Ken Auletta

In ranking him as America’s premier media commentator, the Columbia Journalism Review concluded, “No other reporter has covered the news communication business as thoroughly.”

In his award-winning “Annals of Communications” profiles for The New Yorker, Auletta chronicles major events and explores the powerful people shaping the cable, television, Hollywood studio, newspaper, publishing and technology industries.

He analyzes not only the quantifiable aspects like P&L statements and the shifting landscape of government regulations and mergers, but also the human factors that help illuminate decisions.

Auletta’s profiles have revealed, with unique intimacy, the inner-workings of some of the most famous (and notorious) personalities in the media, from Rupert Murdoch, Harvey Weinstein and Sumner Redstone to Michael Eisner, Barry Diller and Bill Gates. His persistent and probing, yet agreeable personality has allowed him to penetrate rarely-visited sanctums, taking readers with him into a judge’s chambers, a Murdoch business summit negotiation, New York Times page one deliberations, Viacom board meetings, meetings of the Bush White House communications team, and Allen & Co.’s annual summer camp for media moguls.

In fall 2004 Auletta released Media Man, a biography of Ted Turner based on his New Yorker profile, “The Lost Tycoon,” for which he won a National Magazine Award. In late 2003 he wrote Backstory: Inside the Business of News, a comprehensive commentary on the dominant figures and institutions in journalism and the media, from Roger Ailes and Fox News to Howell Raines and The New York Times. 

Ken Auletta was wonderful. He was an informative, poised, charming speaker. At the reception afterwards, he was engaging and very open to being with people.

Cheltenham Township Adult School 

His previous eight books include four national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed and Glory on Wall Street; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway; and World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies, which was cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for its stunning interviews with the federal judge who presided over the Microsoft antitrust case. Other titles include The Streets Were Paved with Gold, The Underclass, Hard Feelings, and The Art of Corporate Success.

Auletta is a regular guest on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose and Nightline, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Esquire and The New Republic. He has won numerous journalism awards and was selected as one of the 20th century’s top 100 business journalists by a distinguished panel of his peers.