how it helped shape Trump
Postscript: Bill Campbell, 1940-2016
The New Yorker - April 19, 2016
Bill Campbell quietly instructed Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, the founders of Twitter, Sheryl Sandberg, and countless other entrepreneurs on the human dimensions of management.
Fixing Broken Windows
The New Yorker - September 7, 2015
Bill Bratton wants to be America’s top cop. His critics say that his legacy is tainted.
Brian Williams’s Mistake
The New Yorker - February, 2015
In four posts on The New Yorker’s website, Ken covered the events surrounding the exit of the executive editor of the New York Times, Jill Abramson.
Remembering Mario Cuomo
The New Yorker - January 1, 2015
Elizabeth Holmes is the C.E.O. of Theranos, a Silicon Valley company that is working to upend the lucrative business of blood testing.
Blood, Simpler
The New Yorker - December 15, 2014
Elizabeth Holmes is the C.E.O. of Theranos, a Silicon Valley company that is working to upend the lucrative business of blood testing.
What Nick Davies Found Out
The New Yorker - August 28, 2014
He was the indispensible reporter in the revelation of the abuse of power and illegal phone hacking perpetrated by News of the World and the Sun, the London newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
Behind Murdoch’s Urge to Merge
The New Yorker - July 18, 2014
On Wednesday, the Times revealed that Rupert Murdoch has made an eighty-billion-dollar bid to digest Time Warner, a television and movie company whose revenues and profits outpace his Twenty-First Century Fox.
The Hillary Show
The New Yorker - June 2, 2014
Since stepping down as Secretary of State, fifteen months ago, Hillary Clinton has kept a calculated distance from the press and the public. She is talking with close advisers about a possible second Presidential run.
Why Jill Abramson Was Fired
The New Yorker - May, 2014
In four posts on The New Yorker’s website, Ken covered the events surrounding the exit of the executive editor of the New York Times, Jill Abramson.
Outside the Box
The New Yorker - February 3, 2014
In the spring of 2000, Reed Hastings, the C.E.O. of Netflix, hired a private plane and flew from San Jose to Dallas for a summit meeting with Blockbuster, the video-rental giant that had seventy-seven hundred stores worldwide handling mostly VCR tapes. Eventually, Hastings was convinced, movies would be rented even more cheaply and conveniently by streaming them over the Internet, and popular films would always be in stock. But in 2000 Netflix had only about three hundred thousand subscribers and relied on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver its DVDs; the company was losing money. Hastings proposed an alliance. Blockbuster wasn’t interested. What a momentous business mistake.
Illustration for The New Yorker by Leo Espinosa
Freedom of Information
The New Yorker - October 7, 2013
Alan Rusbridger has pushed to transform the Guardian into a global digital newspaper, aimed at engaged, anti-establishment readers and available entirely for free.
After Bloomberg
The New Yorker - August 26, 2013
Michael Bloomberg, whose third and final term as mayor of New York expires at midnight on December 31st, is clearly vexed by the challenges of envisaging his own future and a City Hall without him.
CBS, Cable, and the Disruption of TV
The New Yorker - August 19, 2013
Thirty years ago, traditional TV was blindsided by cable; today, cable operators and traditional TV are both being blindsided by a new crop of technologies.
Business Outsider
The New Yorker - April 8, 2013
Business Insider was started in 2007, by Kevin P. Ryan, an Internet entrepreneur, and Henry Blodget, who became the C.E.O. and the editor-in-chief. Blodget, who is forty-seven, gets up every morning at five-thirty, writes four or five blog posts a day on average, and dashes off twenty to thirty tweets. Most weekday mornings, he conducts an online video-interview program, Daily Ticker, for Yahoo, and is himself frequently interviewed on television. “It’s halfway between broadcast and print,” Blodget said, standing by his desk, his sandy hair flopping onto his forehead, his tie askew. “It’s conversational. There’s a real element of being on air when you’re at your desk.”
How To Make a Dumb Phone Seem Smarter
The New Yorker - March 29, 2013
The digital revolution has disrupted most traditional media. And what about television?
