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Marvin Kitman (November 24, 1929 – June 29, 2023) was an American television critic, humorist, and author. He was a columnist for Newsday for 35 years and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1982. Kitman was the author of nine books, including two on George Washington that combine humor with extensive historical research.

Early life and education

[edit]

Kitman was born on November 24, 1929, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,[1] to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Russia.[2] His family moved to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in New York City, during his childhood.[3] A line he subsequently used often was, "Some parents send their kids to Switzerland 'for finishing'; mine brought me to Brooklyn."[4] In any case, he remained a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates throughout his life.[5]

Kitman attended Brooklyn Technical High School,[6] graduating in 1947.[7]

He attended Baruch College in New York City,[8] first as a night student and then as a day student, before transferring within the city university system to the City College of New York,[9] from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1953.[1] He worked on the student newspaper, The Ticker, under its editor-in-chief Ralph Ginzburg,[9] and there developed an aptitude for writing.[2]

Marriage, military service, and family

[edit]

Kitman married the former Carol Sibushnick in 1951.[1] She became a photographer.[10]

Kitman was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served from 1953 to 1955 during the Korean War.[1][11] During this time, he was a member of the 47th Infantry Regiment in the 9th Infantry Division stationed at Fort Dix.[11] In his later telling, he "rose in only two years to the rank of private first class".[12] Among his duties was serving as a sportswriter for the Fort Dix base newspaper.[2]

Upon his return, the couple raised a son and two daughters.[1] They became longtime residents of Leonia, New Jersey, beginning in 1961.[5][13] He became active in several organizations within the town.[1] He lived across the street from novelist Robert Ludlum, then working on the first in a long list of thrillers, the sight of which Kitman later said inspired him to get serious about his own writing.[5]

Early career

[edit]

Kitman worked as a freelance writer during the 1950s and 1960s. For ten years he wrote a column for The Armstrong Daily, a horseracing tout sheet.[1][14] The cleverness of these efforts led to Paul Krassner hiring him to write satirical consumer advocacy for The Realist, which included pieces that took television commercials literally or imagined sardonic extremes of Cold War preparedness.[14]

Beginning in 1963, Kitman became a managing editor of Monocle, a satirical magazine of the 1950s and 1960s.[1][13] He subsequently became an officer and partner in Monocle's periodicals and books divisions.[1] Kitman was one of Monocle editors who created the idea of the Report from Iron Mountain satirical hoax, which was written and published by Leonard Lewin in 1967 and subsequently believed as true by many.[15] He also worked as a staff writer for The Saturday Evening Post during 1965–66.[1]

Taking on politics, Kitman staged a mock run in the 1964 United States presidential election, entering the New Hampshire primary for the Republican Party.[13] (According to the recollections of one of his fellow Monocle editors, Kitman actually was a registered Republican at the time.[8]) He ran as a "Lincoln Republican" who would finish the unmet campaign promises of 1864, such as providing for civil rights, and said that accordingly "I am the only truly reactionary Republican in the race."[13] He also mentioned his Jewish upbringing, say he was "twice as Jewish" as candidate and eventual nominee Barry Goldwater, whom he labeled a "McKinley Republican".[13] His campaign slogan was "I would rather be President than write."[13] Kitman said the delegate pledged to him received 725 votes in the primary, but that he was demanding a recount as "there was some kind of fraud in my getting so many."[16] He carried his campaign on a bit further, including staging a $1-a-plate fundraising dinner at a self-service cafeteria in New York.[16]

Kitman had a brief period working in advertising in New York: first as a "humorist-in-residence" with the firm of Solow/Wexton during 1966–67 and then as a copywriter for the firm Carl Ally during 1967–68.[1]

Television critic

[edit]

Kitman was one of the earlier, and longer-lasting, television critics.[3][2] He began his efforts in this arena writing for The New Leader in 1967.[1] He then started his run at Newsday on December 7, 1969[2] ("A day that will live in infamy, as far as the TV industry is concerned," Kitman remarked,[12] while Bill Moyers, publisher of the paper, later said: "I hired Marvin because we needed his wit, without which a media critic is a warrior without a sword."[2]) He remained at Newsday until April 1, 2005, totaling 5,786 columns.[5] The column was called "The Marvin Kitman Show" and Kitman was credited as its "Executive Producer".[17] It ran three times a week in Newsday and was also distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.[17] Kitman worked from his home in Leonia the entire time, avoiding the commute to Melville, New York, where the paper was published,[5] and in the earlier years sometimes using couriers to carry videotapes and copy back and forth. When the time came for the column to end, Kitman said in typical fashion, "Newsday gave me a tryout, and after 35 years we decided it wasn't working out."[5]

