The human interest stories and reviews in this book are woven from the author's forty-plus years of experience as a prize-winning reporter, an author, an editor-publisher, a college professor and an undercover investigator for local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, and for the East Tennessee Attorney General. The stories are set in the often mysterious and closed-in back mountain country of Western North Carolina before it began filling up with outlanders, and the relatively cosmopolitan Asheville-Buncombe County area of another time, which includes interviews with Carl Sandburg, Martin Luther King Jr., Julian Bond, etc. The stories range from the subtle and wry political wit of the mountaineers to often hilarious trials in Superior Court to the trial in Federal Court of the man who sold off most of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1960s to bloody demonic murders and the tragedy of simple people growing old. There are lawyers and cops, political and law-enforcement corruption. The author handles much of it with the blunt irony and wit of a native writer.

Find yourself in the midst of a heated battle over a sitcom laugh track. Learn to get away with spectacular crimes. Get lost with the reindeer people in the mountains of Mongolia.
In Lost in Mongolia a collection of Tad Friend's most original, witty, and wide-ranging articles and essays from "The New Yorker, Esquire, " and "Outside" we are taken on a cultural tour of global proportions. Friend reports from the entertainment mecca of Hollywood on topics that range from the life and death of River Phoenix to the widespread plagiarism of movie ideas, to why celebrity profiles are always dreadful. He critiques the larger American culture with articles such as "White Trash Nation," " In Praise of Middlebrow, " and a brief rumination on what it means when your girlfriend steals and wears your favorite shirt. Readers will also journey to foreign lands and American outposts, as Friend goes on the trail of the Marcos dynasty in the Philippines, is harassed in Morocco, and digs up buried treasure in Sun Valley.
Lost in Mongolia is a one-of-a-kind collection from a refreshingly candid and well-traveled journalist.

What basic ethical principles should guide American journalists to help them justify their invasion of an individual's privacy, to be objective in their reporting, to avoid being influenced by government or economic controls? A wire service and newsroom veteran and a sociologist and scholar in mass media/communications have designed a philosophical guide for students, scholars, and practitioners to use as a kind of moral compass. Key excerpts from some of the most important writings on the subject from Milton to Louis Brandeis, from Plato to Sissela Bok, and from Adam Smith to John Merrill deal with some of the most serious contemporary issues in journalism today. This short text also includes the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics and a full index.

The Basics of Media Writing: A Strategic Approach helps readers develop the essential writing skills and professional habits needed to succeed in 21st-century media careers. This research-driven, strategy-based media writing textbook digs deeply into how media professionals think and write in journalism, public relations, advertising, and other forms of strategic communication. Authors Scott A. Kuehn and Andrew Lingwall have created two comprehensive writing models to help students overcome their problems in finding and developing story topics by giving them "starting points" to begin writing. The Professional Strategy Triangle model shows students how to think critically about the audience, the situation, and the message before starting a news story or persuasive piece and the FAJA four-point model asks students a series of questions about their story type (Fact, Analysis, Judgment, or Action) to guide them to the right angle or organizational structure for their message. Rooted in classical rhetorical methods, this step-by-step technique enables readers to strategically approach each writing task, no matter the format.

Canadian journalist and political insider Dalton Camp left behind a powerful legacy, including books, essays, and newspaper columns on Canadian politics and public policy.

To both celebrate his career and continue his passionate efforts to encourage and support the practice of journalism, St. Thomas University has held the annual Dalton Camp Lecture in Journalism since 2002. In cooperation with CBC Radio's "Ideas," the series has become an annual highlight for listeners across the country.

Now, for the first time, the Dalton Camp Lectures have been gathered together in one remarkable compilation. Commencing with the foundational address "The Best Game in Town" by journalist and social activist June Callwood, about her love affair with journalism, and ending with the 2013 lecture "The Next Big Thing Has Finally Arrived" by "New York Times" business, media, and culture writer David Carr, the contributors collectively forecast the future of news and the public discussion of ideas in a vastly changing world.

Featuring contributions by Callwood and Carr as well as Nahlah Ayed, Sue Gardner, Chantal H#&233;bert, Naomi Klein, Roy MacGregor, Stephanie Nolen, Neil Reynolds, Joe Schlesinger, and Ken Whyte, "The Next Big Thing" addresses the contemporary practice of journalism like no other book.

What we don't know can hurt us-and does so every day. Climate change, health care policy, weapons of mass destruction, an aging infrastructure, stem cell research, endangered species, space exploration-all affect our lives as citizens and human beings in practical and profound ways. But unless we understand the science behind these issues, we cannot make reasonable decisions-and worse, we are susceptible to propaganda cloaked in scientific rhetoric. To convey the facts, this book suggests, scientists must take a more active role in making their work accessible to the media, and thus to the public. In Am I Making Myself Clear? Cornelia Dean, a distinguished science editor and reporter, urges scientists to overcome their institutional reticence and let their voices be heard beyond the forum of scholarly publication. By offering useful hints for improving their interactions with policymakers, the public, and her fellow journalists, Dean aims to change the attitude of scientists who scorn the mass media as an arena where important work is too often misrepresented or hyped. Even more important, she seeks to convince them of the value and urgency of communicating to the public. Am I Making Myself Clear? shows scientists how to speak to the public, handle the media, and describe their work to a lay audience on paper, online, and over the airwaves. It is a book that will improve the tone and content of debate over critical issues and will serve the interests of science and society.

What does it feel like to be featured, quoted, or just named in a news story? A refugee family, the survivor of a shooting, a primary voter in Iowa-the views and experiences of ordinary people are an important component of journalism. While much has been written about how journalists work and gather stories, what do we discover about the practice of journalism and attitudes about the media by focusing on the experiences of the subjects themselves? In Becoming the News, Ruth Palmer argues that understanding the motivations and experiences of those who have been featured in news stories-voluntarily or not-sheds new light on the practice of journalism and the importance many continue to place on the role of the mainstream media. Based on dozens of interviews with news subjects, Becoming the News studies how ordinary people make sense of their experience as media subjects. Palmer charts the arc of the experience of "making" the news, from the events that brought an ordinary person to journalists' attention through the decision to cooperate with reporters, interactions with journalists, and reactions to the news coverage and its aftermath. She explores what motivates someone to talk to the press; whether they consider the potential risks; the power dynamics between a journalist and their subject; their expectations about the motivations of journalists; and the influence of social media on their decisions and reception. Pointing to the ways traditional news organizations both continue to hold on to and are losing their authority, Becoming the News has important implications for how we think about the production and consumption of news at a time when Americans distrust the news media more than ever.

Essential English is a brisk and pungent guide to the use of words as tools of communication. It is written primarily for journalists, yet its lessons are of immense value to all who face the problem of giving information, whether to the general public or within business, professional or social organizations. What makes a good English sentence? How should you rewrite a bad one?What cliches and other word-traps are to be avoided? How do you shorten unnecessarily verbose source-material? How is the essence of what you have to say be conveyed, and placed in proper relation to any background information? These are questions for all. Using a wealth of examples, all drawn from newspapers in Britain and the United States, ESSENTIAL ENGLISH is an indispensable guide for all who have to convey information by the written or printed word.