Can Aereo Disrupt the TV Business?
The New Yorker - February 18, 2013
The digital revolution has disrupted most traditional media. And what about television?
The Heiress
The New Yorker - December 10, 2012
Long overshadowed by her brothers, Elisabeth has impressed Rupert Murdoch’s associates.
Citizens Jain
The New Yorker - October 8, 2012
Why India’s newspaper industry is thriving, and worrisome.
Illustration for The New Yorker by Emiliano Ponzi
Paper Trail
The New Yorker - June 25, 2012
Did publishers and Apple collude against Amazon? Since introducing the Kindle, in 2007, Amazon had come to dominate the e-book market, with about ninety per cent of sales. In announcing the iPad, Steve Jobs offered publishers an arrangement called the agency model, which Apple used for selling music and apps. The publishers would set prices, and Apple, acting as their “agent,” would take a thirty-per-cent commission and give them the rest…. One publisher warns that books are “in danger of becoming roadkill” in a digital war.
Get Rich U.
The New Yorker - April 30, 2012
Silicon Valley venture capitalists and investors think of Stanford University as their essential farm system.
War of Choice
The New Yorker - January 9, 2012
A profile of Univision, then the dominant Hispanic media enterprise in the U.S. with big dreams.
2011: Media Deaths and Births
The New Yorker - December 6, 2011
On Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs, and Daniel Burke.
Changing Times
The New Yorker - October 24, 2011
At nine o'clock on the morning of September 6th, Jill Abramson was riding the subway uptown from her Tribeca loft. It was her first day as executive editor of the New York Times, and also the first time in the paper's hundred and sixty years that a woman’s name would appear at the top of the masthead. Abramson described herself as “excited,” because of the history she was about to make, and “a little nervous,” because she knew that many in the newsroom feared her.
Photograph for The New Yorker by Mary Ellen Mark
Steve Jobs 1955-2011
The New Yorker - October 5, 2011
Steve Jobs is dead. One big question is whether the unbelievably innovative culture he forged will live. Jobs was not a great human being, but he was a great, transformative, and historical figure.
Business and Loyalty
The New Yorker - July 15, 2011
The only surprise in the resignation of Rebekah Brooks is that it took so long. She was the editor of the News of the World when a good deal of hacking was done, when police were paid bribes for documents and news tips.
What Murdoch Made
The New Yorker - July 7, 2011
Rupert Murdoch fathered a tabloid culture that reveled in the kind of news that could produce screaming headlines. There is simply no way that Murdoch, who has escaped more snares than Houdini, can cleanly escape the trap he has laid himself.
Photograph for The New Yorker by Michele Asselin
A Woman's Place
The New Yorker - July 11, 2011
In 2007, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, knew that he needed help. His social-network site was growing fast, but, at the age of twenty-three, he felt ill-equipped to run it. That December, he went to a Christmas party at the home of Dan Rosensweig, a Silicon Valley executive, and as he approached the house he saw someone who had been mentioned as a possible partner, Sheryl Sandberg, Google’s thirty-eight-year-old vice-president for global online sales and operations. Zuckerberg hadn’t called her before (why would someone who managed four thousand employees want to leave for a company that had barely any revenue?), but he went up and introduced himself. “We talked for probably an hour by the door,” Zuckerberg recalls. It turned out that Sandberg was ready for a new challenge.
Murdoch’s Best Friend
The NEw Yorker - April 11, 2011
Soon after Rupert Murdoch purchased Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, he transferred Robert Thomson from News Corp.’s Times of London, where he was the editor-in-chief, to New York, to become publisher of the Journal. The family intimate says, “Robert has a unique relationship with Rupert. He’s his closest friend, in the true sense of the word.”
Illustration for The New Yorker by Steve Brodner
The Dictator Index
The New Yorker - March 7, 2011
A profile of billionaire African mobile phone entrepreneur and inventor Mo Ibraham, who employs his wealth to battle the continent's dictators.
Tim Armstrong's Hail Mary Pass
The New yorkeR - February 7, 2011
AOL's purchase of the Huffington Post
Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down?