Kitman held strong views about the lack of quality of much of what was on television during his time as a critic;[5] much of what he wrote about was during the period well after the original Golden Age of Television and before the Second Golden Age.[3] Regarding the premiere of the sixth season of Saturday Night Live in 1980, the first with none of the original cast, he called it "offensive and raunchy" without being funny. "This new edition is terrible. Call it 'Saturday Night Dead on Arrival'."[18] In reaction to the 1983 television film Kentucky Woman, starring ex-Charlie's Angels lead Cheryl Ladd in a serious role, Kitman wrote, "Cheryl Ladd as a coal miner was a very moving television experience. It made me want to convert to nuclear power."[19] Regarding his need to judge television news programs, he summed that he had spent "thirty-five years of getting paid to watch the bad, the bemused, and the blond of TV news."[20] He coined the so-called Kitman's Law: "On the TV screen pure drivel tends to drive off ordinary drivel."[17] Writer Bob Klapisch has described Kitman's style as "like sarcasm dried to a delicate crisp."[5] A former colleague who later became an executive director at Stony Brook University's School of Communication and Journalism said of Kitman, "He was a distinct voice, an original, and whether you were put off by his work or loved him, he was one of a kind – funny, irreverent, perhaps insufferable on occasion but never dull."[3]

In any case, Kitman recognized that by and after the end of his tenure at Newsday, there was a wave of quality series on television, which he claimed a connection to: "I take credit for [today's better programming] because I used to say cable was the answer. The whole fallacy was that television was giving the public what they wanted, but the public didn't know what was out there until cable showed what can happen – all the great stories, all the great acting – when you're not worried about ratings."[5] In retrospect, Kitman has identified the 1980s series Hill Street Blues as a turning point in American broadcast television quality, although not fully capitalized on at the time.[5]

Kitman had two runs on television as a critic on New York local news, first with WPIX Channel 11 in 1973–74[1] and later for several years with WNEW Channel 5 on Saturday nights during the 1980s.[6][21] He was also a frequent panelist on the show All About TV which appeared on WNYC-TV.[22] He had a radio show known as "Watching TV" on the RKO Radio Network in the early 1980s.[23]

Author

[edit]

Kirkus Reviews said of 1969's You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover, a collection of humor pieces by Kitman, "He talks and he talks ... but he talks. Yet the groggy reader is usually jarred into ordering more coffee and reading on."[24] Kitman wrote several other books that were explicit humorist efforts. He also wrote about television, in particular in I Am a VCR (1988), which was about the effect watching television constantly for two decades was having on the author.[19][25] The Chicago Tribune found that "Kitman generally finesses his contradictory viewpoint that television is both contemptible and fascinating.... VCR has its chuckles, but Kitman's joke-a-line style makes for a book best 'watched' in several installments, one with all the permanence of the medium it covers."[25]

Kitman was a co-creator and co-writer, along with Jim Bouton and Vic Ziegel, of the short-lived 1976 television situation comedy Ball Four, based upon Bouton's book of the same name.[26] It gave Kitman a chance to see the television creative process from the inside. As he later recalled: "It was the constant rewriting at night, how everyone was always so exhausted. And the input from the executives – all they knew about writing was the alphabet, but they were the ones who kept saying, 'This is the way it's always been done.'"[5]

External videos
video icon Booknotes interview with Kitman on The Making of the Prefident, 1789, December 26, 1989, C-SPAN

Kitman wrote two books about George Washington that combined humor with extensive historical research. The first was George Washington's Expense Account, published in 1970, which capitalized on Washington having declined a salary while serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army and instead only asking for his expenses to be reimbursed.[27] Billed as being by coauthors "General George Washington and Marvin Kitman, Pfc (Ret.)", it presents in facsimile form Washington's ledger from 1775 to 1783 combined with Kitman's investigations and discussions regarding the expenses.[27][28] Kitman's theme is that Washington foreshadowed the modern practice of maintaining, and sometimes manipulating, expense accounts.[28][29] The book made the New York Times Book Review's "New and Recommended" list;[30] a profile from that paper noted Kitman's "serious digging in various archives" and said that "Kitman's interpretation[s] keep crossing the line that divides verity from travesty."[28] The second work was The Making of the Prefident 1789, with the fifth word of the title intentionally misspelled to make it look like a colonial-era use of the long s. First envisioned in 1972 or before, when Theodore H. White's The Making of the President books were popular,[12][31] it was published in 1989 and sought to explore how Washington and his supporters managed to get into a position where he was unopposed in the 1788–89 United States presidential election.[32] It again drew comic parallels between those events and politics in modern times.[32]

