New Books in Journalism

In his acclaimed biography Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press (Amistad, Reprint Edition, 2017), James McGrath Morris explores the fascinating life of pioneering black female journalist Ethel Payne. Backed by exhaustive archival research, Morris traces Payne’s role in documenting the civil rights struggle during the decades following World War II, before her later impact as the first female African American radio and television commentator on a national network. The New York Times has described Eyes on the Struggle as an “an important and often absorbing new book,” while the Chicago Tribune has contended that Morris’ beautifully written and carefully researched new book “gives Payne’s ground-breaking work the attention it deserves.” Morris’ other books include Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, which Booklist placed on its 2010 list of the ten best biographies, and The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism, which the Washington Post named as one of its Best Books of the Year. His most recent work is The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War which will be published in April 2017 by Da Capo Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

Journalism, history, biography, memoirs, and historical fiction overlap to some degree. The first two focus on provable facts, but the facts must be arranged to form a coherent story, and that requires an element of interpretation, especially in history. Biography and memoirs demand even more of a story arc, although still devoted to a specific person who once lived or still lives. And historical fiction, although it departs from that fundamental reliance on what can be documented or evidenced by creating imaginary characters or putting words into the heads and mouths of real people, nonetheless relies on creating a you are there sense of authenticity that cannot exist without considerable research into how people in a given time and place dressed, talked, ate, traveled, and socialized. Finding Billy Battles and its sequels, The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles (Xlibris, 2016) and the forthcoming The Lost Years of Billy Battles (title not set), occupy this space between journalism and fiction. William Fitzroy Raglan Battles, a centenarian in an old soldiers home when his reluctant great-grandson makes his acquaintance, turns out to have lived a rich and varied life that has taken him through the American Wild West, the Philippines, late nineteenth-century Saigon, the Spanish-American War, and other places, not to mention many of the tamer regions of the United States. A reporter by inclination and training, Billy typically observes and records, but the areas he visits often draw him into their conflicts, blurring the line between participation and journalism. Ronald Yates, himself a journalist and professor of journalism who has visited many of the destinations where he sends his main character, brings each of these venues to life in a way that is both vivid and true to the time period. And in Billy Battles, based on a veteran of the Spanish-American War whom Yates interviewed in the same old soldiers home where we first meet his hero, Yates has created a multilayered portrait of a man of integrity who just cant resist a good fight. C. P. Lesley is the author of six novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, and The Swan Princess), a historical fiction series set in 1530s Russia, during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. Find out more about her at http://www.cplesley.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

If all you knew about methamphetamines came from popular culture (“Breaking Bad”) or government anti-drug campaigns (“Faces of Meth”), then you’d probably think that the typical meth user was a unemployed, rail thin degenerate with bad acne, no teeth and a penchant for child abuse. In these depictions, all meth users are “tweekers,” that is, very bad people who are addicted to speed (here, meth) and who can’t take care of themselves or others. But it just ain’t so, as Travis Linnemann points out in his thought-provoking book Meth Wars: Police, Media, Power (NYU Press, 2016). The image we get from the media and the law enforcement of meth use is as cooked as Walter White’s meth. In actual fact, very few peoples use meth (even in “Methland,” aka the Midwest) and most of those who do are not dysfunctional “tweekers.” This is not to say that meth isn’t a problem; it is, just like cocaine, heroin, abused prescription medications, and, above all, alcohol. But it isn’t as different from these “normal” drugs as the media and authorities would have us believe. It’s a powerful stimulant. It’s used for a variety of purposes, some of them having nothing to do with getting high (as a stimulant, meth is especially attractive to those who work long, hard hours). Some people can use it without acting like or appearing to be “tweekers.” The typical meth user is employed, acne-free, has a mouth full of teeth and takes care of his or her children. Just like the typical user of Adderall or any number of legal and widely prescribed amphetamines. Yet, according to the media and authorities, there is a “meth epidemic” that we should all fear as if it were something absolutely unprecedented. And, because meth is so particularly dangerous (so the line goes), we should throw all the meth users in jail forthwith. No thought is given to harm-reduction. As Linnemann shows, our twisted, distorted understanding of meth is beyond hypocritical; it’s positively harmful, particularly for the users and their families. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

Sarah Jaffe has written Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt (Nation Books, 2016). Jaffe is a Nation Institute fellow and an independent journalist. Over the last few years, several authors on the podcast have discussed the growth of the Tea Party, BlackLivesMatter, and Occupy Wall Street. Jaffe’s new book returns to the heart of these movements, explaining what has made ordinary Americans become activists. Jaffe argues that the financial crisis in 2008 sparked activism in many forms. In order to make this case, Jaffe travelled the country, interviewing people about what made them angry. She attended a people’s assembly in a church gymnasium in Ferguson, Missouri; walked a picket line at an Atlanta Burger King; rode a bus from New York to Ohio with student organizers; and went door-to-door in Queens days after Hurricane Sandy. Find her on twitter @sarahljaffe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