The New Yorker - January 21, 2011
Was the Google CEO pushed, or did he jump?
Illustration for The New Yorker by John Cuneo
You've Got News
The New Yorker - January 24, 2011
By purchasing the Huffington Post, CEO Armstrong seeks to take AOL back to the future, to a time when it played a central role in the Internet.
The Networker
The New Yorker - July 5, 2010
A profile of Saad Mohseni, Afghanistan's first media mogul.
PUBLISH OR PERISH
The New Yorker - April 26, 2010
Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business?
NON-STOP NEWS
The New Yorker - January 25, 2010
President Barack Obama is on a mission, his chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, told me, “not just to change politics in Washington but to change the culture of Washington, and the media is part of it.” This is hardly new. Abraham Lincoln commonly dismissed press criticism as “noise” and “gas” generated by ignorance and editorial self-importance. Marlin Fitzwater, the White House press secretary under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, compared the media to “an unwanted appendage, like a cocklebur that attaches to your pants leg.” This time, though, the battle between the President and the press is different. There is a third party involved—the Internet—and no one can control a story for long.
Illustration for The New Yorker by Steve Brodner
Ten Things Google Has Taught Us
CNN MONEY - October 26, 2009
Why Google is uniquely successful and what that means for the media world
Searching for Trouble
The New Yorker - October 12, 2009
Google has antagonized just about every traditional-media company at some point.
Illustration for The New Yorker by Mark Ulriksen
The Search Party
The New Yorker - January 14, 2008
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, believe that expanding their company’s lobbying operation in Washington, D.C., has become a necessity.
Promises, Promises
The New Yorker - January 14, 2008
What might the Wall Street Journal become if Rupert Murdoch owned it?
The Fixer
The New Yorker - February 12, 2007
Why New Yorkers call Howard Rubenstein when they’ve got a problem.
MAD AS HELL
The New Yorker - December 4, 2006
Lou Dobbs has been reborn as a populist—a full-throated champion of “the little guy,” an evangelical opponent of liberal immigration laws. His hour-long program, which airs at six, features Dobbs in a role that combines Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan. On the air, he boomingly assails the upper management of corporate America for its “outrageous” greed, pay packages, and corruption, its opposition to increasing the minimum wage, its hiring of “illegal aliens,” its ties to “Communist China,” and its eagerness to send American jobs overseas.
Photograph for The New Yorker by Martin Schoeller
Hollywood Ending
The New Yorker - July 24, 2006
Can a wiretap scandal bring down L.A.’s scariest lawyer, Bert Fields?
The Raid
The New Yorker - March 20 , 2006
How Carl Icahn got outmaneuvered by Richard Parsons when he attempted a hostile takeover of Time Warner.
The Inheritance
The New Yorker - December 19, 2005
Can Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., save the Times—and himself?
The Dawn Patrol
The New Yorker - August 8 & 15, 2005
The curious rise of morning television, and the future of network news.
Photograph for The New Yorker by Martin Schoeller / Corbis
Sign-off
The New Yorker - March 7, 2005
On the door to Dan Rather's office at CBS are two fading gold lines of script: "Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, / That here, obedient to their laws, we lie." The quotation, Rather told me — the words of the Spartans who died holding off the Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae — has served as an inspiration ever since Mrs. Spencer, his fourth-grade teacher in Houston, Texas, first read it aloud in class. "They fought to the last man," he said. "I read that as loyalty. That's what it's come to mean to me. Loyal to the very end. Loyal to their beliefs. Loyal to their code." Rather, it was clear, was talking about himself; it was December, and he and several CBS News colleagues were awaiting the results of an outside investigation into their work which threatened their livelihoods and their reputations.
Kerry's Brain
The New Yorker - September 20, 2004
Bob Shrum is one of the biggest names in the campaign business-but is he prepared to take on Bush?
How the Media Got That Way
The Los Angeles Times - April 4, 2004
Ken’s review of the books The Creation of the Media, by Paul Starr, and All the News That's Fit to Sell, by James T. Hamilton
Fortress Bush
The New Yorker - January 19, 2004
How George W. Bush’s White House closed ranks against the press corps.
