The News About the News
American Journalism in Peril
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- £9.49
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- £9.49
Publisher Description
Freedom of the press is a primary American value. Good journalism builds communities, arms citizens with important information, and serves as a public watchdog for civic, national, and global issues. But what happens when the news turns its back on its public role?
Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, and Robert G. Kaiser, associate editor and senior correspondent, report on a growing crisis in American journalism. From the corporatization that leads media moguls to slash content for profit, to newsrooms that ignore global crises to report on personal entertainment, these veteran journalists chronicle an erosion of independent, relevant journalism. In the process, they make clear why incorruptible reporting is crucial to American society. Rooted in interviews and first-hand accounts, the authors take us inside the politically charged world of one of America’s powerful institutions, the media.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For much of the 1980s and '90s, the news media were in a slump. Largely nonconsequential stories on celebrity weddings and car crashes made headlines. But on September 11, according to veteran Washington Post staffers Downie and Kaiser (executive and associate editor, respectively), things abruptly changed. "Hard news was back in the forefront," they say, and in this powerful and timely assessment of the present state of the news, the two present compelling evidence of the shaky ground newspapers and television news stand on today. By describing the profound impact the news can have (e.g., the Salt Lake Tribune's uncovering of the corruption in the bidding process for this winter's Olympic games), Downie and Kaiser prove that even in our celebrity-driven age, news does matter. They mainly focus on newspapers and television news in this succinct, unpreachy treatise, briefly skimming over the Internet and the rise of MSNBC.com and Salon.com, among other Web sites. Not surprisingly, the authors are biased toward newspapers for their unsensational, in-depth coverage of current affairs; they even suggest exercises for readers to compare television with print news. But they're not above admitting print's problems, either, namely, the increasing importance of enhancing shareholder value and the emphasis on the bottom line. Downie and Kaiser give a fairly brief yet meaningful history of newspapers and television news, juxtaposing the history with interviews with today's leading journalists, from NBC icon Tom Brokaw to former New York Times national editor Dean Baquet. This is an important, up-to-date study that should be required reading for journalism students and serious consumers of the news.
