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Over the last few decades, the radio documentary has developed into a strikingly vibrant form of creative expression. Millions of listeners hear arresting, intimate storytelling from an ever-widening array of producers on programs including This American Life, StoryCorps, and Radio Lab; online through such sites as Transom, the Public Radio Exchange, Hearing Voices, and Soundprint; and through a growing collection of podcasts. Reality Radio celebrates today's best audio documentary work by bringing together some of the most influential and innovative practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In these nineteen essays, documentary artists tell--and demonstrate, through stories and transcripts--how they make radio the way they do, and why. Whether the contributors to the volume call themselves journalists, storytellers, even audio artists--and although their essays are just as diverse in content and approach--all use sound to tell true stories, artfully. Contributors: Jad Abumrad Jay Allison damali ayo John Biewen Emily Botein Chris Brookes Scott Carrier Katie Davis Sherre DeLys Lena Eckert-Erdheim Ira Glass Alan Hall Natalie Kestecher The Kitchen Sisters Maria Martin Karen Michel Rick Moody Joe Richman Dmae Roberts Stephen Smith Sandy Tolan

Writing for Broadcast Journalists is the essential guide to writing news for television and radio, guiding readers through the significant differences between writing text to be read, and writing spoken English that will be heard. This book helps broadcast journalists at every stage of their careers to avoid newspaper-style journalese, cliches, jargon, and inaccurate grammar or pronunciation, while capturing the immediacy of the spoken word in creative broadcast news scripts. It also gives advice on providing concise online material for broadcasters websites. Sections include: Practical advice on how to write accurately but conversationally How to cope with a dynamic English language, with new expressions and words changing their meanings Writing scripts that match the TV pictures, and use real sound on radio Detailed guidance on correct terminology and the need for sensitive language An appendix of dangerous words and phrases to be avoided in scripts. Written in a lively and accessible style by a former BBC news editor, Writing for Broadcast Journalists is an invaluable guide to the techniques of writing news for television, radio and online audiences. "

What propels an individual into becoming a professional observer and chronicler of society, joining a group that is often targeted for criticism by the general public? Can a journalist really have an objective view of the world and the way it operates or do journalists each operate from a specific worldview, parts of which are held in common by all journalists? Do journalists feel they can become involved in normal social and civic activities, or is the world a detached storehouse of ideas for stories? Is the journalist most effective on the sidelines of society, or in getting involved in the action, or taking to the field as a referee or field judge? If journalists are so devoted to the ideals of objectivity, detachment, truth, and providing an accurate view of the world, why do so many of them leave journalism and move into public relations, media consulting, and advertising? These are just some of the issues explored in The Mind of a Journalist: How Reporters See Themselves, Their Stories, and the World. For students and would-be journalists, this book analyzes the rational processes journalists use in defining themselves, their world, and their relation to that world. Written by veteran journalist and noted professor Jim Willis, with many observations from working and recently retired journalists from both print and broadcast, the goal of the book is to put this discussion of journalist thinking into the classroom (alongside discussion of reporting and writing techniques). Ultimately, the book provides added insights to how journalists think and why they do what they do.

The news interview has become a major vehicle for presenting broadcast news and political commentary, and a primary interface between the institutions of journalism and government. This much-needed work examines the place of the news interview in Anglo-American society and considers its historical development in the United States and Britain. The main body of the book discusses the fundamental norms and conventions that shape conduct in the modern interview. It explores the particular recurrent practices through which journalists balance competing professional norms that encourage both objective and adversarial treatment of public figures. Through analyses of well-known interviews, the book explores the relationship between journalists and public figures and also how, in the face of aggressive questioning, politicians and other public figures struggle to stay 'on message' and pursue their own agendas. This comprehensive and wide-ranging book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociolinguistics, media and communication studies.

News journalism is in the midst of radical transformation brought about by the spread of digital information and communication technology and the rise of neoliberalism. What does it look like, however, from the inside of a news organization? In The Life Informatic, Dominic Boyer offers the first anthropological ethnography of contemporary office-based news journalism. The result is a fascinating account of journalists struggling to maintain their expertise and authority, even as they find their principles and skills profoundly challenged by ever more complex and fast-moving streams of information. Boyer conducted his fieldwork inside three news organizations in Germany (a world leader in digital journalism) supplemented by extensive interviews in the United States. His findings challenge popular and scholarly images of journalists as roving truth-seekers, showing instead the extent to which sedentary office-based "screenwork" (such as gathering and processing information online) has come to dominate news journalism. To explain this phenomenon Boyer puts forth the notion of "digital liberalism"--a powerful convergence of technological and ideological forces over the past two decades that has rebalanced electronic mediation from the radial (or broadcast) tendencies of the mid-twentieth century to the lateral (or peer-to-peer) tendencies that dominate in the era of the Internet and social media. Under digital liberalism an entire regime of media, knowledge, and authority has become integrated around liberal principles of individuality and publicity, both unmaking and remaking news institutions of the broadcast era. Finally, Boyer offers some scenarios for how news journalism will develop in the future and discusses how other intellectual professionals, such as ethnographers, have also become more screenworkers than fieldworkers.

Shepard examines how subpoenas for newsgathering information have raised both old and new legal and ethical problems for journalists seeking to protect confidential sources. He explores the ethical and legal evolution of journalistic privilege drawing on cases from the 19th century, the First Amendment principle that emerged in the middle of the 20th century, the public policy implications debated in congressional hearings in the 1970s, and the rise and fall of common law protections in the federal courts between 1972 and 2003. He also interviews key journalists and media lawyers in recent privilege cases. In tracing the development of the journalist's privilege from colonial times to the present, Shepard finds a dynamic interaction among journalism ethics, free-press theory, and legal jurisprudence that supports qualified legal protections for journalists.