Judged as history, reactions to Kitman's two Washington works were mixed. Brent Tarter, a public historian in Virginia, wrote that the first was "temporarily amusing but highly perishable" while the second was "sometimes carelessly and sometimes even deliberately contemptuous of evidence; it destroys Kitman's credibility with serious readers. Whatever useful he might have to say is impeached by his over-clever prose and his twisting of facts and misrepresentation of historical context in order to make puns, draw irrelevant parallels, and otherwise write in [a] flip and entertaining style ..."[33] British historian Marcus Cunliffe did not quibble with the accuracy of George Washington's Expense Account but found its interpretation comparing Washington to modern practices too stretched.[29] But historian of Virginia William H. Stauffer found the same work "informative" and "praiseworthy" for the full light it shed on Washington's character.[27] Art historian and Washington iconographer Karal Ann Marling said that while The Making of the Prefident 1789 maintained an "air of pie-in-the-face irreverence," Kitman had demonstrated that he could "moonlight in the library with the best of 'em."[34] And American historian Francis Jennings cited George Washington's Expense Account regarding the subject's drinking habits, and noted that it contains "hilarious and fully documented analysis" and that "as my trade's custom is to deplore such irreverence, let it be noted that the book includes a facsimile of the account in question."[35]

In 2007, Kitman published a biography of the popular but controversial television commentator Bill O'Reilly.[36] Titled The Man Who Would Not Shut Up, it was based upon 29 interviews Kitman conducted with the subject as well as large amounts of research.[37] Although politically liberal, Kitman had often admired the mostly conservative O'Reilly as a broadcaster[38] and O'Reilly in turn had read Kitman's Newsday columns growing up.[36] Publishers Weekly said "it's difficult to imagine a better-researched or less-biased work about such a divisive figure as O'Reilly".[38] The New York Times praised Kitman for doing Boswellian amounts of research and constructing a well-written narrative, but ultimately concluded that the positive aspect of the portrayal was "unconvincing" and a "mash note".[36] Nevertheless, O'Reilly hated the book, apparently because Kitman addressed the 2004 sexual harassment charges against the star by one of his program's female producers, and refused to follow through on what Kitman said was an agreement to feature the author and the book on the show.[37] As a result, sales of the book suffered, as did Kitman's opinion of O'Reilly.[37] (A decade later, O'Reilly would be forced off television by reporting of a number of sexual harassment suits settled by O'Reilly's employer on his behalf.[39])

Later years

[edit]

After ending his Newsday column, Kitman remained active in that idiom, well into his eighties and then nineties. In 2008, he wrote a regular column for the Huffington Post.[40] Subsequently he voiced unhappiness over that site's disinclination to pay its contributors.[41] During 2011–12, he wrote columns on business, media, and politics for the Investor uprising business information site,[42] which did pay. But it then folded.[41] And starting in 2013 he posted columns on television and politics to his MarvinKitman.com website.[43] Such posts continued through 2020,[44] Subsequently Kitman made his "Justaminuteman" postings and other observations on politics on the Twitter and Substack platforms.[45]

Death

[edit]

Kitman died of cancer on June 29, 2023, at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey.[2] He had been ill for two months, and spent his last month at the home, located adjacent to Leonia.[3] He was 93.[2]

Awards and honors

[edit]

In 1982, Kitman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.[46]

Kitman was given the Humorous Writing Award from the Society of the Silurians, a New York-based press organization, in 1991[47] and a Special Commentary Award from the same body in 1993.[48]

Kitman received City College's Townsend Harris Medal in 1992.[49] He was given the James W. Carey Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Journalism from the Media Ecology Association in 2008.[50]

Kitman was inducted into the Brooklyn Tech Hall of Fame in 1998.[7]

