New Books in Journalism

Eric Deggans doesn’t just want to see the media transformed. He has his eye on something even more profound. “The goal is to transform the audience,” he said, “because the audience has the power.” Deggans, media critic for the Tampa Bay Times, is the author of Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). The title comes from a 2008 episode of Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” in which the host, Bill O’Reilly, called Deggan a race-baiter. At the urging of his friends and colleagues, Deggans began to explore divisive issues in media and how networks use them to drive ratings and increase their bottom line. “Race-Baiter” goes beyond race, also studying issues of gender and regional culture. Deggans had both the curse and the benefit of writing the book under a tight deadline, which allowed for a discussion of such recent events as the Trayvon Martin shooting and Sarah Fluke being thrust into the national spotlight by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. Deggans draws on his experience as a critic to look not just at news, but also network television, including scripted shows and reality TV. Although the bulk of the book highlights the outrageous exploitation committed by media, he ends Race-Baiter by pushing the conversation forward in the hopefully titled chapter, “Talking Across Difference.” Racial, gender, and cultural differences best serve society through discussion, says Deggans, not exploitation for financial gain. “Let’s fill Facebook pages, comment sections, and Twitter feeds with praise for outlets doing the right thing,” Deggans writes in his final chapter, “and scorn for those who choose another direction.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

“You live in media. Who you are, what you do, and what all of this means to you does not exist outside of media.” So begins Mark Deuze‘s critical look at media, society, and culture, Media Life (Polity Press, 2012). Media are everywhere, and like fish in water, most are blissfully unaware of the very surroundings in which they live. Deuze uses hope to separate his book from many scholarly works on modern media culture. He writes not from fear of the future, but optimism. Media, he writes, isn’t something to be avoided or something we need to escape. Rather, media is most effective when it is understood and used to live a better life, or as Deuze writes, “… we have to let go of seeing media as influence machines that will eventually make us disappear, instead considering media as part of our lives to the extent that they will make us visible (again).” There isn’t a wasted moment in Media Life, with each chapter building upon the ideas of the previous. Meticulously researched and seamlessly written, Media Life addresses concerns and hopes, historical context and modern media phenomena. It is an important book that will be cited for years to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

It’s a great advantage of a dual biography that one can draw attention to a significant life that might otherwise be unexamined by linking it to the life of someone famous. Such is the case with Chip Bishop‘s biography, The Lion and the Journalist: The Unlikely Friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and Joseph Bucklin Bishop (Lyons Press, 2011), which charts the simultaneous rise of the former President and the author’s own great-granduncle. The author does an excellent job illustrating the dynamics of the relationship between Roosevelt and Bishop. For it was to Bishop’s benefit to know Roosevelt, but it was also advantageous for Roosevelt to cultivate an ally in the press like Bishop. Theirs was a mutually beneficial relationship, and the author does an exceptional job of showing how it strengthened and altered with the passage of time, changes in status, increased physical distance, etc. These are the external forces that shape long-term friendships, but they’re seldom explored so intimately and eloquently in biographies of men. The Lion and the Journalist covers a lot of ground. There’s publishing, politics, PR, and the Panama Canal. It’s an unusual historical melange, but it’s riveting. The Lion and the Journalist is also an especially rich entry into the genre of biographies about biographers and their subjects. For it was Bishop who penned the first biography of Roosevelt, laying the foundation from which all future biographers would begin.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

