Key Readings in Journalism

Key Readings in Journalism brings together over thirty essential writings that every student of journalism should know. Designed as a primary text for undergraduate students, each reading was carefully chosen in response to extensive surveys from educators reflecting on the needs of today’s journalism classroom. Readings range from critical and historical studies of journalism, such as Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion and Michael Schudson’s Discovering the News, to examples of classic reporting, such as Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men. They are supplemented by additional readings to broaden the volume’s scope in every dimension, including gender, race, and nationality. The volume is arranged thematically to enable students to think deeply and broadly about journalism—its development, its practice, its key individuals and institutions, its social impact, and its future—and section introductions and headnotes precede each reading to provide context and key points for discussion.

Elliot King is Professor and Chair in the Communication Department at Loyola University Maryland.
Jane Chapman is Professor of Communications in the School of Journalism at Lincoln University, and is a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College Cambridge.

Introduction: What We Should Know


Section I: The Development of Journalism


Introduction



* Discovering the News, Michael Schudson


* A Place in the News, Kay Mills


* Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph, James W. Carey


* The African American Newspaper, Pat Washburn


* Comparative Media History, Jane Chapman


* Free for All: The Internet’s Transformation of Journalism, Elliot King


Section II: Doing Journalism


Introduction


* Deciding What’s News, Herbert Gans


* The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn


* The Race Beat, Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff


* The First Casualty, M. Phillip Knightley


* All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward


* The Girls in the Balcony, Nan Robertson


Section III: Biography


Introduction


* Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power, James McGrath Morris


* The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens, Lincoln Steffens


* Margaret Bourke White: A Biography, Vicki Goldberg


* Murrow: His Life and Times, A.M.Sperber


* Breaking Barriers, Carl Rowan


* Personal History, Katherine Graham


Section IV: Classic Reporting


Introduction


* Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, Ida Wells-Barnett


* A History of Standard Oil Company, Ida Tarbell


* Ernie’s War, David Nichols


* Silent Spring, Rachel Carson


* In Cold Blood, Truman Capote


* The Boys on the Bus, Timothy Crouse


Section V: Journalism and Society


Introduction


* Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville


* Public Opinion, Walter Lippmann


* The Brass Check, Upton Sinclair


* A Free and Responsible Press: The Hutchins Committee Response, Robert D. Leigh


* The Press, A.J. Liebling


* Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky


* On Television and Journalism, Pierre Bourdieu