The Media and the Mayor's Race

"... an exceptional work... Kaniss achieves a journalistic hat trick with her book: She's simultaneously fascinating, evenhanded and very tough." --American Journalism Review

"Kaniss' study reveals important and troubling trends in urban reporting, and is well worth reading... " --Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

"What emerges from Kaniss' well-written work is a sense of just how dangerous the media can be, how petulance and cynicism often infect the news.... Thanks to the remarkable access granted to Kaniss by both politicians and reporters, the reader is taken behind the scenes and sees firsthand the forces that shape our news, including the foibles of those who present it." --Philadelphia Magazine

"The book is readable and entertaining, as Kaniss... creates a motley cast of politicos and media warriors, while she follows around the chief players in the campaign... the book puts flesh on some of the often-heard criticisms of newspapers and television." --Editor & Publisher

"... everything you would ever want in a volume about politics." --Quill

"[Kaniss's] portrayal of how political stories are born and played in newspapers and on radio and television is masterful and makes the book a must-read." --Philadelphia City Paper

"... savvy observations... Very thorough." --Kirkus Reviews

"The result is an interesting, well-written, well-researched study presented in a narrative style much like that of Theodore White." --Choice

This close-up of the 1991 Philadelphia mayor's race gives an unsettling look into the lamentable state of local media coverage of politics nationwide. Phyllis Kaniss followed reporters on the campaign trail, analyzed local news stories, and talked with candidates and their staffs about their attempts to get--even control--media coverage. The result is a fast-paced, insider's view of local news and local politics and of how media treatment of local elections has profound implications for all citizens.