One of the hardest jobs in journalism is making sense of conflict. Seeing through the fog of war and through what each side wants you to report is fantastically difficult, before you come across issues such as access, logistics, safety and context. James Rodgers has a deep understanding of why this is so hard because for many years (Reuters TV and BBC) he was one of the journalists who spent time in conflict zones from Chechnya and Iraq to Georgia and Gaza. As a result his book Reporting Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) draws upon his own personal experiences as well his understanding of the issues involved, and the roles that various different types of reporter and journalist can play for different organisations and in very different circumstances. The result is a slim but disarmingly complete and clear book that deals with most of the big issues facing reporters in times of conflict, from the explosion of different technologies to the constraints imposed by practices such as embedding journalists with armed forces. It’s an important, clear and informed contribution to a debate that will continue as media organisations change and technologies evolve, and I thoroughly recommend getting hold of a copy. But first, of course, have a listen to my interview with James. PS. Here is the link to James’ BBC radio documentary about the ‘PR battle for the Caucasus’ (and for those who are interested in the region here is also a link to my own BBC radio documentary looking at the symbolic role that wine played in relations between Russia and Georgia). James’ Twitter feed is @jmacrodgers; mine is @npw99. 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 Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas (Sentinel HC, 2012), Jonah Goldberg, founding editor of National Review Online and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, analyzes various media strategies used by liberals to “cheat in the war of ideas.” He believes radical ideas are frequently presented swathed in cliches and aphorisms, and attempts to disentangle some of the most recent examples. In our interview, we talked about how he speaks in a pop culture idiom to appeal to young readers, that Voltaire never said “I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it,” and why he takes on the role of Jewish defender of the Catholic Church. Read all about it, and more, in Goldberg’s very funny new book. Please become a fan of New Books in Public Policy on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

Howard Cosell was fond of saying that American television in the 1970s was dominated by three C’s, representing each of the broadcast networks: revered CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, NBC’s late-night talk show host Johnny Carson, and Cosell himself, the marquee sports announcer for the ABC network.  Cosell was known for an inflated sense of self-importance, but in this claim he was accurate.  From his interviews of Muhammad Ali on Wide World of Sports in the Sixties, through his 13-year tenure in the broadcast booth of Monday Night Football, Cosell came to be the most prominent personality in sports television and one of the most recognizable figures–certainly, the most recognized voice–in all of American popular culture. Throughout his career, Cosell aspired to be more like the trusted journalist Cronkite than the entertainer Carson.  And one of the main points of historian John Bloom’s biography, There You Have It: The Life, Legacy, and Legend of Howard Cosell (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), is that Cosell was an innovative, probing, and fearless reporter.  Cosell defended Ali when the boxer was stripped of his heavyweight title.  He spoke on behalf of Tommie Smith and John Carlos when they were sent home after their protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.  And he denounced boxing and refused to work in the sport again, after announcing the horribly one-sided Holmes-Cobb championship fight in 1982. At the same time, Cosell recognized that sports was entertainment.  He played his role for laughs in the Woody Allen film Bananas and on the made-for-TV “athletic competitions” of lesser actors and actresses.  But as his fame peaked, Cosell’s stated opinion of sports turned sharply and dismissively critical.  The broadcaster always felt himself an outsider in the world of sports, a characteristic that Bloom attributes to Cosell’s Jewish background.  And as a trained attorney, Cosell felt himself intellectually superior to the jocks and shills, as he called them.  He gained wealth and fame through sports, but he came to see himself as bigger than sports.  In that sense, Cosell can be seen not only as a legendary figure, but also as a tragic one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

