Reliable Sources: 100 Years at the National Press Club

Walter Cronkite once observed that journalists are a lot more selfcritical than normal people. “I don’t think there’s any profession or occupation today that spends more time looking at its own navel than we do,“ he said

Who’s Covering What in the Year of the Women?

Top NEWS IN 1992-government and political news. Least prominent: agriculture and transportation. In a presidential election year, that\u27s not too surprising. But who wrote what? Examination of a sample of front pages of 10 newspapers circulating to almost 8 million Americans every day from January through December offers some insights into news content and story assignments in the Year of the Woman

Still on the beat (or would be): J Educators Value Professional Experience, Want More

Journalism and Mass Communication educators have some impressive professional credentials. This survey shows many itch for a chance to get back to the newsroom part-time to keep their skills and knowledge sharp and maintain industry contacts. Many say such professional activity improves both their teaching and research

NRJ Index, 1984-1989.

Educating the newsroom. Most of us who teach like to think we already do that. And we do, giving our students skills, experiences, perspectives, insights they use as starting points when they begin their newspaper careers. But the contributors to this issue\u27s special section, titled SPECIAL REPORT: Educating the Newsroom, suggest that our job as educators may not be finished when our students leave the campus. In newsrooms all over the country, training directors, coaches and consultants are in demand to help reporters and editors keep up with new technology and information, as well as to refresh those former students on some of the basics

The Media in Black and White

The media\u27s treatment of and interaction with race, like race itself is one of the most sensitive areas in American society. Whether in its coverage and treatment of racial matters or racial connections inside media organizations themselves, mass communication is deeply involved with race. The Media in Black and White brings together twenty journalists and scholars, of various racial backgrounds, to grapple with a controversial issue: the role that media industries, from advertising to newspapers to the information superhighway, play in helping Americans understand race

Radio—The Forgotten Medium

ASK ABOUT THE MEDIA and people think first of television, then newspapers. Sometimes, though not always, they acknowledge the existence of radio. But it is not uncommon for media critics to ignore radio altogether in their treatment of the larger modern media mix. Although the average American owns multiple radios and lives with this most portable medium in every room in the house, in the office, the car and even in parks, mountain retreats and at the beach, radio is rarely the topic of public discussion, giving it the dubious identity of the forgotten medium. This, the oldest of the broadcast media and once the king of electronic media, has moved farther and farther back in the media family photo. Occasionally there are references in the press to a radio station sale, a new radio network or a controversy first ignited on radio, but such sightings of radio in the public discourse are cameo appearances, like those of a once-famous leading actor reduced to walk-on or character roles. Radio, however, is much more than a bit player or an aging maiden aunt, as more than one author in this Journal suggest

The Fairness Factor

As THE FIRST POST-COLD WAR ADMINISTRATION takes office in Washington, there is general agreement that the media will play a significant role in its success or failure. Whether Americans wish President Clinton well or ill, they will all agree on at least one thing: that the media ought to be fair in reporting his efforts

Publishing Books

WISE COMMENTATORS have long evaluated books and bookmaking. Man builds no structure which outlives a book, wrote Eugene Fitch Ware in The Book, and Justin M\u27Carthy\u27s A Ballade of Book-Making declared, The critics challenge and defend ... of making books there is no end. Others have written loving odes to the book. Garrison Keillor, for instance: The book is a great and ancient invention, he marveled, slow to hatch, as durable as a turtle, light and shapely as befits a descendant of the tree .... A handsome, useful object begotten by the passion for truth ... [books] contain our common life and keep it against the miserable days when meanness operates with a free hand, and save\u27 it for the day when the lonesome reader opens the cover and the word is resurrected

Publishing Books

WISE COMMENTATORS have long evaluated books and bookmaking. Man builds no structure which outlives a book, wrote Eugene Fitch Ware in The Book, and Justin M\u27Carthy\u27s A Ballade of Book-Making declared, The critics challenge and defend ... of making books there is no end. Others have written loving odes to the book. Garrison Keillor, for instance: The book is a great and ancient invention, he marveled, slow to hatch, as durable as a turtle, light and shapely as befits a descendant of the tree .... A handsome, useful object begotten by the passion for truth ... [books] contain our common life and keep it against the miserable days when meanness operates with a free hand, and save\u27 it for the day when the lonesome reader opens the cover and the word is resurrected