“Ball Four Goes Hollywood”

When Jim Bouton’s book Ball Four hit bookshelves in 1970, it exploded myths, revealed secrets, and offered tales of baseball, theretofore kept protected from the public.  If reporters knew about Mickey Mantle’s alcohol problem, for example, they...

The Unsung Hero of CBS

On the day before Christmas in 2006, Frank Stanton passed away at the age of 98.  A broadcasting pioneer, Stanton served as CBS chief William Paley’s lieutenant for decades, helping mold the television industry into a media force.  Unquestionably, CBS earned its...

The Man Behind the Tiffany Network

Under William Paley, CBS became the gold standard of television programming in news and entertainment.  Nicknamed the Tiffany Network, CBS fell under Paley’s patriarchy from the 1920s to 1990, when Paley died. It was Paley who gave Edward R. Murrow an outlet to...

Origins: “All in the Family”

All in the Family dominated prime time programming in the first half of the 1970s.  It was a jewel for the Tiffany Network, a nickname for CBS because of the network’s high quality news and entertainment programming. Created by Norman Lear, All in the Family...