The Twisted World of Media Tycoons

The Dispatch Podcast

The Dispatch

News, Politics

4.6 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The worlds of media tycoons are often so strange and twisted, it's hard to believe the stories aren't fiction. In Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy, authors James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams chronicle the dramatic story of one of the most powerful media dynasties in history. Join Steve Hayes as he interviews Stewart and Abrams on the history of the Redstone family and their rise to power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. Here for a discussion with James B. Stewart and
0:06.0	Rachel Abrams about their new book, Unscripted, a story of Hollywood and media intrigue involving
0:13.1	Sumner Redstone, Les Moonbes, CBS, and Viacom. James Stewart is author of Deep State, Tangled Web's
0:24.5	Heart of a Soldier, Blind Eye, Bloodsport, and the Blockbuster book, Den of Thebes. He's currently
0:31.5	a columnist for the New York Times at a professor at Columbia Journalism School and one of Pulitzer
0:37.1	Prize in 1988 for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading. Rachel Abrams was a
0:43.6	media reporter for the New York Times and is now a senior producer and reporter for the television
0:47.6	series, The New York Times Presents. In 2018, she was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for
0:53.3	Public Service for reporting that exposed sexual harassment and misconduct. I hope you'll stick
0:59.0	around for a great conversation about an absolutely fascinating book.
1:10.8	Welcome Jim and Rachel to the Dispatch Podcast. Thanks for having us.
1:23.1	Thank you. Well, I'm excited to jump into this book and to talk about it. It will be the case that
1:29.1	most regular listeners to the Dispatch Podcast will be surprised that I'm hosting a conversation
1:35.2	about a book that is as much about Hollywood as it is about journalism. I am sort of at least in
1:40.7	our small corner of the world, famously ignorant about pop culture and have this strong aversion
1:47.8	to everything Hollywood. But the book was so fascinating on so many levels. I'd read your reporting
1:55.5	in the Times and elsewhere on a wide variety of topics including this one. So I was very eager to
2:02.1	get you on and eager to dive into the book. I think the best place to start is how your reporting came
2:12.0	to be this book. How did you decide to take the stories that you had come to learn through your
2:18.7	reporting at the Times and elsewhere and turn this into a book? Well, Jim and I did not even know
2:25.0	each other before we partnered on our very first story at the New York Times about CBS and Less Moon
2:31.4	Vest that and all of this that ultimately inspired the book. But basically, Jim had gotten a tip
	...

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