Published works

[edit]
  • The Number One Best Seller: The True Adventures of Marvin Kitman (Dial Press, 1966) (OCLC 1370982)
  • The Red Chinese Air Force Exercise, Diet, and Sex Book (Stein & Day, 1968) ["translated by William Randolph Hirsch", pseudonym for Kitman, Richard Lingeman, and Victor Navasky] (OCLC 914232)
  • You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover (Weybright & Talley, 1969) (OCLC 67666)
  • George Washington's Expense Account (Simon & Schuster, 1970) [co-author with George Washington] (reprinted by Grove, 2001) (OCLC 5193653)
  • The Marvin Kitman Show: An Encyclopedia Televisiana (Outerbridge & Diensfrey, 1973) (OCLC 520610)
  • The Coward's Almanac (Doubleday, 1975) [with drawings by Lou Myers] (OCLC 32658197)
  • I Am a VCR: The Kitman Tapes (Random House, 1988) (OCLC 17548847)
  • The Making of the Prefident 1789: The Unauthorized Campaign Biography (HarperCollins, 1989) (OCLC 18740778)
  • The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly (St. Martin's Press, 2007) (OCLC 71146597)
  • Gullible's Travels: A Comical History of the Trump Era (Seven Stories Press, 2020) (OCLC 1112386764)

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Marvin Kitman

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Marvin Kitman (November 24, 1929 – June 29, 2023) was an American humorist, , and television critic whose satirical columns skewered broadcast media for over three decades. Born in to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Kitman grew up in after his family relocated in , graduating from in 1947 and later attending at . Kitman's career highlight was his tenure as a columnist starting in 1969, where his thrice-weekly pieces—nationally syndicated by the —chronicled television's cultural absurdities with sharp wit, earning him a finalist nod for criticism. He authored eight books, including the 1977 bestseller George Washington's Expense Account, a humorous of the first president's wartime finances revealing extravagant claims like mileage reimbursements for horses, and The Marvin Kitman Show, a collection amplifying his media critiques. Earlier, he contributed to outlets like The New Leader and appeared on public television panels, establishing his voice as a discerning observer of television's excesses before its cable-era fragmentation. Kitman died of cancer at age 93 in .

Early Life

Family Background and Childhood

Marvin Kitman was born on November 24, 1929, in , , to Jewish parents who had immigrated from . His father worked as a house painter in before the family relocated to New York during the 1930s, where he secured employment as a building superintendent. The Kitmans settled in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of , where Marvin spent his childhood in a working-class immigrant household. This move reflected broader patterns of Jewish migration from industrial cities to urban centers amid economic shifts in the era, though specific family motivations remain undocumented in primary accounts.

Education

Kitman graduated from , a specialized public high school in focused on science and technology, in 1947. His parents, who had immigrated from and operated a small notions store, encouraged him toward a technical career such as draftsman, aligning with the vocational emphasis of his . Following high school, Kitman enrolled at the (now part of the system), completing a degree in 1953. The six-year gap between his high school graduation and college completion coincided with a period that included , though specific details on his academic focus or coursework during this time are not widely documented in primary biographical accounts.

Personal Life

Marriage and Family

Kitman married Carol Sibushnick on October 28, 1951. The couple had three children: a son, Jamie Lincoln Kitman, and two daughters, Suzy Kitman and Andrea Jordana Kitman (known as A.J. Knight). Sibushnick later pursued a career as a . The family settled in , in 1961, where they resided long-term. Kitman and his wife remained married until his death in 2023, with Sibushnick surviving him, along with their son, daughters, and three grandchildren.

Military Service

Kitman was drafted into the U.S. Army shortly after graduating from the in 1953 and served from 1953 to 1955 during the final years of the . Assigned to , , a major Army training installation, he worked as a for the base newspaper, contributing articles on athletic events and personnel activities rather than engaging in combat or frontline duties. His military role leveraged his pre-service experience and , marking an early extension of his writing career into a structured, institutional context. Kitman later reflected on this period as the "last time I did anything to fight ," underscoring its non-combat nature amid the era's tensions. Upon discharge in 1955, he transitioned to civilian employment in advertising, with no indications of overseas deployment or decorations for valor in available records.

Early Career

Advertising and Initial Media Work

Kitman began his professional career in media through freelance writing and a staff position at The Saturday Evening Post, where he served as a from 1965 to 1966. In this role, he contributed articles that showcased his emerging satirical style, drawing on his background in humor. Transitioning into advertising, Kitman joined Madison Avenue agencies during the mid-1960s, a period when the industry was known for its creative and humorous campaigns. He first worked as a "humorist-in-residence" at the Solow/Wexton agency from 1966 to 1967, leveraging his wit to develop promotional content. Subsequently, he served as a senior at Carl Ally, Inc., from 1967 to 1968, where he crafted ad copy for clients amid the competitive landscape of New York advertising. During this time, Kitman also contributed to specific campaigns, including proposed slogans and drawings for a Hertz rental car effort, reflecting his involvement in client-specific creative development. These roles exposed him to the persuasive techniques of commercial media, which later informed his critiques of and programming. His tenure was brief but formative, bridging his early media freelancing with a deeper engagement in content creation for mass audiences.

