Rating: 
Summary: CNN is a joke in this book...
Review: While the book was not a real great read, it did point out that the CNN today is not the same network that was formed by Turner. CNN in the 1980's was the place for news. The anchors and reporters like Susan Rook and Bernard Shaw reported news that was in depth and compelling. Fast forward to now, and CNN is a part of Time Warner and the AOL people, and it is a joke. They are phooney Liberals,who complain. They do not report the news, they just complain and act like kids. Fox News and MSNBC are the new conservatives, they are of all the Wall Journal news types who talk about business,stocks and bonds, and everything pertaining to the American Ecomey. They are also the biggest critics of the entertainment indusry and want change in Hollywood. Considering that they both are also part of companies that include Movie Studios, will this new conservatism find it's way into how Fox and Universal make and produce movies.....Only Time will Tell.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling and smart
Review: A terrific book! One of the most insightful and intelligent books about the media in a long time. Author Collins knows how to get to the heart of the matter, understanding that the battle between Fox News and its rivals is more than just a simple flat recounting of dull statistics and rating points and was more importantly a story of human follies involving jealousies, incompetence, bitter rivalries and cutthroat opportunism. Breezy without being lightweight and detailed without becoming heavy handed, Crazy Like A Fox is smart, funny and compelling from beginning to
Rating: 
Summary: Informative and fast-paced
Review: Closer to four stars than three, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. And don't let the title fool you--this book is not strictly about the Fox News Channel. Instead, it's a most interesting look at the mounting race between CNN, MSNBC and FNC for cable news viewers, and it has little to do with politics, other than touching on the major stories of the last 20 years and the way these networks covered them.Collins, a reporter for the L.A. Times, goes from present to past to present again throughout the course of the book, which is a tad confusing at times, but he paints a fascinating picture of how these networks got off the ground and the mergers which took place to pump money into them. CNN, of course, was the only game in town for many years, and Collins explains how Ted Turner ran a surprisingly bare-bones operations in the network's initial years--and how close he was to having to shut the whole thing down at times. Collins describes how the first Gulf War was the shining moment for the Atlanta-based network--and how CNN couldn't sustain the momentum in later years. What's particularly interesting is the relationship between broadcast and cable television, and how each broadcast network has brought on board a cable network (i.e. NBC and MSNBC) or at least gotten very close to doing so before deciding not to (ABC). And lots of space is given to folks like Jack Welch and Bill Gates, two major players who were in on the merger between NBC and Microsoft. The FOX phenomenon is covered at length, and FOX news boss Roger Ailes is profiled throughout the book. Collins paints a picture of marketing and entertainment as well as an obvious pro-USA slant in their war coverage which has propelled the network to the top of the cable heap, and there are interesting and candid quotes from FNC personnel like Bill O'Reilly, Brit Hume and Shepherd Smith as well as Ailes. Collins also touches on the often difficult relations between true news types who run news divisions and entertainment-oriented managers who have an eye on making these networks profitable as well as credible. A quick, easy read, with quotes from major and minor players in the industry. Strongly recommended if you enjoy watching cable news or following the business world in general. And you'll get some chuckles from some of the egos which are described.
Rating:
Summary: good book
Review: great read-i learned so much that I didnt know before and stuff I did-he talks about the problems CNN and MSNBC had which helped fox and some history on all three
Rating:
Summary: News Junkies won't be able to out it down.
Review: I am not an avid reader. I read books here and there. But never, never, have I bought a book and read it ALL in one day. I received this book today from Amazon at around 6pm. By 12:30 that night I read the last page. What a fantastic story. While Roger Ailes is the main focus of this boo, the author has a difficult time staying on track. He'll bring up a interesting story and then seem to go on a tangent before wrapping it up nicely at the end. While the cover of the book toutes this as how Fox beat CNN, it's more of how CNN lost it's crown. Interesting stories include Paula Zahn's exit and Greta Van Sustren's arrival. Over all quite a read for any cable news junkie. I admit I am a loyal Fox Fan, but it's still quite a take on the corporate news world's cutthroat business.
Rating:
Summary: How dumb do you think we are?
Review: Mr. Collins seems to think CNN and other major news organizations present unvarnished, unbiased news. How dumb does he think we are? All major news organizations bias the information they present either by selective reporting and failure to cover stories, by use of biased language ("conservative talk radio," "radical clerical," "anti-abortion," "pro-choice," etc) and for most by a completely secular blindness. This book is junk food for the secular, partisan Democrats and for those who see conspiracy everywhere.
