Les Brown (Journalist)

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Lester Louis Brown (20 December 1928 - 4 November 2013) was a "pioneer in television journalism."^[1]

Les Brown was a journalist, publisher and book author. His focus was reporting on the business of television, not as a critic of shows. Nicholas Johnson of the New York Times said: "Drawing upon his rich reservoir of anecdotal material, and the files of Variety, Brown's Televi$ion is a fascinating, eminently readable account of network television in 1970 — the business behind the box...[T]hink of your worst and wildest suspicion about how television works. Read Les Brown's book. The odds are very good he'll prove to your horror the situation is, in fact, much worse than you ever feared to believe."^[2]

Brown founded the magazine Channels of Communications in 1981.^[3]

Family and childhood[edit]

Early Life[edit]

Brown was born in Indiana Harbor (East Chicago), IN, on 20 December 1928.^[4] He was a first generation American of Polish-German Jewish descent. His parents, Irving H. Brown and Helen Feigenbaum, immigrated to the United States shortly before the First World War.^[5] His father ran a store, and Brown grew up with his older sisters, Marion and Anita.^[6] He was the first of his family to attend college, graduating from Roosevelt University with a B.A. in English in 1950. He served in the US Army in 1951-1953 during the Korean War, then returned to Chicago.^{[citation needed]}

Family[edit]

Brown met Jean Rosalie Slaymaker when she was working at the Chicago Sun Times. They had their first child, Jessica, in 1960. He moved the family in 1965 (see Journalism section) to settle in Larchmont, NY, where they had two more children, Joshua and Rebecca.^[7]

Journalism[edit]

Les Brown's journalism career began in the Army, writing a newsletter for his post. Upon returning to Chicago, he found a job with the show-business newspaper Variety. In 1965 he transferred to New York to become Variety's TV/Radio editor.^[8] Passed over when Variety editor Abel Green died in 1973, Brown joined the New York Times as Radio/Television Editor.

Brown's career in television journalism would span a time of tremendous innovation in technology, including the beginning of direct broadcast by satellite, and pay channels of television,^[9] and he would cover television's coverage of major events like Watergate.^[10]

Books[edit]

Brown's 1971 book, Televi$ion: The Business Behind the Box,^[11] "was pioneering in its depiction about how the TV industry actually did and didn't work."^[12] Brown's assessment was blunt. "The business of television," he wrote, "is to deliver audiences to advertisers."^[13]

Les Brown's Encyclopedia of Television was first published as The New York Times Encyclopedia of Television^[14]

Keeping Your Eye on Television. 1979. Pilgrim Press^[15][16] ISBN 9780829803761

Fast Forward: The New Television and American Society, with Savannah Waring Walker. 1983. Andrews McMeel Publications, ISBN 9780836262087

Electric Media, by Les Brown and Sema Marks, was one of six books in the "Making Contact" series of published by Harcourt Brace. It covers two technologies then overtaking the country: television (Brown) and computers (Marks). ISBN 0-15-318734-4

Publishing[edit]

During a strike at the New York Times in 1981,^[17] Brown founded Channels of Communication, as a non-profit venture funded by the Markle Foundation. Channels was later acquired by Norman Lear.^[18] Brown left in 1987 and Channels folded in 1990.^[19]

Brown launched a trade magazine, Television Business International, in 1988. It was also owned by Norman Lear's Act III Publishing. He served as editor until 1992, then as a columnist.^[20]

Music[edit]

Brown opened the Gate of Horn, a 100-seat folk music club in Chicago in 1956^[21] with his college classmate Albert Grossman. Grossman would later manage Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and The Band. The Gate of Horn hosted Roger McGuinn, Odetta, Lenny Bruce and Bill Cosby, among other future stars.

During those days, Brown wrote the lyrics to the song "Abilene". Set to music by John D. Loudermilk, it was first recorded by Bob Gibson. A cover by George Hamilton IV reached number one on the country music chart for four weeks. Abilene is a country standard, and the name of one of Brown's granddaughters.

Social Issues[edit]

Ten years before the birth of social media, Brown warned about the dangers to democracy as sources of news and commentary proliferated.^[22]

Brown frequently wrote on subjects of regulation.^[23]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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