Family Business
The New Yorker - November 3, 2003
Dow Jones is not like other companies. How long can that go on?
Vox Fox
The New Yorker - May 26, 2003
Roger Ailes is a television pioneer, someone who had no background in news and yet created something different in the TV news business. In large part because of Ailes, Fox News, in its short life—it débuted on October 7, 1996—has established an unmistakable identity: it is opinionated and conservative, and its news is delivered by people who themselves are often unabashedly opinionated and conservative. When Ted Turner launched the Cable News Network in 1980, CNN took the idea of all-news radio and transferred it to television. The Fox News idea was to make another sort of transition: to bring the heated, sometimes confrontational atmosphere of talk radio into the television studio.
Illustration for The New Yorker by Gerald Scarfe
Beauty and the Beast
The New Yorker - December 16, 2002
A profile of powerful movie studio boss Harvey Weinstein, a brilliant bully.
The Howell Doctrine
The New Yorker - June 10, 2002
A profile of Howell Raines, the executive editor of the New York Times
The Microsoft Verdict
The New Yorker - July 9, 2001
Both sides, it turns out, had reason to be pleased.
Photograph for The New Yorker by Martin Schoeller / Saba
The Lost Tycoon
The New Yorker - April 23, 2001
Now he has no wife, no job, and no empire, but Ted Turner may just save the world. Early last year, Turner seemed invincible. He was the largest shareholder in AOL Time Warner, owning around four per cent of the soon-to-be-merged companies; his celebrated name was on the door of a major division, Turner Broadcasting System; and his dimpled chin, gap-toothed smile, and pencil-thin Gable-esque mustache were recognizable everywhere.
Stay Tuned for More of the Same
The New Yorker - November 8, 1999
Bay Area community leaders were petitioning the F.C.C. to reject the merger between AMFM, Inc., and Clear Channel. “This is the flea biting the elephant,” one host admitted.
Wall Street Follies
The New Yorker - September 20, 1999
The CBS-Viacom merger, and how the clash of the two corporate cultures can subvert the grandest plans.
Hard Core
The New Yorker - August 16, 1999
Why does Bill Gates think that the Microsoft antitrust trial has been such a disaster for him?
What I Did At Summer Camp
The New Yorker -July 18, 1999
A reporter for first time gets inside Herb Allen's Sun Valley C.E.O. retreat.
Dept. of Airwaves
The New Yorker - November 9, 1998
How best to use the HDTV spectrum opening to the broadcast industry? The decision may effect the election in 2000.
The Last Sure Thing
The New Yorker - November 9, 1998
PointCast’s “push” technology was briefly the hottest new thing. Rupert Murdoch’s empire tried to buy it for almost half a billion dollars. What went wrong?
The Invisible Manager
The New Yorker - July 27, 1998
Can the reclusive executive who helped bring back the N.F.L. — and is embracing Howard Stern — reinvent CBS?
Brave New World Dept.
The New Yorker - July 13, 1998
At the dawn of high-speed cable Internet, John Malone’s sale of Tele-Communications, Inc., to A.T.&T., transforms the long-distance telephone firm into a multimedia telephone and cable company with potentially exclusive access to the Web.
Up Life’s Ladder
The New Yorker - June 8, 1998
Gerry Laybourne has been making risky decisions since she started in television. Leaving Disney, she puts women and children first.
The Don
The New Yorker - May 25, 1998
Why are so many politicians and journalists lining up to be insulted by radio host Don Imus? The Don is not pleased when visitors blather. He holds grudges, he is personally insulted when companies don’t reward his favorite charity, and if you don’t amuse him you’re whacked. Each morning, he is quick to let loose on “wimps,” “jerks,” “weasels,” and “punks.”
Illustration for The New Yorker by Michael Crawford
In the Company of Women
The New Yorker - April 20, 1998
Behaving like a woman was supposed to be bad for business, but the female executives of the entertainment and information industries are turning it to their advantage.
Life in Broadcasting
The New Yorker - April 13, 1998
The Roone Arledge era at ABC news — which began 21 years ago, and which has redefined the look and feel of American news coverage — is ending in June
Demolition Man
The New Yorker - November 17, 1997
Mark Willes tore down the traditional wall between editorial and advertising. Will that save the L.A. Times?
Only the Fast Survive
The New Yorker - October 20 & 27, 1997
An E-mail exchange with Andrew S. Grove, the chairman and C.E.O. of Intel.
AMERICAN KEIRETSU
The New Yorker - October 20 & 27, 1997
The six most powerful media companies are borrowing the ancient Japanese custom of co-opting the competition.
The IMpossible Business
The New Yorker - October 6, 1998
Since Gutenberg, publishing has been in crisis. The current crisis might be its most serious. And the outcome might change the business forever.
The Emmy Factory
The New Yorker - September 15, 1997
Why does everyone seem to win television’s most recognized award?
The Microsoft Provocateur
The New Yorker - May 12, 1997
For a decade, Nathan Myhrvold, Bill Gates's corporate gadfly, has been writing copious, bombastic, brilliant, and confidential memos for his boss. To read them is to understand a lot about Microsoft — and the future.
Fathers and Daughters
The Nightingale-Bamford School magazine - Winter / Spring 1997
I’ve never been called a “soccer mom,” but I qualify. Unlike my dad, who left the house early each morning and returned expecting dinner on the table, I neither go to an office nor stray far from my refrigerator. As a writer I fit into another category: Work-at-home dad. Which is not so different from “soccer mom.”
The Bloomberg Threat
The New Yorker - March 10, 1997
Why does America's newest media mogul scare Dow Jones?
The Man Who Disappeared
The New Yorker - January 6, 1997
At one time, a whole generation of Times reporters wished they could write like McCandlish Phillips. Then he left them all for God.
Inside Story
The New Yorker - November 10, 1996
When the 1996 Presidential race ended, the press called it an awful, dispiriting campaign. President Clinton and Bob Dole, many wrote, were negative and cynical and had become slaves to the latest poll. Were they right?
Marriage, No Honeymoon
The New Yorker - July 29, 1996
When Disney acquired ABC for more than $19 billion, they created the world's largest media company. Will the merger be as good for the public as it may be for Disney?
BehinD the Times
The New Yorker - June 10, 1996
Many believe that Howell Raines, the current editorial-page editor, will be the next editor of the New York Times. Raines has his detractors, including journalists who believe he is arrogant and too pugilistic, but few doubt his qualifications or deny that Raines would invest the newsroom with more spirit.
The Re-education of Michael Kinsley
The New Yorker - May 13, 1996
What's been going on since the Beltway contrarian and the corporate cyber whizzes in Seattle got together to create a new kind of electronic magazine? Some very interesting ideas about journalism.
The News Rush
The New Yorker - March 18, 1996
Last October, the top executives of NBC and of Microsoft met on the fifty-second floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza to talk about a dramatic news partnership. Why are the networks so eager to invade CNN's turf?
That's Entertainment
The New Yorker - February 12, 1996
These are giddy days in the industry, and C.E.O.s keep losing their heads.
The Wages of Synergy
The New Yorker - November 27, 1995
Comment about journalistic integrity and the corporate restructuring of media. As companies converge, occasions for journalistic conflicts of interest proliferate.
Awesome
The New Yorker - August 14, 1995
Michael Eisner's comeback and his probable peace with Jeffrey Katzenberg crown a succession of mogul mergers and breakups that tops anything on TV.
Ovitzorama
The New Yorker - June 12, 1995
The buzzing about whether Michael Ovitz will leave the Creative Artists Agency to head up MCA has become an echo chamber.
Fighting words
The New Yorker - June 12, 1995
Michael Eisner's comeback and his probable peace with Jeffrey Katzenberg crown a succession of mogul mergers and breakups that tops anything on TV.
Pay Per Views
The New Yorker - June 5, 1995
With legislation pending, what can a media C.E.O. do to get Congress on his side? PAC funds help, but the new Republicans want more than just money.
The Consigliere
The New Yorker - May 22, 1995
There are big decisions yet to be made in the MCA-Seagram deal, and they may all involve Herbert Allen.