Rating:
Summary: It's really a book about CNN
Review: The book is 75% about CNN, 15% about MSNBC, and a little bit about the Fox News Channel. It basically gives a full history of every aspect of CNN, claiming it's objective (except for those little bits about its leaders' ties and friendship with Democrats and left-wing ideologues); somehow Fox, with all its opinion shows (never mind that CNN has two separate channels, one of headline news, the other of news+opinion) happens to somehow be more popular, though why that is true is never made clear, other than that there was a lot of turmoil in CNN.
I was waiting to find how FNC works but as I skimmed through to the end, I realized it was amost exclusively about only CNN. It is "well written", but then so was my high school essay on Silas Marner, and no one is clamoring for that little tidbit.
So don't let the title mislead you; it has very little to do with what the people at the Fox News Channel did, other than start a station and populate it with people whom the author doesn't particularly like. Of course the many viewers of FNC seem to have a different view.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, that's $24.95 I'll never see again...
Review: There is a great book in the cable news wars, and how the Fox recipe for brassy, high-speed, point-of-view reportage won favor and changed the character of information flow, and therefore politics and policy, in the US. This ain't it. A facile once-over based on only about 25 interviews, press clippings, and other peoples' books, "Crazy Like a Fox" is only about 63,000 words long, barely qualifying it as a "book." It's 218 pages of big, widely spaced type. It does not explain how Fox News beat CNN -- it just recounts the ratings. It offers no theory or analysis as to why CNN hasn't been able to use its sterling brand to lure habitual viewers. Its account of CNN's struggle through the '90s appears based on a literal handful of sources: I count only six CNN interview subjects, of whom just three remain there today: Eason Jordan, Lou Dobbs and Bill Hemmer. (With such thin sourcing the book is, I think, hugely unfair to former CNN president Tom Johnson, a thoroughly decent man who gets strung up here, perhaps because Collins simply didn't talk to enough people.) There are far more Fox sources; Fox news chief Roger Ailes is quoted on everything. The book glosses over or ignores major episodes (how did Connie Chung get a tabloid show in CNN's prime time? Why did Bernard Shaw retire?) and inflates minor ones to absurd heights (Collins seems to believe Greta Van Susteren jumped from CNN to Fox because, one night, someone borrowed her anchor chair before her show). Utterly invisible is the army of "traditional" CNN managers, producers and correspondents who built the network, then left, got fired or were forced out during CNN's decade-long meltdown. Shaw, Charles Bierbauer, Frank Sesno, Bob Furnad (the producer/tactician behind CNN's greatest breaking-news coverage), Jeff Flock, Lou Waters... none make the book. Worse, except for the quotable and profane Ailes, the participants we do get are mere stick figures. We never learn how and why Brit Hume, a very interesting figure in TV journalism, left ABC News to become Fox News' first major "get" at a time when Fox stood for nothing, or why Neil Cavuto came over from CNBC, or why, in the midst of CNN's free fall, Soledad O'Brien was persuaded to migrate over from NBC News. We need motives and insight and don't get either. As for structure, "Crazy Like a Fox" reads like the manuscript fell on the floor on the way to the printer. Events occur out of timeline, or Collins returns to them again and again, or dates are missing -- it doesn't offer a coherent sequence of events. The writing is slapdash and wooden. (Sample sentence: "Van Susteren's contract had a provision that barred her from negotiating for jobs with rival companies for ninety days prior to the expiration of her contract." Man, get an editor.) It reads in parts like a term paper that had to be turned in Monday morning. You look at the really good business books of the last ten years, like Tom Petzinger's "Hard Landing," about the airline industry, or Peter Biskind's "Down and Dirty Pictures," about the independent movie business, and you see character, plot, motive, timeline, struggle, sweep, romance and drama. You look at "Crazy Like a Fox" and you see sloppy prose bridges built between interview quotes and newspaper clippings, building to no conclusion or even a point of view -- it's not even in the same league. Like I said, the Fox/CNN/MSNBC drama is hugely important culturally and politically, and the people involved are juicy, passionate figures. But you won't know it from reading "Crazy Like a Fox."
Rating: 
Summary: Less about Fox and More about CNN
Review: This book should have been called, "CNN's Big Fat Excuse for Losing the Ratings War" It was more about CNN Than Fox. Short and interesting but certainly not much about FOX which is what the cover leads you to believe. Strangely, the author credits CNN with great graphics which is really odd. FOX has knockout graphics and has revolutionized the industry but no mention of that. I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Less about Fox and More about CNN
Review: This book should have been called, "CNN's Big Fat Excuse for Losing the Ratings War" It was more about CNN Than Fox. Short and interesting but certainly not much about FOX which is what the cover leads you to believe. Strangely, the author credits CNN with great graphics which is really odd. FOX has knockout graphics and has revolutionized the industry but no mention of that. I was disappointed.
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