As a reporter for 30 years in both newspapers and television, Clarence Jones was always taking risks. He specialized in the Mafia, dirty cops and crooked politicians. Who better to kill you and get with it than a Mafia hit man or a corrupt cop who will be assigned to investigate your death? His friends were always warning him: They're Gonna Murder You. But he persisted, to win four Emmys and become the only reporter for a local station to ever win three DuPont Columbia awards - television's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. He's a great story teller. The war stories from his remarkable reporting career read like a murder mystery or a spy novel. Go with him into the bookie joints in Louisville with a hidden camera. Or to a Miami crime scene, where the victims were almost certainly murdered by cops. Travel with him as he tails Florida's chief justice to a Las Vegas casino. And as you cover Martin Luther King's civil rights campaigns, always start your car with the door open. If the KKK has planted a bomb, the blast will blow you out of the car. You'll probably survive. Hold your breath as Clarence's car sinks in a canal, so he can show you how to escape. Control your fear in the middle of a race riot when the police retreat and the mob turns on you. Watch him slip a recorder into a private meeting between Richard Nixon and Southern delegates to the 1968 Republican Convention, so Clarence could report what Nixon said about his private views on school busing to integrate schools. Cringe as Clarence shares inside stories of how news was slanted at his first newspaper and public officials were coddled. Rejoice in the chapter "Bosses with Balls" as owners and editors at his later paper and TV stations take career and financial risks to support his reporting. Worry about the future of the democracy as mega-corporations take over news outlets and the bean counters abandon journalism's goals of truth, fairness, and public service. Jones tells it the way it was. The way it REALLY was. And how great reporting may yet triumph.

Clarence Jones is a writer, inventor, tinkerer, photographer, sailor. He was born in the middle of the Great Depression. When something broke, you fixed it. There was no money for a repair man. He learned as a youngster how to design and make things that worked just as well as those in the store that cost a lot. His inventive creativity was a great asset in his careers as an award-winning newspaper and television reporter. One of the biggest challenges was often figuring out how to hide a camera or a recording device that would capture the evidence to prove his target's guilt. So when he became a sailor in mid-life, it was just natural for him to design gadgets that made his boat work better. The impetus for some of his projects would be a magazine article about a new device for sailboats. Within a day or so, Clarence would have a working prototype that would do the same thing. For a tiny fraction of what the new gadget cost. This book is a collection of those projects, many of them first published in sailing magazines. The guidelines for his sailboat projects - and the writing about them - have always been: Simplicity Ease of assembly Minimal cost Lots of pictures Where to get the materials That's what this book is all about.

The new, updated edition of a classic guidebook. Reviewers have called it the bible for news media relations. Written by Clarence Jones, one of the nation's most honored investigative reporters, who left reporting to become a news media consultant and on-camera coach when this book was first published. Jones helps you understand how the news media operate and how to cope with them. A former investigative reporter in both newspapers and television, the author shares his candid, critical assessment of where the media are, and where they're going. The book is divided into three sections -- Media Strategy, Media Skills, and Inside the Media. It includes basic public relations guidelines, as well as extensive, step-by-step recommendations when you've been targeted by the media, or need to get your story out. Interview and news conference tips, crisis management, libel and privacy law are all explored in great detail. How to safely talk to reporters off-the-record. Explanations of how they'll edit you and what you can do to make the editing more accurate. Full text of the code of ethics reporters and editors claim to live by, and what you can do when they break their own rules. Four chapters cover on-camera skills and performance. How to deal with stage fright, how to sit, getting your mind in the right space for the interview. What to wear. How to craft a quote they'll use, and use exactly as you said it. How to judge media advice from your lawyer. The battle for money and power that is now raging between print, television, and the Internet. The book includes extensive case studies of people and corporations who were caught in the media spotlight. How and why they succeeded or failed in defending themselves. Lessons that can be applied to your next crisis. How to become the expert on call by creating an inexpensive webcam studio so you're available 24/7 for instant interviews networks and local stations can include in their stories.