Speak Softly and Carry A Big Stick

How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power

book | April 28, 2005

    J. H. Snider

AmazonLink: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595584714/

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Speak Softly describes the Machiavellian strategies local TV broadcasters have used to influence U.S. spectrum and media policy. As Congress gears up to "fix" the disastrous broadcast spectrum policies it passed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Speak Softly provides a timely reminder why the same mistakes are likely to be repeated.

Praise for Speak Softly*

Broadcasters have always been coddled by politicians, and Speak Softly... explains how and why. J.H. Snider tells the story with the rigor of a scholar, the doggedness of an investigative reporter and the zeal of a reformer.

BY: Paul Taylor, Executive Vice President, Pew Research Center

J.H. Snider offers an extremely comprehensive and well-documented look 'behind the curtain' at how the National Association of Broadcasters drives its national legislative agenda. This is must reading for not only political scientists but for all who are interested in media policy and how it gets made in Washington.

BY: Chellie Pingree, President and CEO, Common Cause

This astute book is a first-rate work of original scholarship. It also provides an unsettling description of broadcasters’ policy influence. When their own interests are involved, broadcasters cannot be trusted to act in the way they demand of all others in society. Readers will no doubt question whether J.H. Snider’s recommended solution is a practical one. But no reader will question his call for new measures.

BY: Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, Harvard University

Having played a role in the mad-cap drama of telecommunications legislation Snider documents, I can tell you he has captured the essence of the machinations, strange bedfellows, and almost single-minded, righteous self-interest that drives the telecommunications debate. Like it or not, this is how the power game is really played.

BY: Stephen R. Effros, Former President (1976–1999), Cable Telecommunications Association

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    J. H. Snider