This book advances a journalistic theory of empathy, challenging long-held notions about how best to do journalism. Because the institution of journalism has typically equated empathy and compassion with bias, it has been slow to give the intelligence of the emotions a legitimate place in the reporting and writing process. Blank-Libra's work locates the point at which the vast, multidisciplinary research on empathy intersects with the work of the journalist, revealing a reality that has always been so: journalists practice empathy as a way to connect but also as a form of inquiry, as sincere and legitimate in its goals and aspirations as is objectivity.

This book advances a journalistic theory of empathy, challenging long-held notions about how best to do journalism. Because the institution of journalism has typically equated empathy and compassion with bias, it has been slow to give the intelligence of the emotions a legitimate place in the reporting and writing process. Blank-Libra's work locates the point at which the vast, multidisciplinary research on empathy intersects with the work of the journalist, revealing a reality that has always been so: journalists practice empathy as a way to connect but also as a form of inquiry, as sincere and legitimate in its goals and aspirations as is objectivity.

American democracy is built on its institutions. The Congress, the presidency, and the judiciary, in particular, undergird the rights and responsibilities of every citizen. The free press, for example, protected by the First Amendment, allows for the dissent so necessary in a democracy. How has this institution changed since the nation's founding? And what can we, as leaders, policymakers, and citizens, do to keep it vital?
The freedom of the press is an essential element of American democracy. With the guidance of editors Geneva Overholser and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, this volume examines the role of the press in a democracy, investigating alternative models used throughout world history to better understand how the American press has evolved into what it is today. The commission also examines ways to allow more voices to be heard and to improve the institution of the American free press.
The Press, a collection of essays by the nation's leading journalism scholars and professionals will examine the history, identity, roles, and future of the American press, with an emphasis on topics of concern to both practitioners and consumers of American media.

From the foreword by Geneva Overholser. What is it about really fine writers, how they delight, intrigue, compel us? Style, you say. But style is not something you begin with. Rather, it's what you end up with, a result of far more fundamental traits. Traits such as an ear and an eye and a heart, traits that Madeliene Blais has honed superbly well. This is a book well named: The Heart Is an Instrument: Portraits in Journalism. The heart is surely first among Blais's gifts. Whether she is writing about the famous--playwright tennessee Williams, novelist Mary Gordon--or about the least elevated among us--a teenage prostitute infected with the AIDS virus, a homeless schizophrenic--she brings to her subjects an incomparable empathy.