The Race for a Global Network
The New Yorker - March 6, 1995
G.E.'s Jack Welch was trying to unload NBC. But now NBC has a strategy, while CBS reels from Howard Stringer's departure.
Selling the Air
The New Yorker - February 13, 1995
Who will control the airwaves? This year may see a decision, and the battle is on between the new Congress and the F.C.C. — and its chairman, Reed Hundt.
Redstone's Secret Weapon
The New Yorker - January 16, 1995
Frank Bondi is the one who "makes the numbers" at Viacom — and last year those numbers got Paramount and Blockbuster for the company.
The Human Factor
The New Yorker - September 26, 1994
Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg were one of the steadiest and most successful teams in Hollywood. So why did they force a split that neither man wanted?
The $64,000 Question
The New Yorker - September 19, 1994
Thirty-five years after the quiz-show scandal, a group of network executives consider the question: Is television still cheating?
Fee Speech
The New Yorker - September 12, 1994
Who, besides members of Congress, accepts money from special interests? Often, the journalists most eager to sneer at politicians for it.
Network for Sale?
The New Yorker - July 25, 1994
In the wake of Barry Diller's failed bid for CBS, who will own the network isn't clear, but some truths about mergers in the new electronic media are.
Back in Play
The New Yorker - July 18, 1994
Barry Diller has said that network broadcasting is the past, so what does he see for CBS? And what will happen now that Larry Tisch has put CBS in play?
Rising Son
The New Yorker - June 6, 1994
From the time Edgar Bronfman, Jr., skipped college for a career in Hollywood to his decision to take over and redirect a large part of his family's Seagram Company, he has had a clear sense of what he wants his achievements to be. Some nervous executives at Time Warner are wondering where they fit into his plans.
Room at the Top
The New Yorker - April 18, 1994
Joseph Lelyveld ascends to the Times' editorship. It was the naming of the new No. 2--and what it said about the future--that kept everyone guessing.
The Magic Box
The New Yorker - April 11, 1994
Time Warner is testing its futuristic vision of services that will be available from the TV. But how much interaction do Americans really want? And is their interactive model the right one?
Promise Her the Moon
The New Yorker - February 14, 1994
To the television networks, the star power of a Diane Sawyer is ever more crucial. So another contract bidding war has begun--led again by Fox.
John Malone: Flying Solo
The New Yorker - February 7, 1994
John Malone, who engineered the merger between his TCI and Bell Atlantic, is the pioneering cable titan whom Al Gore once called Darth Vader. Despite charges of monopoly and deception, Malone has become the most powerful man in television, and has the industry and Capitol Hill wondering where he'll go next.
Under the Wire
The New Yorker - January 17, 1994
Will the telecommunications revolution end in monopoly or Big Brotherhood? Neither, if Al Gore gets his way.
TV's New Gold Rush
The New Yorker - December 13, 1993
American programming has invaded overseas markets once dominated by state-run television, and ABC's Herb Granath has led the charge.
The ElectroniC Parent
The New Yorker - November 8, 1993
The entertainment industry is scrambling for an answer to violence after Janet Reno’s proposals for taming TV violence, but a San Francisco radio show may already have one.
The Last Studio in Play
The New Yorker - October 4, 1993
Barry Diller and Sumner Redstone differ about where their industry is going, and Paramount may prove to be their testing ground.
Raiding the Global Village
The New Yorker - August 2, 1993
CNN's global dominance faces challenges from new multinational network linkups and from changes in what the world wants to watch.
Opening Up the Times
The New Yorker - June 28, 1993
Can the New York Times, America's family-owned newspaper of record, function as a democracy? Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., who succeeded his father as publisher a year and a half ago, wants to change the power structure of the Times. And he has put his top editors through some soul-searching to see if they can make it happen.
What Won't They Do?
The New Yorker - May 17, 1993
Hollywood decision-makers discuss the social impact of the big screen and the small screen--and where the entertainment industry's responsibilities end.