Transition to Journalism

Following his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1955, Kitman pursued freelance writing and contributed satirical columns on to The Armstrong Daily in from 1956 to 1966. He co-founded and served as a of Monocle, a satirical magazine launched in the late that published irregularly until the mid-1960s, collaborating with editor on politically irreverent content. These efforts, combined with staff writing at from 1965 to 1966, established his satirical voice but did not yet yield steady journalistic employment. In 1967, amid a brief tenure as a senior copywriter at the Carl Ally, Inc., Kitman transitioned to formal by accepting a role as television critic for The New Leader, a leftist but anti-Soviet . The editor permitted him to openly admit in his debut column that he rarely watched television, allowing Kitman to critique the medium through a lens of cultural skepticism rather than consumer endorsement. This position, following Monocle's demise, marked his pivot from and sporadic to regular media commentary, leveraging his humor to dissect television's emerging dominance. Kitman's New Leader tenure drew notice from publishing figures, culminating in his recruitment by Newsday's leadership, including , for a syndicated television column launched on December 7, 1969. Titled "The Marvin Kitman Show," it expanded his reach, initially appearing five times weekly and evolving into a thrice-weekly feature that scrutinized broadcasts, commercials, and industry practices over 35 years. This move solidified his journalistic career, shifting from peripheral media work and advertising to a prominent, influential role in television criticism.

Television Criticism

Entry into TV Reviewing

Kitman's entry into television criticism occurred in 1967, when he joined The New Leader, a leftist but anti-Soviet magazine, as its TV critic. Prior to this, Kitman had contributed satirical pieces to , a humor magazine that ceased publication, honing his irreverent style that emphasized over conventional analysis. The New Leader's editor permitted Kitman to adopt a satirical approach only after initial resistance, allowing him to critique television's cultural and commercial excesses rather than merely summarizing programs. His work at The New Leader attracted attention from larger outlets, leading to his hiring by in late as a television . At , Kitman produced columns three times weekly, which were soon syndicated nationally by the Times-Washington Post News Service, expanding his reach beyond . This transition marked his establishment as a prominent TV critic, where he maintained a focus on dissecting the medium's hypocrisies, such as network profit motives and content banalities, often through humor that targeted industry self-importance. Kitman's early reviews eschewed standard plot recaps in favor of broader commentary on television's societal role, reflecting his background in and satire. For instance, he frequently lampooned shows like those featuring , portraying them as emblematic of the medium's superficiality. This approach, while polarizing, positioned him as one of the field's early skeptics during an era dominated by lighter fare such as Three's Company and Charlie's Angels.

Newsday Tenure and Syndication

Kitman joined as its television critic in 1969, marking the beginning of a 35-year tenure that established him as one of the newspaper's most prominent columnists. His thrice-weekly column, titled "The Marvin Kitman Show," appeared regularly in and offered irreverent, satirical commentary on television programming, networks, and cultural trends. The column's syndication began concurrently through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, enabling national distribution to other publications and broadening Kitman's reach beyond readers. This arrangement amplified his critiques, which often targeted the excesses of commercial television, including advertiser influence and formulaic content, while maintaining a humorous, contrarian edge that distinguished his work from more conventional reviews. His syndication contributed to the column's status as one of Newsday's most popular features, sustaining its prominence through decades of media evolution. Kitman's tenure concluded in 2004, after which he retired from regular column writing, though his Newsday contributions had earned recognition, including a 1982 Pulitzer Prize finalist nomination in Criticism for entries that exemplified his sharp dissection of television's societal impact. Throughout, his output reflected a consistent skepticism toward industry self-importance, grounded in detailed analysis rather than mere opinion.