The BBC is often thought to be a great, impartial, defender of British values and society. In The BBC: Myth of a Public Service (Verso, 2016), Tom Mills, a lecturer in Sociology at Aston University, re-reads the history of the BBC to offer a more problematic status for the corporation, as an adjunct of British state power. The book uses examples from the General Strike in Britain, through war and economics reporting, to the vetting of left wing political attitudes within the Corporation, to tell the story of an institution that has been misunderstood by both left and right wing critics. Moreover, the book provides a critique of the management and organisation reforms to the BBC, coupled with a class analysis, demonstrating the need for transformation to this important part of British society. At a time when the media is under intense scrutiny for its perceived failures in reporting and representing politics and economics, Mills’ analysis and prescriptions for reform make for essential reading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

With messages limited to 140 characters, Twitter once drew skepticism, even scorn, from journalists who saw little role for the social-media platform in their work. But as Alecia Swasy demonstrates in her new book, How Journalists Use Twitter: The Changing Landscape of U.S. Newsrooms (Lexington Books, 2016), many reporters now embrace Twitter as a means of cultivating sources, promoting stories and building their own “brands”as information providers. Swasy, a veteran business reporter who now teaches at Washington and Lee University, studied Twitter use at four metropolitan newspapers. She discovered that the humble “tweet”has become an integral component of a 24/7 news cycle in which reporters and readers engage in an ongoing conversation. James Kates is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

The millennial generation (those born from 1980 through the beginning of the 21st century) now comprises the largest voting bloc in the American electorate. In Media, Millennials, and Politics: The Coming of Age of the Next Political Generation (Lexington Books, 2016), Alison N. Novak argues that these 50 million young citizens are misunderstood, marginalized and sometimes overtly insulted by the news media. Writers, newscasters and pundits label them “apathetic, uninvolved and entitled,” while ignoring clear evidence that many millennials are deeply concerned about the course of the nation. Novak examines coverage of millennials in cable television and online news, finding that journalists often substitute stereotypes and rhetorical shortcuts for rigorous examination of how members of this generation think and act. She concludes by calling the media to task and demanding that it present a fuller, more nuanced picture of a group that will soon inherit the reins of power in the United States. James Kates is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

In his new book The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), Ethan Michaeli charts the riveting history of the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s longest running and most significant black periodicals. Founded in 1905 by publisher Robert S. Abbott, the Defender came to play a central role in regional and national black politics; drawing African Americans north to Chicago as part of the Great Migration out of the South, condemning Jim Crow and bolstering the electoral power of black America, and helping to secure the election of presidents such as Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. Relying on exhaustive research, including dozens of interviews and extensive archival material, Ethan has constructed the most in-depth and illuminating history of the Defender ever published – highlighting not only the impact of publisher Abbott and iconic columnists such as Ida B. Wells and Langston Hughes, but also the hundreds of other journalists and editors who contributed to the legendary newspaper’s development. Alex Kotlowitz has described The Defender as “a majestic, sweeping history, both of a newspaper and of a people,” and Carol Anderson has applauded the text as a landmark study which will “become an essential resource in African American cultural and political studies.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story (Temple University Press, 2014) offers a timely reminder of how racial bias and prejudice continue to shape political perspectives and dominant media narratives. Drawing on her unique experience as a journalist covering the case, Natalie Byfield explores the media response to and framing of the Central Park Jogger case which gained national attention during the late 1980s. Byfield is a cultural sociologist, who has taught in the fields of sociology and media studies. She is an associate professor at St. John’s University in Queens, New York where her research centers on the sociology of knowledge. She examines language, media systems, and methodologies exploring their roles in the production and construction of race/class/gender inequalities. In 1989 she was a member of a reporting team nominated by the Daily News for a Pulitzer Prize relating to the papers coverage of the Central Park Jogger case. Dr. Byfield is also the recipient of a Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University and a National Science Foundation Fellowship. Her current book project is titled Minority Report: Place, Race, and Surveillance in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

In a fragmented media world where anyone can speak, professional journalists are no longer the “gatekeepers” who decide what the public will see and hear. Instead, citizens are barraged with claims, assertions and innuendo that have not been subjected to the journalistic discipline of verification. Fact-checking, pioneered by bloggers and developed by professional news organizations, attempts to get at the elusive truth by subjecting political figures’ words to careful scrutiny. In Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism (Columbia University Press, 2016) Lucas Graves examines the fact-checkers’ work and plumbs its potential, its limits and its hazards. He concludes that fact-checking, while imperfect, is a genuine reform movement that is reshaping American journalism and the long-cherished ideal of objectivity. James Kates is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism