Preview of The Evening News Summary:

As in his previous novels, information, suspense, and melodrama are the main components of the story Hailey tells in The Evening News. The modern institution examined in this work is network television news, namely, the world of CBA-TV News in New York City. On the day the story begins, CBA rushes to cover live an airplane crash in time for the first edition of the evening broadcasts. The crash forces the various teams to function at their maximum efficiency.

While dramatizing how they cope with this emergency, Hailey provides an overview of the technical tasks, editorial decisions and practical problems involved in putting together a primetime daily news program. Here, and later on in the book, he identifies the nature of the hierarchy in this institution, describes the qualities the best professionals in the field need to possess and comments on how the nature...