Critical Approach and Media Critiques

Kitman's television criticism was characterized by a satirical, irreverent style that targeted the medium's commercial excesses, formulaic programming, and cultural banalities rather than individual artistic merits. He frequently employed humor and to expose what he saw as television's self-indulgent absurdities, such as the glorification of or the pandering of network content, arguing in a 1993 commentary that networks should leverage their influence to produce substantive alternatives like extended music specials instead of relying on . This approach distinguished him from more conventional reviewers, as he audited cultural icons satirically—exemplified by his 1975 book George Washington's Expense Account, which humorously dissected historical records to modern media's factual looseness. In his columns, syndicated nationally via the starting in 1969, Kitman maintained an iconoclastic tone that challenged industry orthodoxies, often prioritizing the broader societal impact of over episodic praise or condemnation. His critiques extended to specific genres, lambasting soap operas like Dynasty and for their contrived narratives and the networks' fixation on titillating elements such as sex, violence, and celebrity vehicles, as detailed in his 1983 book I Am a VCR, where he cataloged these tropes as emblematic of television's descent into formulaic escapism. Kitman viewed the medium as a mirror of American consumerism, using wit to underscore its role in perpetuating superficiality, though he occasionally acknowledged rare comedic successes amid the dross, as in his measured praise for shows like Real People in 1979 for intermittent authenticity. Later media critiques broadened beyond broadcast TV to cable news and political commentary, exemplified by his 2010 book The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly, which drew on 29 interviews to trace the evolution of opinion-driven journalism from factual reporting to polemical spectacle. Kitman positioned O'Reilly's career as a cautionary tale of media's shift toward personal branding over objectivity, critiquing how such figures amplified partisan noise at the expense of substantive discourse—a perspective informed by his decades observing network dynamics. His work earned recognition, including a 1982 Pulitzer Prize finalist nod for distinguished criticism, reflecting peers' acknowledgment of his rigorous, unsparing dissection of media's institutional flaws.

Authorship

Key Books and Satirical Style

Kitman authored nine books, many blending meticulous historical research with sharp humor to critique politics, media, and American icons. His works often employed parody to expose absurdities in power structures, drawing on primary sources like expense ledgers or campaign records while infusing modern satirical lenses. Among his most notable satirical books is George Washington's Expense Account (1970, ), a humorous "" co-credited to General and Kitman as "Pfc. (Ret.)," which dissects Washington's Revolutionary War reimbursements from , tallying over £52,000 in claims including lavish dinners and travel—equivalent to millions today—while lampooning fiscal irresponsibility and elite entitlement. Similarly, The Making of the Prefident 1789 (1989, ) parodies Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series by framing 's unanimous election as a rigged "Mount Vernon Machine" operation, complete with smear campaigns against rivals like and strategic alliances, using verified historical documents to highlight how luck, land speculation, and secured his victory. Later works extended this approach to contemporary figures, as in The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly (2007, John Wiley & Sons), a biography critiquing the Fox News host's ascent through media bluster and controversy, and Gullible's Travels: A Comical History of the Trump Era (2020, Seven Stories Press), a collection of 32 "Trumponicles" styled after Daniel Defoe's plague-year journal, satirizing Donald Trump's presidency via absurd scenarios like delays or fiascos, grounded in real events such as the Mueller investigation. Kitman's satirical style fused irreverent wit with empirical rigor, often deploying to deflate pretensions—described by colleagues as "sarcasm dried to a delicate crisp"—while avoiding unsubstantiated claims by anchoring barbs in verifiable facts like financial records or public statements. This method targeted not just television banalities but broader causal chains of power, such as how media hype or historical precedents enable demagoguery, privileging causal realism over narrative spin; for instance, in Trump-era pieces, he merged Swiftian exaggeration with documented timelines to argue institutional prolonged political absurdities. His approach contrasted with partisan polemics by emphasizing structural hypocrisies, as seen in auditing Washington's "" to reveal timeless elite grift rather than ideological attacks.

