The News about the News: American Journalism in Peril

by Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser

Book Overview

Freedom of the press is a primary American value. Good journalism builds communities, arms citizens with important information, and serves as a public watchdog for civic, national, and global issues.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375408746
• ISBN13: 9780375408748
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

News: Who Needs it?

This book made me mad. It showed how truely twisted and money driven most of the newspaper and television companies are. It also made me mad because I can never watch network news on television again. I used to enjoy the 10:00 news. Stories of crime, killer bees, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were facinating, and I thought, valid uses of news time. Turns out these kinds of stories are meant to attract viewers, not inform them. This book had to be written. As a young person, the only news my peers seem to be interested in is who is dating who in Hollywood. I understand that this information might be interesting, but it is not news! What I love about this book is that it is written by two people who know what they are talking about. The authors are both journalists for the Washington Post (one of the few newspapers that still has a high standard of news). They have both years of experience and numerous facts to back up their ideas. More people should read this book to realize what to expect, and hopefully demand, from news.

What People Want and What People Need

Downie and Kaiser are veteran newspapermen with a very experienced perspective on the business of news, and they prove in this book that the current situation isn't so good. Journalism is in a sorry state due to modern trends of money grubbing and media fragmentation. Increasing absentee corporate ownership of newspapers and TV networks has led to an obsession with short-term profitability, with reporters and editors being forced to focus on lowest-common-denominator topics like entertainment and consumer news. This might help profit margins now, but damage journalistic quality so badly that the health of the news business is in a downward spiral. Another problem is inaccurate market research by consultants who know little about the business, leading to the unproven perception that the public wants less substance and more convenience. The real evidence proves otherwise, and media outlets think that giving people what they want is more useful than giving them what they need. The authors also prove the near uselessness of most local TV newscasts, which have become enslaved by pressure from advertisers, and are prone to "action" news that is photogenic but informationally useless. The authors tend to heap an annoying amount of praise on their employer, the Washington Post, although that paper deserves its reputation as one of the nation's best. They also fail to look into non-establishment and alternative media outlets (sticking mostly to newspaper, TV, and a little bit of cyberspace), while the later chapters of the book become a repetitive summary of points that were proven long before. However, the insights into the poor health of the news business are very illuminating and even a little scary, because the most successful democratic society should be a well-informed one. But the recent decline in journalistic integrity is not necessarily a permanent trend and it can even be reversed. The best evidence is in the aftermath of 9/11, as the hunger for real in-depth knowledge awakened in the American public, and the news business finally realized that the public was smarter than they assumed all along. Time will tell if the downward trend in quality will reverse itself over the long term, but for the meantime Downie and Kaiser have created an expose that should lead to much self-examination in their field.

Do Revenues Control the News? Yes.

This is a great book, and is "must" reading for anyone involved in the news business, print or television. It would be impossible to read this book and think that print is always the best or that television is always the worst in the reporting of important news, but the message clearly is that thorough, accurate, honest news reporting is essential for our society.Budget cuts by both sides have harmed news reporting, yet in every case cited, these objective writers use facts to help the reader make his or her own judgments about "good" or "bad." Anyone who is offended by this book is offended by the facts. What is clear after reading this book is that the news is too important to be left entirely to the control of comptrollers.

A Tale That Must Be Told!

If you read a newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch T.V. news, you MUST read this book. Kaiser and Downie, veterans journalists from the Washington Post, explain why our newspapers are the key to a vibrant, free press, and are the springboard for all other (read: electronic) types of journalism. More importantly, the authors enlighten the readers to the deleterious effects of corporate ownership on newspapers. In an effort to maintain historically high profit margins - and therefore, stockholder equity - corporate influence causes newspapers large and small to trim news space, cut staff, and conform to cookie cutter reporting strategies. This book is a real eye-opener, and more than a little scary.

Shows Both Sides of the Coin

I pretty much assumed this book would do what many media-oriented books do: focus excessively on one side of the story. "The News About the News" doesn't do that, however. It gives an expert, reasonable assessment of the problems of today's media, including the negative effects of corporate ownership of news organizations and how such ownership weakens coverage.There's plenty of optimism, however. I was surprised to learn how profitable news CAN be while remaining informative and balanced. The authors also assess how technology has weakened news coverage but how it also holds the potential to make covering world events easier and better.The book also gives an engaging look at how a newspaper reporter identifies, researches, and puts together a story in a way that reads like a novel.Overall, it's informative, smoothly written, and thought-provoking.