CBS News and Simon & Schuster Announce eBook Co-Publishing Project

Posted on June 6, 2000

CBS News and Simon & Schuster will co-publish an exclusive eBook based on the news organization's four-year Class of 2000 project, it was announced by Andrew Heyward, President, CBS News, and Jack Romanos, President and Chief Operating Officer, Simon & Schuster, Inc. The eBook, The Class of 2000: A Definitive Survey of the New Generation will be published on Thursday, June 22, the same day a special edition of 48 Hours: ``The Class of 2000,'' is broadcast (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. The eBook will include a preface by 48 Hours Anchor Dan Rather. CBS News and Simon & Schuster are both units of Viacom Inc.

``We're extremely pleased to work with Simon & Schuster on this groundbreaking project,'' said Heyward. ``The publication of the eBook allows us to provide more in-depth information about this landmark project to a large audience of viewers and readers. Simon & Schuster has been a trailblazer in electronic publishing, so we couldn't be in better hands.''

The Class of 2000: A Definitive Survey of the New Generation, with text by journalist Carolyn Mackler, will be approximately 35,000 words, or 125 traditional paper-and-ink pages organized into roughly 18 chapters. It will present the results of polls conducted with more than 2,300 members of the Class of 2000 over four years and five separate waves of interviewing. Most of those class members were interviewed more than once, with 150 interviewed in all five polls. In total, more than 5,200 interviews were done on a wide range of subjects, including religion, technology, race, drugs and alcohol, sex, violence and the Internet. The scientific polls were conducted by the CBS News Polling Unit under the direction of Kathy Frankovic, Director of Polling, CBS News.

EBook vendors who will be distributing The Class of 2000: A Definitive Survey of the New Generation include Glassbook, Inc., netLibrary's Peanutpress.com division, Nuvomedia Inc.'s Rocket eBook, SoftBook Press, and SoftLock.com. 48 Hours is the third longest-running program in prime time and winner of multiple Emmy Awards. 48 Hours has been anchored by Rather since its premiere on Jan. 19, 1988.