“When your grandmother gets raped, put it on the front page.” That was the Medill family editorial policy and Eleanor Medill “Cissy” Patterson embraced it enthusiastically. The granddaughter of the Chicago Tribune‘s founder, the cousin of the Tribune‘s editor and the sister of the founder of the New York Daily News, Patterson’s family were said to have ink in their veins and she was no exception. By the early 1930s, this titian-haired heiress was the only female editor of a U.S. major metropolitan daily. Patterson’s life held tremendous contrasts–great beauty, big scandals and bitter animosities and intrigue– all of which Amanda Smith elegantly explores in Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson (Knopf, 2011). As the title indicates, there is no shortage of drama here. The heiress to a newspaper fortune, the young Cissy Patterson slinked through Gilded Age society, famous for her inimitable gait. Following the trend of Americans making socially advantageous marriages to European aristocrats, Patterson wed a Russian count who abused her and kidnapped their only child. It’s an incredible story given new life through Smith’s research, which uncovered sources that reveal how- through the intervention of Patterson’s family, President Taft and the Russian Czar- Patterson’s three-year-old daughter was finally returned home. As a society girl, a Countess, an essayist, a rancher, a novelist and, most memorably, a newspaperwoman, Cissy Patterson pushed the boundaries of what women of her time were expected to do and her newspaper was almost a mirror of her self. Under her leadership, the Washington Times (later the Washington Times-Herald) became DC’s most profitable paper thanks to Patterson’s gossipy editorials, her fierce isolationism and her distinctive editorial bite. There was venom in her pen and readers were hooked. It’s a testament to Smith’s skill as a writer that even the ancillary characters in Newspaper Titan seem to burst fully alive from the page, giving the reader insight not only into Patterson’s social circle but also an unusually keen sense of the personalities with whom she tussled. Ultimately, by Newspaper Titan‘s end, the impression one gains of Cissy Patterson is that of a woman who prized newsprint over people, a woman who was delightful after a drink but whose claws came out after three. Patterson was the first to admit this. She was quoted telling TIME, “The trouble with me is that I am a vindictive old shanty-Irish bitch.” And yet, it’s that same cattiness that made her an influential force in the development of tabloid media then and which makes her such a beguiling biographical subject now. As Cissy Patterson herself said: “I’d rather raise hell than raise vegetables.” 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, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind (St. Martin’s Press, 2011), Tim Groseclose, Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA, discusses his quantitative measurements of political bias in the American news media. Based on years of in-depth studies, he concludes that nearly every mainstream media outlet is skewed to the left of the American electorate, and that this bias has helped push the American electorate to the left of where it would be otherwise. In our interview, we talked about different kinds of media bias, as well as bias in academia, and the effect it has had on Professor Groseclose’s career. Read all about it, and more, in Groseclose’s illuminating new book Please become a fan of “New Books in Public Policy” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

Few places can match the Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech for spectacle. As the shadows lengthen and dusk approaches, the square seethes with snake charmers, charlatans, showmen and chancers, all shrouded in charcoal smoke from dozens of makeshift food stalls. It feels like a glimpse into a different world in a different age. One part of that different age, however, is dying out. A handful of storytellers still make their living by captivating audiences with tales and stories of love and death, trickery and justice. Richard Hamilton came across the storytellers while working in Morocco for the BBC, and realised that the tradition was on the brink of extinction. He travelled back to the Djemaa el Fna again and again, tracking down the last of these remarkable men, before advancing years and the age of the television killed Moroccan storytelling once and for all. The Last Storytellers: Tales from the Heart of Morocco (I. B. Taurus, 2011) is the result of those visits. Richard talks about the roots of storytelling, the storytellers themselves, and the stories that they built their livelihoods around. He then treats us to a generous selection of the tales. I’m glad we had time in the interview to touch on some of them. It would be even better to hear some of the tales from the storytellers themselves, mesmerizing their audience in the Djemaa el Fna itself. But even if – as we fear – storytelling itself passes into history, thanks to Richard it will not be completely lost. I hope you enjoy the interview.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

As Ahmedabad, the chief city of Gujarat state in Western India, puts itself up as a contender for World Heritage status, Howard Spodek’s lovely book, Ahmedabad: Shock City of Twentieth Century India (Indiana University Press, 2011), can only give a boost to its campaign. This book is a discrete, yet integrated, collection of narratives from Ahmedabad throughout the twentieth century. The stories trace how this city quietly and unobtrusively sent out people and ideas into the rest of India, and on occasion acted out events that were reflective of trends across the wider Indian landscape. But, as Howard emphasizes, this is also a city that despite everything has remained staunchly and proudly Gujurati, its luminaries basing their power on resources and support from the surrounding regions. Mohandas Gandhi made this industrial city his base, as did many of his followers; the mills came and went, cultural and educational institutions sprang up, and Ahmedabad itself might yet undergo a change in moniker to Karnavati. None of this affects its mediaeval monuments, and patterns of life in its gated bylanes of pols, even as they retain characteristics from long ago, yet subtly, imperceptibly, shift and change in response to changing times.. Howard’s book is a must read for an insight into century of the many that this many layered city has been in existence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism