New Books In Journalism

On January 28 2011 WikiLeaks released documents from a cache of US State Department cables stolen the previous year. The Daily Telegraph in London published one of the memos with an article headlined 'Egypt protests: America's secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising'. The effect of the revelation was immediate, helping set in motion an aggressive counter-narrative to the nascent story of the Arab Spring. The article featured a cluster of virulent commentators all pushing the same story: the CIA, George Soros and Hillary Clinton were attempting to take over Egypt. Many of these commentators were trolls, some of whom reappeared in 2016 to help elect Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. Nathaniel Greenberg's book How Information Warfare Shaped the Arab Spring: The Politics of Narrative in Egypt and Tunisia (Edinburgh UP, 2019) tells the story of how a proxy-communications war ignited and hijacked the Arab uprisings and how individuals on the ground, on air and online worked to shape histor

We are just over a year from when global news first reported a new type of pneumonia emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A lockdown of Wuhan on January 23rd, 2020, was the first indication that these stories were more serious than originally thought. All of us know what happened next: COVID-19 spread from China to other countries in Asia, then to Europe, then to North America, then worldwide. To slow the spread, countries frantically imposed travel restrictions on those coming from places affected by COVID-19: a massive shift away from the increasingly open borders seen over the past two decades. One traveller caught up in these new restrictions was Ethan Lou, author of Field Notes From a Pandemic: A Journey Through a World Suspended (Signal, 2020). Ethan arrives in China in early 2020 to visit his family, as the first leg of a trip around the world. On each leg of his journey, he sees how different parts of the world are transformed by the global pandemic. Field Notes From a Pandemic, named among the CBC’

In the early decades of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Yiddish speaking immigrants actively participated in the American Socialist and labor movement. They formed the milieu of the hugely successful daily Forverts (Forward), established in New York in April 1897.  In Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (Academic Studies Press, 2020), Gennady Estraikh describes how the Forverts’ editorial columns and bylined articles―many of whose authors, such as Abraham Cahan and Sholem Asch, were household names at the time―both reflected and shaped the attitudes and values of the readership. Estreikh focuses on the newspaper’s reaction to the political developments in the home country. Profound admiration of Russian literature and culture did not mitigate the writers’ criticism of the czarist and Soviet regimes. Gennady Estraikh is a Clinical Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Previously he wa

In Citizens of Scandal: Journalism, Secrecy, and the Politics of Reckoning in Mexico (Duke University Press, 2020), Vanessa Freije develops a new rich thesis about the role of the press in Mexican civil society. In this well researched monograph, Freije shows how journalists played a key role in producing scandalous spectacles that brought an otherwise authoritarian PRI to account. Simultaneously, each chapter explores the limitations and drawbacks of Mexican muckraking as bribery, violence, and social networks blunted the most dangerous challenges to the regime.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

For nearly eighty years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed “overmined” and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling?particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air. Entering Die Sperrgebiet (“The Forbidden Zone”) is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing―even eager―to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It’s a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes. For this, Msizi blames “Mr. Lester,” an evil tall-tale figure of mythic proporti

A reporter uncovers the secrets behind the scientific scam of the century.  The news breaks first as a tale of fear and pity. Doctors at a London hospital claim a link between autism and a vaccine given to millions of children: MMR. Young parents are terrified. Immunization rates slump. And as a worldwide ‘anti-vax’ movement kicks off, old diseases return to sicken and kill. But a veteran reporter isn’t so sure, and sets out on an epic investigation. Battling establishment cover-ups, smear campaigns, and gagging lawsuits, he exposes rigged research and secret schemes, the heartbreaking plight of families struggling with disability, and the scientific deception of our time. Brian Deer's The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020) tells the troubling story of Andrew Wakefield: a man in search of greatness, who stakes his soul on big ideas that, if right, might transform lives. But when the facts don’t fit, he can’t face failure. He’ll do whatever it takes to succ

In Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century (Columbia University Press, 2020), Thomas Doherty offers a lively and comprehensive cultural history of the media coverage of the abduction and its aftermath. Beginning with Lindbergh’s ascent to fame and proceeding through the trial and execution of the accused kidnapper, Doherty traces how newspapers, radio, and newsreels reported on what was dubbed the “crime of the century.” He casts the affair as a transformative moment for American journalism, analyzing how the case presented new challenges and opportunities for each branch of the media in the days before the rise of television. Coverage of the Lindbergh story, Doherty reveals, set the template for the way the media would treat breaking news ever after. An engrossing account of an endlessly fascinating case, Little Lindy Is Kidnapped sheds new light on an enduring quality of journalism ever since: the media’s eye on a crucial part of the story—itself. Thomas Doherty is professo

In Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press (University of Illinois Press, 2020), Dr. Kim Gallon examines how Black newspaper editors and journalists created and fostered Black sexual publics during the 1920s and 1930s. She demonstrates that editors strategically elected to publish stories about marital scandals, divorces, homosexuality, and gender non-conformity, imagining that this coverage was a source of pleasure and debate for Black readers. Gallon argues that this editorial practice actually exposed class, gender, and sexuality divisions between different groups of African Americans. At the same time, this coverage revealed the tenuous position of lesbians, gay men, and female impersonators in a public sphere that sometimes silenced and marginalized their voices. Along with advancing racial solidarity, which Gallon takes as the Black presses’ starting point, the press revealed the diversity of Black people and created a discursive space in which sexual knowledge

Sharon Marcus’s new book, The Drama of Celebrity (Princeton UP, 2020), sets out to help us understand celebrity culture and how it has shifted and evolved since its contemporary inception in the early 1800s. Marcus highlights the celebrity concept throughout western history, indicating some of the same dynamics at work in classical Greece that we see in our current popular culture landscape. This culture has three components that are generally all present in some form: the celebrities themselves, who may achieve that role through some form of performance or other attention-generating experience or event, a media of some kind (radio, newspaper, magazines, social media) that focuses attention on individual celebrities, and the fans or citizens who engage with the celebrities. Marcus delineates this “three-legged stool” of celebrity culture and notes that while aspects of it have changed over the years—especially the form of media—the structure and foundation continues to operate as an interactive ecosystem. Mar

Bombastic headlines about science and technology are nothing new. To cut through the constant stream of information and misinformation on social media, or grab the attention of investors, or convince governments to take notice, strident headlines or bold claims seem necessary to give complex, nuanced information some wow factor. But hype has a dark side, too. It can mislead. It can distract. It can blinker us from seeing what is actually going on. From AI, quantum computing and brain implants, to cancer drugs, future foods and fusion energy, science and technology journalist Gemma Milne reveals hype to be responsible for fundamentally misdirecting or even derailing crucial progress. Hype can be combated and discounted, though, if you're able to see exactly where, how and why it is being deployed. Smoke and Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It (Robinson, 2021) is your guide to doing just that. Marci Mazzarotto is an Assistant Professor of Digital Communication at Georgian Court Universi

Listen to this interview of Elisa De Ranieri, Editor-in-Chief of Nature Communications. We talk about knowing the research you have done, but communicating the message you want said. Interviewer: "When a submission lands on your desk, or better said, you call it up on your screen, what are you pleased to see, what makes your work easier?" Elisa De Ranieri: "Yeah, well, I guess what makes the job easier for an editor is to receive a paper that is well-written and well-constructed and where the authors are so experienced that they know how to pitch their story. It's nice because it, obviously, spares the editor the trouble of having to unpick what's being said. You know, there are papers where––I'm not saying that they're badly written––but they are so dense because it's not a story, it's a dump of facts, so that you have to start unpicking the facts until you've made your own version of the story that the authors are trying to tell, and only then can you assess that story based on your criteria." Daniel Shea,

Harvey Araton’s new book Our Last Season: A Writer, a Fan, a Friendship (Penguin, 2020), reads like a mix between Tuesdays with Morrie and a sequel to his book When the Garden was Eden (which chronicled the New York Knicks’ early-70s title teams). It’s a book about friendship, aging and of course, basketball. Harvey Araton is one of New York's--and the nation's--best-known sports journalists, having covered thousands of Knicks games over the course of a long and distinguished career. But the person at the heart of Our Last Season, Michelle Musler, is largely anonymous--except, that is, to the players, coaches, and writers who have passed through Madison Square Garden, where she held season tickets behind the Knicks bench for 45 years. In that time, as she juggled a successful career as a corporate executive and single parenthood of five children, she missed only a handful of home games. The Garden was her second home--and the place where an extraordinary friendship between fan and sportswriter was forged. Tha

Social media has become a crucial avenue for political discourse in Southeast Asia, given its potential as a “liberation technology” in both democratising and authoritarian states. Yet the growing decline in internet freedom and increasingly repressive and manipulative use of social media tools by governments means that social media is now an essential platform for control. “Disinformation” and “fake news” production is growing rapidly, and national governments are creating laws which attempt to address this trend, but often only exacerbate the situation of state control. In this episode, Dr Aim Sinpeng and Dr Ross Tapsell discuss their new book, From Grassroots Activism to Disinformation: Social Media in Southeast Asia (ISEAS Publishing, 2020), with Dr Thushara Dibley, and explore some of the more recent controversies surrounding social media use in Southeast Asia. Aim Sinpeng is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney. Her research interests centre on the relationships between

While Hollywood’s images present a veneer of fantasy for some, the work to create such images is far from escapism. In Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood (Duke University Press, 2020), anthropologist Vanessa Díaz examines the raced and gendered hierarchies and inequalities that are imbricated within the work of producing celebrity in Los Angeles, CA. Díaz’s ethnography follows reporters and paparazzi to examine their everyday practices of work and labor that bring celebrity images and stories into being on the pages of celebrity magazines. Grounded in media workers’ perspectives and everyday life, this book carefully situates Latino paparazzi and women reporters in relationship to the particular vulnerabilities that they face. For example, Díaz traces a shift in the demographic of the paparazzi from white men to Latino men, and with it a significant shift in the tone of insults levied against them. Women reporters remain vulnerable to sexual harassment and other dangers

Surfers are the ultimate bad boys, living the counter-culture life of decadence and hedonism as they travel the world in search of the perfect wave, partying hard along the way. So, it’s not surprising that these social misfits and dropouts created a sub-culture tied to drugs. While most might associate surfing Jeff Spicoli with smoking marijuana in Fast Times at Ridgemont High or hippies dropping acid in late 1960s Hawai’i, Chas Smith argues that cocaine and surfing are much more intertwined. Actually, it’s not so much surfing as the “surf industry”, the fashion industry’s big money marketing of the surfing lifestyle. In this exploration of the commodification of counter-culture, Chas Smith illustrates the lines from The Clash song: “They think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money”. But like a coke binge, the surf industry has come crashing down and once massive international corporations have gone bankrupt. More gonzo journalism than academic history, Cocaine + Surfing: A Sordid History of Surfing’s Gre

Michael Stamm’s book Dead Tree Media: Manufacturing the Newspaper in Twentieth-Century North America (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018) begins with the simple but thought-provoking premise that, not too long ago, newspapers were almost exclusively physical objects made out of paper. This meant that producing a newspaper implied industrial production, mills, and a distribution system that could deliver daily-produced issues to individual consumers. But most of all, it meant trees. Lots and lots of trees. Newspapers acquired timber lands, chopped down trees, and managed international supply chains. A simple premise then opens up an entire world of industrial processes that might appear distant from us denizens of the digital age. In this highly innovative work of media history, Stamm, a Professor of history at Michigan State University, pulls readers into that world, guiding them through newspaper boardrooms in big American cities, lumber camps and company towns across Canada, and laboratories that were experimenting wit

"Few freedoms in the United States are as cherished as freedom of the press." So begins Chapter One of Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society (Oxford University Press, 2020). The book by Victor Pickard, Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the Annenberg School for Communication makes it clear, however, that mainstream American news media are not really free at all, but have been pressed into service over more than a century to generate profits for a few rich owners bent on selling eyeballs and ears to advertisers. Dr. Pickard points out that this system of "toxic commercialism” is in crisis as advertisers flee to cheaper social media outfits like Facebook. In this NBN interview, he says the old TV news adage, "If it bleeds it leads," has been supplemented by a new one, "If it's outrageous, it's contagious" as internet platforms profit from misinformation and even outright lies that engage (and enrage) their readers and keep them coming back for more. Democracy With

Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) by Jerry Gershenhorn is a history of the struggle for Black equality in North Carolina from 1927 to 1971 as told through the life and activism of Black newspaperman Louis Austin. Austin, as editor of the Carolina Times, was involved in nearly every facet of the long Black freedom struggle in North Carolina. He was an outspoken editor and a staunch social justice advocate who championed Black voter’s rights, school desegregation, and economic equality for nearly fifty years. Gershenhorn utilizes the phrase “long black freedom struggle” instead of the customary “long civil rights movement” in his narrative noting that in the 1930s and 1940s many of the customary characteristics of the Civil Rights Movement had not matured at this time in North Carolina and that during this time “mass direct action was the exception not the norm” (3). This text contains an “Introduction” section, seven concis

Nature is the premier weekly journal of science, the journal where specialists go to read and publish primary research in their fields. But Nature is also a science magazine, a combination unusual in journal publishing because in an issue of Nature, research stands side by side with editorials, news and feature reporting, and opinion articles. In fact, over two-thirds of the pieces Nature publishes are journalism and opinion content. This is the remit of Helen Pearson. Helen Pearson is Chief Magazine Editor of Nature. After her PhD, Helen wanted a "broader view" of science, and so she chose science journalism. Helen has written award-winning journalism, and she is the author of The Life Project, voted 2016's best science book by The Observer and a best book of the year by The Economist. Today, Helen can look back on a distinguished career at Nature, where she continues to make a significant contribution to conversations around and in the scientific communities Nature aims to reach. Scholarly Communications is

In his compelling evaluation of Cold War popular culture, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines (Cambridge UP, 2020), Gregory Daddis explores how men's adventure magazines helped shape the attitudes of young, working-class Americans, the same men who fought and served in the long and bitter war in Vietnam. The 'macho pulps' - boasting titles like Man's Conquest, Battle Cry, and Adventure Life - portrayed men courageously defeating their enemies in battle, while women were reduced to sexual objects, either trivialized as erotic trophies or depicted as sexualized villains using their bodies to prey on unsuspecting, innocent men. The result was the crafting and dissemination of a particular version of martial masculinity that helped establish GIs' expectations and perceptions of war in Vietnam. By examining the role that popular culture can play in normalizing wartime sexual violence and challenging readers to consider how American society should move beyond pulp conceptions of 'norm