Control Room

Who will determine what Americans are thinking when they cast their votes in the year 2000? Martin Plissner, former political director of CBS News, has played a central role in the network coverage of every presidential campaign since 1964. In The Control Room, he shows how all the elements of our nation's greatest contest -- the primaries, the conventions, the counting of the ballots --are shaped by the networks' struggle for supremacy in today's media-intensive age. From the earliest announcements to the final swearing-in, those inside the control rooms determine what Americans care about when they enter the polling booths and whom the country ultimately sends to the Oval Office.