Historical and Political Writings

Kitman's historical writings centered on satirical examinations of George Washington's life and finances, drawing on primary documents to blend rigorous archival research with irreverent humor. In George Washington's Expense Account (1967), co-credited to Washington and Kitman, the author audits the commander's ledgers from 1775 to 1783, itemizing expenditures on horses, provisions, and travel that totaled over £10,000 in period currency, equivalent to millions today, despite Washington's public refusal of a . Kitman highlights discrepancies, such as claims for and exotic fruits, portraying them as shrewd reimbursements that financed the Revolution while humanizing the icon as a meticulous bookkeeper rather than an ascetic patriot. The book, published by , sold over 100,000 copies in its first year and earned praise for uncovering "scandals and fascinating facts" through Washington's own records held at the . Building on this approach, The Making of the President, 1789: The Unauthorized Campaign Biography (1989) applies a mock-journalistic lens to Washington's unanimous electoral victory, analyzing Federalist Papers, correspondence, and voting records to depict the process as a managed rather than a contest. Kitman critiques Washington as an "incompetent war general" who lost more battles than he won, a land speculator amassing 60,000 acres, and a politically astute figure reliant on allies like to suppress rivals such as . Published by , the 358-page work contrasts Theodore H. White's modern campaign chronicles with 18th-century machinations, using tallies—69 votes for Washington out of 69 electors—to argue the election's underreported flaws, including no opposition platform or debates. Kitman's political writings shifted to contemporary media figures and events, employing interviews and for pointed . The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly (2007), based on 29 interviews with O'Reilly and associates, traces the Fox News host's trajectory from local reporter in the 1970s to The O'Reilly Factor's top ratings in the , amassing 3 million nightly viewers by 2006. Kitman attributes O'Reilly's ascent to personal resentments against elite media, rather than ideological purity, portraying him as an "independent freethinker" who prioritized confrontation over conservatism, evidenced by his feuds with figures like and self-promotion via selling millions. St. Martin's Press released the book amid O'Reilly's peak influence, with Kitman—a self-identified liberal—emphasizing verifiable career pivots, such as O'Reilly's tabloid stint, over unsubstantiated motives. In Gullible's Travels: A Comical History of the Trump Era (2020), Kitman chronicles Donald Trump's 2016–2020 presidency through a fictionalized Gulliblesylvania framework, citing election data showing 34.9% popular vote support and events like the , 2021, Capitol riot to satirize supporter dynamics and policy chaos. Published by near the end of Trump's term, the work draws on Kitman's Republican registration for ironic detachment, focusing on empirical absurdities such as impositions raising consumer costs by $80 billion annually, per economic analyses, while mocking Trump's 76 criminal charges post-presidency. These later books extended Kitman's method of fact-based ridicule to critique media-driven politics, prioritizing documented timelines over partisan narrative.

Political Engagement

1964 Presidential Write-In Campaign

In 1964, Marvin Kitman, the news managing editor of magazine, a satirical quarterly, launched a mock presidential campaign for the Republican nomination as a self-described "truly reactionary" Lincoln Republican. He positioned his platform on the unfulfilled promises of the 1864 Republican agenda, such as the abolition of , to satirize contemporary and challenge Barry Goldwater's candidacy. Kitman's effort originated at under editor , who served as his campaign manager, with the explicit aim of mocking the seriousness of the Goldwater surge through humor and absurdity. To appear on the New Hampshire Republican primary ballot scheduled for March 10, Kitman paid $10 to slate Fritz Weatherbee as a delegate favorable to his nomination at the , resulting in his name appearing in small type. His , "I would rather be President than write," encapsulated the campaign's lighthearted yet pointed critique of political ambition. Campaign activities included a press conference in , weekend stumping in via —waving to skiers rather than traditional handshaking—and an entourage comprising his pregnant wife, Navasky, and an "apology manager" to contextualize his candid statements on topics like religion, where he claimed to be "twice as Jewish as Goldwater." Preferential contest petitions were filed but nearly derailed by a motel mix-up. Coverage appeared in outlets like and , though Kitman later faulted media favoritism toward Goldwater for undermining his bid. The campaign yielded one delegate in the primary, compared to Goldwater's ten, but failed to secure the nomination as Goldwater prevailed at the convention. Though initially satirical, Kitman admitted becoming invested in the process before dismissing it as a "sore loser" experience he preferred to forget. The stunt provided Kitman a firsthand view of electoral mechanics, influencing his later satirical writings on politics and media.

Self-Described Views and Satire Targets

Kitman identified as a liberal of television and media, though he registered as a Republican and in 1964 staged a mock presidential write-in campaign in the Republican primary as a "Lincoln Republican," adopting Abraham Lincoln's 1860 platform and self-describing his stance as "more reactionary than" to the nomination process and conservative extremism of the era. This stunt, organized through the satirical magazine , secured him one delegate but underscored his use of absurdity to expose political absurdities rather than genuine ideological commitment. His primary satire targets centered on the television industry, which he viewed with disdain, once claiming he had never regularly watched TV until paid to do so and later asserting that the medium had damaged his brain from prolonged exposure. Kitman lambasted network executives for producing low-quality, formulaic content, deriding shows like Three's Company, Charlie's Angels, Laverne & Shirley, and Dallas for their lack of originality and intellectual merit, while occasionally praising exceptions such as Seinfeld, MASH*, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. He targeted sensationalist practices, including local news "sweeps" ratings stunts, weather forecasters' hype, and anchors like Dan Rather, whom he dubbed "the Manchurian candidate" for perceived rote delivery at CBS News. Politically, Kitman's barbs extended to historical and contemporary figures, as in his 1970 book George Washington's Expense Account, where he humorously audited the first president's Revolutionary War reimbursements to critique fiscal opacity and leadership myths. Later works, such as The Man Who Would Not Shut Up (2006), scrutinized conservative media personalities like Bill , framing their rise as emblematic of and cable news demagoguery, consistent with his broader skepticism toward media consolidation and deregulation's monopolistic outcomes. His approach blended with first-hand revulsion for TV's cultural dominance, often likening his reviewing role to a "dirty job" akin to war correspondence.

