CITIZEN NEWHOUSE - Hardcover

Carol Felsenthal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1888363878 ISBN 13: 9781888363876

Publisher: SEVEN STORIES PRESS, 1998

Synopsis

"Citizen Newhouse" brings to light one of the most powerful post-war figures in America -- one who has remained surprisingly secretive -- and his family's media dynasty. Carol Felsenthal, an acclaimed biographer, riveting writer, and savvy researcher, reveals that the Newhouse family's use of power is far from benign.

Focusing on his life and career, Felsenthal probes the character of S.I. Newhouse (known as "Si") and his family. For instance, she lays bare the role played by thuggish Roy Cohn in the affairs of Newhouse and his father. Cohn was Si's best friend and one-time aide to Senator Joe McCarthy. Felsenthal describes the murky circumstances surrounding the Justice Department's abandonment of an antitrust investigation that could have landed Si in jail, suggesting an unsavory relationship between media giants and the power brokers who both serve and use them.

Felsenthal also describes how Si's quirky behavior as a shy and awkward outsider has had far-reaching impact on the properties he owns, affecting -- and compromising -- the quality of the Newhouse "product" across the country and world. She discusses Si's flippant attitude toward finances, which she says contributes to, among other things, a loss at "The New Yorker" of an estimated $1 million a month.

This book, the result of four years of extensive research and over 400 interviews with Newhouse's friends, critics, relatives, and other players in the national media, is a compelling examination of the far-reaching impact that Si Newhouse has on media outlets like "The New Yorker" -- and on the information they disseminate to the public.

About this title

From the Author:

Si Newhouse's magazines affect almost everyone.
My subject, Si Newhouse, is not known to the general public, but his publications affect almost everyone. He is one of the richest men in the world--he and his business-partner brother are worth about $9 billion--and this is the story of the glamour and glitz of magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair, but also a great human story of a man born to great wealth but afflicted with an enormous deficit of self-confidence. It is also a rousing business story, a rags-to-riches tale--the company that owns Conde Nast was founded by Si's father, poor with only an 8th-grade education but with enormous determination that would eventually make him the owner of the largest privately-held media empire in the country. The characters in the story are a lively cast that ranges from lawyer/fixer Roy Cohn to Tina Brown to Harry Evans to Anna Wintour, the glamorous editor of Vogue.

About the Author:

CAROL FELSENTHAL is the author of several acclaimed biographies, including the best-selling Power, Privilege, and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story; Princess Alice: The Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Longworth; and The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority: The Biography of Phyllis Schlafly.

About this edition

• Publisher: SEVEN STORIES PRESS
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1888363878
• ISBN 13: 9781888363876
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 512