Media : News and Current Affairs

The host of NPR's Morning Edition chronicles the rise of radio and television news In this brisk and incisive account, Bob Edwards shows us how Edward R. Murrow helped establish broadcast journalism-and, in the process, reminds us how far most broadcast news has fallen from the reportorial standards set by Murrow and the people he hired at CBS. Sent to Europe in the late 1930s by CBS, Murrow pioneered the concept of radio reports by foreign correspondents, nightly roundups of European news, and, later, "you are there" reports from London during the blitz. After the war, Murrow launched See It Now, the first in-depth television news program-and helped make CBS the gold standard for television news. Edwards brings to life the great stories Murrow covered-the blitz, bombing raids over Berlin, the liberation of Buchenwald, red-baiting by Senator Joe McCarthy-as well as the ups and downs of his career at CBS. Complete with an afterword that analyzes the decline of broadcast news since the 1980s, this book will be required reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century history and the media. "It's amazing to me that Bob Edwards, who didn't know Murrow, knows him so well. . . I found in this book the Murrow I knew."-Daniel Schorr, Senior News Analyst, NPR "Get it, read it, and pass it on. Every aspiring broadcast journalist should have it."—Bill Moyers Bob Edwards (Arlington, VA) has been the host since 1979 of NPR's Morning Edition, the most popular program on public radio, with 13 million listeners each week. He and his program won the prestigious Peabody Award in 1999 for "two hours of daily in-depth news and entertainment expertly helmed by a man who embodies the essence of excellence in radio"; he also won the Edward R. Murrow Award in 1984. He is the author of Fridays with Red. more...

Price: $19.95

A look at the growth of news provision on the Internet and its implications for news presentation, journalism practice, news consumers and the business of running news organizations. The book examines the growth of online technology as a source of information and entertainment. more...

Price: $27.50

Gates, the eminent Harvard scholar and author, traveled around the US to find out why and how black America has split into what he sees as two distinct communities: one privileged and one disenfranchised. The book, the companion to a PBS television series of the same name, comprises about 40 essays focusing on individuals (both prominent and obscure) who inhabit four spheres: the "ebony towers" of academia, government, and business; the American South, whose black population increased by almost 3.6 million in the 1990s; black Hollywood; and Chicago's South Side, where a parallel world of extreme black poverty persists. Gates' interviewees talk about race, class, and what it means to be African-American in the 21st century. more...

Price: $9.99

Examining Western media and government activity relating to Kosovo, it provides a novel interpretation of the factors that drove Western policy towards military intervention in this region. more...

Price: $69.95

Randall argues that the development of written news required new standards of credibility for the information to be believable. more...

Price: $99.00