Later Career and Death

Retirement and Post-Newsday Activities

Kitman concluded his tenure at Newsday in 2005 after 35 years as a television critic, having produced 5,786 columns during that period. His final column, published on April 1, 2005, reflected wryly on the arrangement: "Newsday gave me a tryout, and after 35 years we decided it wasn't working out." Following , Kitman maintained a low-profile involvement in writing, contributing occasional essays to established literary magazines. Notably, his personal reflection "Transit Gloria," which meditated on urban transit experiences, appeared posthumously in 's October 2023 issue. No major books or syndicated columns are recorded from this period, aligning with his age of 75 at and a shift away from daily .

Final Publications and Passing

Kitman's final book, Gullible's Travels: A Comical History of the Trump Era, was published in 2020 by , offering satirical commentary on political developments during Donald Trump's presidency. This work extended his longstanding approach to humorously critiquing media and public figures, drawing from his career-long focus on in American and . After retiring from his column—his final piece appearing on April 1, 2005—Kitman shifted emphasis to book-length projects rather than regular journalism, producing no further syndicated columns but maintaining his authorial output into his later years. Kitman died of cancer on June 29, 2023, at the age of 93, at the in , after being ill for two months.

Recognition and Legacy

Awards and Honors

Kitman was a finalist for the in 1982 for his television commentary at . He received the Folio Award in 1988, recognizing excellence in editorial content. In 1991, Kitman was awarded the Society of the Silurians' Humorous Writing Award for his satirical contributions to journalism. The Society of the Silurians presented him with a Special Commentary Award in 1993. In 1992, honored him with the Townsend Harris Medal, given to distinguished alumni for notable achievements. Kitman was inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame, acknowledging his career as a and .

Influence on Media Criticism

Marvin Kitman's influence on media criticism arose from his pioneering use of to scrutinize television, a medium he viewed as often intellectually deficient and manipulative. From 1969 to 2004, he wrote columns for three times a week, syndicated nationally via the Syndicate, targeting network news distortions, entertainment banalities, and the commercialization of information. His style integrated historical analogies—such as auditing George Washington's in a 1975 book to mock fiscal opacity—with direct jabs at broadcasters' hypocrisies, fostering a model of criticism that prioritized wit over solemnity to expose causal flaws in media production and content. Kitman's work anticipated and paralleled the rise of satirical media commentary, influencing how critics engaged audiences amid television's expansion into cable and 24-hour news cycles. In books like The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly (2006), he dissected the mechanics of opinion-driven programming, attributing O'Reilly's success to aggressive self-promotion and network tolerance for factual liberties rather than journalistic merit. This analysis highlighted causal links between media personalities' tactics and audience polarization, a theme echoed in subsequent critiques of cable news ecosystems. His columns' national reach and his 1980s stint as an television commentator from 1981 to 1987 amplified these insights, reaching diverse listeners during a period when broadcast dominance began eroding. As a finalist in , Kitman validated humor as a rigorous tool for media accountability, encouraging peers to blend empirical observation with irreverence against institutional self-importance. In his later Huffington Post contributions, he extended this to , critiquing phenomena like ' subjective framing as "fair and balanced," underscoring persistent biases in evolving formats. His legacy lies in demonstrating that effective requires dissecting media's profit motives and content quality without deference to industry norms, a method that privileged viewer agency over advertiser-friendly narratives.

References

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  30. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/01/archives/a-lincoln-man-enters-politics-truly-reactionary-editor-stumps-new.html
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  34. https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/transit-gloria/
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  36. https://harpers.org/2011/07/as-the-news-of-the-world-turns/
  37. https://www.thenation.com/authors/marvin-kitman/
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