Changing Channels
The New Yorker - March 15, 1993
While NBC and ABC grapple with management successions, mergers, and Mike Ovitz as producer, a new form of cable threatens to change the rules.
Barry Diller's Search for the Future
The New Yorker - February 22, 1993
Diller's new venture began with a laptop and a home-shopping cable network — and it stunned Hollywood. But it may make him billions. And herald the future.
Late-Night Gamble
The New Yorker - February 1, 1993
NBC suffered a major blow to its prestige when it lost David Letterman, but will it get the last laugh?
How the Politicians and the Public Learned to Loathe the Media
Esquire - November 1992
The swarm of reporters hovered outside Blake’s coffee shop in Manchester, New Hampshire, waiting for the candidate to appear. Suddenly Bill Clinton stepped out into the New England cold—not that you could see him, of course. What you could see were the boom microphones and TV cameras and tape recorders, all diving toward the dense center, reporters frantic to capture the moment—that gotcha! question, that gaffe—that would kill one candidate’s quest for the presidency.
THE LIFE OF RILEY
Vanity Fair - April 1992
Pat Riley, former star coach of the L.A. Lakers, is now pushing the resurgent New York Knicks into the upcoming N.B.A. play-offs—but will he push them too far?
Larry Tisch, Who Mistook His Network For a Spreadsheet
Esquire - September 1991
In five years as CEO, he has had one passion: saving money. He’s never understood why his employees hate him so much. Or why he may end up destroying CBS.
Governor
Part I — The New Yorker — April 9, 1984
Part II — The New Yorker — April 16, 1984
Profile of Mario Cuomo, sworn in as governor of N.Y. on Jan. 1, 1983. He is being touted as one of the Democratic Party's prospects for national office. On issues that interest liberals he takes the correct position. But in his speeches he often refers to God, his Roman Catholicism, and to family with the patriotism of an immigrant's son and this makes him popular among more conservative voters. His willingness to compromise casts him as a moderate with potentially broad appeal.
Ralph Nader, Public Eye
Esquire - December 1983
The public interest, not public relations, has long been Ralph Nader’s primary concern. Blunt, uncompromising, relentless, Nader moved against powerful, well-financed institutions to alert citizens to myriad hazards.
A Certain Poetry
Part I — The New Yorker — June 6, 1983
Part II — The New Yorker — June 13, 1983
Profile of Jean Riboud, chairman of Schlumberger, Inc., a multinational corporation dealing mainly with oil drilling. With assets of $16 billion, there are only three other companies worth more: Exxon, I.B.M., and A.T.&T. Riboud, while a hugely successful capitalist, retains the Socialist political views of his youth and numbers among his friends mostly artists and writers. Founded in 1919 by Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, the corporation's major breakthrough came in 1927 with the invention of the electrical resistance log, which made drilling for oil profitable.
The Underclass
Part I: The New Yorker — November 9, 1981
Part II: The New Yorker — November 16, 1981
Part III: The New Yorker — November 23, 1981
“Reporter at Large” about the underclass or hard-core unemployed. Few training or job programs reach them. An experiment to help, called supported work, was designed by a N.Y.-based nonprofit corp., the Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. (M.D.R.C.). One of its projects is the Wildcat Skills Training Center on W. 37 St. It aims to prepare students for the real world, concentrating on the development of social skills and work habits. The students are criminals, drug addicts, or pushers, alcoholics, welfare mothers.
The Mayor
Part I: The New Yorker — September 3, 1979
Part II: The New Yorker — September 10, 1979
Profile of Mayor Edward Koch (who became Mayor in January 1978). He was the second of three children, born in the Bronx in 1924. His parents were poor Jewish immigrants from Poland. The Mayor's current popularity results because he is not viewed as a liberal. He calls himself a "sane liberal." Actually he's a pragmatist. He identifies with the center of the national Democratic Party.
More for Less
The New Yorker - July 25, 1977
An in depth report on the extravagant employee work rules and mismanagement of New York City's government, a reason city taxpayers spend three times as much as they did ten years ago to receive the same level of police, fire, sanitation, and education service. And why this is not a liberal or a conservative issue, but a consumer issue.