Strange Bedfellows

A timely new edition of the classic journalism text, now featuring updated material on the importance of reporting in the age of media mistrust and fake news—and how journalists can use technology to navigate its challenges.

What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect
Revised and Updated 4th Edition
Co-authored with Bill Kovach

The year Bill Clinton was elected marked a turning point in politics. The three broadcast television networks lost their hegemony over presidential campaigns. A billionaire announced his candidacy on a cable call-in show. Talk radio became a force. Clinton went on MTV to talk about his underwear. The presidential debates turned to voters rather than journalists for the first time to ask the candidates questions. 

“Wonderfully entertaining…but also a penetrating peek at the people behind the camera”

— Ken Auletta

The roots of 21st century politics can be found in the pivot moment of the 1992 campaign more than any other. Strange Bedfellows tells the story of that tumultuous year from inside the media and the campaigns, with a particular view inside one network, thanks to an agreement between the author and ABC News, then the dominant television news source in America, for complete access for the duration of the race.

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Reviews

“Rosenstiel’s … searching and occasionally searing criticism of the media in the campaign year is a welcome tonic”

— Dan Balz, The Washington Monthly

 

“The best of the books on the 1992 campaign. An intelligent, original and educational critical inquiry”

— Ronnie Dugger, The New York Times

 

“Wise and iconoclastic…trenchant, breezy…the hot book on [the 1992] campaign. Rosenstiel has set a very high standard”

— Fred Barnes, The American Spectator

 

“Entertaining and insightful”

— Jerry Roberts, San Francisco Chronicle

 

“Fascinating, absorbing eloquent”

— Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

 

“An absorbing retrospective that raises as many questions as it answers.”

— Kirkus Reviews

 

“As one who produced network coverage of presidential campaigns in 1956, 1960, 1964, and 1968, this reviewer finds the contrasts with 1992 startling and most disquieting. Strange Bedfellows brings that contrast sharply into focus. Recommended for all libraries.”

— Chet Hagan, Library Journal

 

“Los Angeles Times correspondent Rosenstiel strips down layers of spin-doctoring, polling, sound-biting and advertising to reveal the relationship between the press and politics.”

— Publishers Weekly