Ultimately Sunk by Its Sins of Omission

The perils of having just a little knowledge--seeing a tip but no iceberg--may be overrated. Even worse, surely, is having no knowledge at all.

That’s the good spin on a glossy new coffee table book that just came in (yes, your humble surrogate viewer does read occasionally) as part of this month’s raging TV affliction known as anniversary-itis.

The arrival of “Ultimate Biography” coincides with the 15th birthday of A&E;’s ongoing series of documentaries titled “Biography,” the vast bulk of which are ultimate space fillers. Some respond superficially to breaking news. Most are perfunctory and unimaginative hours that reek of mass production. Since 1999, they have been fronted blandly by Harry Smith. So it figures he would be assigned to write the preface for “Ultimate Biography.”

What’s striking is how closely this book copies the techniques of TV in profiling “250 of the most powerful, revered, infamous and interesting people who ever lived.”

The modus operandi of most newscasts, for example, is to render everything equal and homogenous: 45 seconds of car chase followed by 45 seconds of celebrities followed by 45 seconds of terrorism, all weighted the same, as if TV were flipping through a Rolodex of news.

As it is with the book’s baby bites of information. They come in five categories with 50 sub-categories, each containing a short profile supported by pictures and factoids (“Did you know ... ?”).

So Al Capone (Did you know he was a patron of the top jazz artists of his day?) gets a half-page under “Gangsters” in this rigid format, about the same space granted Jesus Christ under “Spiritual Teachers.” A profile of Evelyn Nesbit, a gorgeous femme fatale of the early 20th century, is followed by one for pop phenom Madonna. A half-page on Malcolm X is across from another on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., followed by one on George Wallace, as if all three were equally prominent in U.S. history.

Although handsomely presented, the material is thin. You get nothing from Muhammad’s profile, for example, that even hints at why a minority of Islam followers see in his teachings a call to violence that drove the terrorism of 9/11.

Even more notable are this A-list’s omissions. “Getting down to 250 subjects was no easy task,” Smith writes, “and by no means does it mean that these are the only people who have changed the world.” Amen.

A factoid on the movie “Quills,” about the list-making Marquis de Sade, mentions actor Geoffrey Rush. Yet the book excludes talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh, arguably the nation’s most influential conservative of the last decade.

You get Michelangelo, of course, but not that Michelangelo of contemporary media, Edward R. Murrow, whose pioneering news work in radio and TV for CBS became the standard by which broadcast journalists in the U.S. measured themselves for nearly half a century. Symbols matter. And whether fully deserved or not, Murrow’s reputation for integrity and heroism on the airwaves shone for decades as a beacon for others to follow.

The top 250 do include William Randolph Hearst, whose vast media empire at one point ran to 20 major newspapers, along with a slew of magazines, radio stations and news and movie syndicates.

Yet nowhere under “Tycoons & Moguls”--puh-leeeeeeze--is Rupert K. Murdoch, who years ago outgrew his reputation for being no more than a widely successful publisher of Hearst-ian tabloids. Murdoch’s global News Corp. holdings--running from TV Guide magazine to Fox and the Fox News Channel--make him probably the leading media mogul of this age.

The most powerful, too, for unlike AOL Time Warner and other worldwide media companies, Murdoch’s sprawl is strongly identified with a single individual, one whose reputation for imposing his own political will and pandering to his audience’s worst instincts (not always deserved) make him a lightning rod for controversy. But somehow he’s not here.

And whoa! The book gives you Tina Turner, but not Ted Turner, surely the most visionary media mogul of our time, a flamboyant Atlantan who redefined cable TV by launching a super station (WTBS) in 1979 and the nation’s first 24-hour news channel, CNN, a year later. In doing so, he helped reshape our views of ourselves and others.

Although initially ridiculed by the major broadcast networks, CNN’s presence ultimately would reconfigure the entire landscape of news, most notably television, both for better and for worse.

If not for CNN and its partner, Headline News, there would be no Fox News Channel and no MSNBC, and the planet would not be as instantly accessible. But there also would be no 24-hour news cycle to drive all media and rush information to viewers at dangerously high speeds that carry the risks of error and distortion.

Exclude Turner from the top 250? Go figure. With the exception of Hearst, in fact, the news media that both inform and outrage us are nowhere to be found in this 256-page book about influence.

Unless, of course, you count the half-page on P.T. Barnum.

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg @latimes.com.