Howard Rosenberg

In his two-and-a-half-hour interview, Howard Rosenberg speaks about his early interests, including athletics and writing. He describes his work as a reporter for the Moline Dispatch of Kansas, where he learned how to report and deliver on deadline. He recounts his move in the early 1970s to The Louisville Times of Kentucky where he lobbied to be the television critic. Rosenberg speaks about his investigative pieces about the deceptive practices of local public television in its use of funds. He details the way celebrities were interviewed through junkets and his own attempts to do independent interviews. He talks in great detail about the pieces he wrote as television critic/columnist for The Los Angeles Times, beginning in 1978, and recalls his difficulties in his early years. Rosenberg comments on some of his 1980s pieces, including one on the 1984 Olympics that led to his winning a Pulitzer Prize for Television Criticism in 1985. He discusses the flood of negative responses he got about his column following 9/11 when he criticized President George W. Bush. Lastly, he discusses several genres of television programming and how they've changed over the years. Karen Herman conducted the interview on December 16, 2008 in Los Angeles, CA.