Ticking Clock, Ira Rosen
Ticking Clock, Ira Rosen
16 Rating(s)
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
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Ticking Clock
Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes

Author: Ira Rosen

Narrator: Ira Rosen, L. J. Ganser

Unabridged: 11 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/16/2021


Synopsis

This program includes a prologue read by the author.

Two-time Peabody Award-winning writer and producer Ira Rosen reveals the intimate, untold stories of his decades at America’s most iconic news show. It’s a 60 Minutes story on 60 Minutes itself.

When producer Ira Rosen walked into the 60 Minutes offices in June 1980, he knew he was about to enter television history. His career catapulted him to the heights of TV journalism, breaking some of the most important stories in TV news. But behind the scenes was a war room of clashing producers, anchors, and the most formidable 60 Minutes figure: legendary correspondent Mike Wallace.

Based on decades of access and experience, Ira Rosen takes readers behind closed doors to offer an incisive look at the show that invented TV investigative journalism. With surprising humor, charm, and an eye for colorful detail, Rosen delivers an authoritative account of the unforgettable personalities that battled for prestige, credit, and the desire to scoop everyone else in the game. As Mike Wallace’s top producer, Rosen reveals the interview secrets that made Wallace’s work legendary, and the flaring temper that made him infamous. Later, as senior producer of ABC News Primetime Live and 20/20, Rosen exposes the competitive environment among famous colleagues like Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, and the power plays between correspondents Chris Wallace, Anderson Cooper, and Chris Cuomo.

A master class in how TV news is made, Rosen shows listeners how 60 Minutes puts together a story when sources are explosive, unreliable, and even dangerous. From unearthing shocking revelations from inside the Trump White House, to an outrageous proposition from Ghislaine Maxwell, to interviewing gangsters Joe Bonanno and John Gotti Jr., Ira Rosen was behind the scenes of 60 Minutes' most sensational stories.

Highly entertaining, dishy, and unforgettable, Ticking Clock is a never-before-told account of the most successful news show in American history.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

About Ira Rosen

For nearly twenty-five years, IRA ROSEN has produced some of the most memorable, important, and groundbreaking stories for 60 Minutes. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Rosen was a senior producer of Primetime Live with Diane Sawyer. Rosen has won 24 National Emmys, four duPont Awards, two RFK Awards, and two Peabodys for his work. He is the coauthor of The Warning: Accident at Three Mile Island.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Debbie on March 19, 2021

I saw author Ira Rosen interviewed on tv recently and knew immediately I wanted to read his book Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes of 60 Minutes, as I watched that show for many years, and the subject matter is a virtual time capsule of my lifetime. I checked library digital offerings and immediately......more

Goodreads review by Glae R. Egoville on February 20, 2021

More of an insider's book I am of 2 minds about Ira Rosen's Ticking Clock. Initially I felt that he was describing the schtetl from hell which were his early days at the maniacally competitive CBS. I excused his acceptance of their obnoxious personalities as a factor of his ambition and youth. Mike W......more

Goodreads review by Slappy on March 11, 2021

A behind the scenes tell all about the glory years of 60 Minutes. How can you not like a book in which John Gotti comes off as the most decent person in the book, the author & his ego included.......more

Goodreads review by Alyssa on June 07, 2024

I thought this was a very informative book, but it possesses the major flaw many memoirs have: the narrator is unreliable. I felt like there were a couple points where it seemed Rosen was lying through his teeth. Additionally, he did not seem very supportive of the survivors of sexual assault and ho......more

Goodreads review by Ty on March 31, 2021

I'm not quite sure what my expectations were going in, but they were really not met. While this was purported to be a behind-the-scenes, tell-all type book, it glossed over a lot. The author went to great lengths to portray Mike Wallace as a jerk with little concern for anything outside his image an......more