Journalists used to rely on their notepad and pen. Today, professional journalists rely on the computer-and not just for the writing. Much, if not all, of a journalist's research happens on a computer. If you are journalist of any kind, you need to know how to find the information you need online. This book will show you how to find declassified governmental files, statistics of all kinds, simple and complex search engines for small and large data gathering, and directories of subject experts. This book is for the many journalists around the world who didn't attend a formal journalism school before going to work, those journalists who were educated before online research became mainstream, and for any student studying journalism today. It will teach you how to use the Internet wisely, efficiently and comprehensively so that you will always have your facts straight and fast. Online Newsgathering: . reflects the most current thinking . is pertinent to both industry and education . focuses on what people need to know Please visit the authors' companion website at http://computerassistedreporting.com for additional resources.
This book is for the many journalists who didn't attend a formal journalism school before going to work, those journalists who went to J-school but did so before online information gathering was popular, and for any student studying journalism in college today.
In the early twentieth century, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Walter Lippmann said that the presentation of truthful news lies at the heart of democracy. This volume strong strong stems from Dan D. Nimmo's conviction that opinion and policymaking are also significant, interrelated processes within any political system. A democracy poses problematic questions of the manner and means by which political ideas, opinions, and issues are transmitted throughout the body politic. In the United States, such communication is carried on primarily through the news media. Reporters and their sources interact to form crucial relationships linking citizen and official. Nimmo focuses on that interaction, using personal interviews with selected samples of Washington correspondents and their official news sources as his evidence. Nimmo's research examines the relationships that develop between news sources and reporters as each engages in political communication, indicates the factors most influential in determining such relationships, and suggests the implications such findings have for interpreting the tension that characterizes government-press relations in a democracy such as the United States. In this era of heightened attention to the role of the media in political discourse, reissuance of this volume could not be timelier. This study features a new preface by Daniel Pearl Award winner Georgie Anne Geyer. It should be read by all media specialists, communication scholars, and journalists, and will be valuable for those entering these fields as well.
Praise for the first edition: "It is a wonderful source of information and has the merit of going straight to the subject, being technically precise although very easy to understand. There are numerous pictures, photographs, diagrams, which make the reading a real pleasure." --European Broadcasting Union Technical Review "The complexity of a satellite newsgathering system could be a four-month long college course with a high tuition rate and an enrolment number so large you have to watch your professor on a TV screen. Jonathan Higgins might have saved the independent learner a few attendance point deductions by fitting it into one book." --Satellite Broadband magazine An ideal introduction for anyone working, or interested, in satellite newsgathering (SNG). The new edition of this popular book builds upon the success of the first--an important and valuable work that is extermely easy to read, comprehensive in its treatment, and detailed where necessary. SNG used to be an immensely complex and expensive affair where broadcasting organizations were at the mercy of an expert who sat in a lonely corner, until needed. Things have changed--everyone in a global news organization needs to know about it now. This is not only because of the high costs of mistakes, but because now even non-technical journalists on the ground have to operate their own equipment. Learn the skills, basics of equipment, cutting edge technology and critical safety issues of satellite newsgathering.
Praise for the first edition: "It is a wonderful source of information and has the merit of going straight to the subject, being technically precise although very easy to understand. There are numerous pictures, photographs, diagrams, which make the reading a real pleasure." --European Broadcasting Union Technical Review "The complexity of a satellite newsgathering system could be a four-month long college course with a high tuition rate and an enrolment number so large you have to watch your professor on a TV screen. Jonathan Higgins might have saved the independent learner a few attendance point deductions by fitting it into one book." --Satellite Broadband magazine An ideal introduction for anyone working, or interested, in satellite newsgathering (SNG). The new edition of this popular book builds upon the success of the first--an important and valuable work that is extermely easy to read, comprehensive in its treatment, and detailed where necessary. SNG used to be an immensely complex and expensive affair where broadcasting organizations were at the mercy of an expert who sat in a lonely corner, until needed. Things have changed--everyone in a global news organization needs to know about it now. This is not only because of the high costs of mistakes, but because now even non-technical journalists on the ground have to operate their own equipment. Learn the skills, basics of equipment, cutting edge technology and critical safety issues of satellite newsgathering.
This book reveals that 'fixers'—local experts on whom foreign correspondents rely—play a much more significant role in international television newsgathering than has been documented or understood. Murrell explores the frames though which international reporting has traditionally been analysed and then shows that fixers, who have largely been dismissed by scholars as 'logistical aides', are in fact central to the day-to-day decision-making that takes place on-the-road. Murrell looks at why and how fixers are selected and what their significance is to foreign correspondence. She asks if fixers help introduce a local perspective into the international news agenda, or if fixers are simply ‘People Like Us’ (PLU). Also included are in-depth case studies of correspondents in Iraq and Indonesia.
This book reveals that 'fixers'—local experts on whom foreign correspondents rely—play a much more significant role in international television newsgathering than has been documented or understood. Murrell explores the frames though which international reporting has traditionally been analysed and then shows that fixers, who have largely been dismissed by scholars as 'logistical aides', are in fact central to the day-to-day decision-making that takes place on-the-road. Murrell looks at why and how fixers are selected and what their significance is to foreign correspondence. She asks if fixers help introduce a local perspective into the international news agenda, or if fixers are simply ‘People Like Us’ (PLU). Also included are in-depth case studies of correspondents in Iraq and Indonesia.
In all of journalism, nowhere are the stakes higher than in foreign news-gathering. For media owners, it is the most difficult type of reporting to finance; for editors, the hardest to oversee. Correspondents, roaming large swaths of the planet, must acquire expertise that home-based reporters take for granted—facility with the local language, for instance, or an understanding of local cultures. Adding further to the challenges, they must put news of the world in context for an audience with little experience and often limited interest in foreign affairs—a task made all the more daunting because of the consequence to national security. In Journalism’s Roving Eye, John Maxwell Hamilton—a historian and former foreign correspondent—provides a sweeping and definitive history of American foreign news reporting from its inception to the present day and chronicles the economic and technological advances that have influenced overseas coverage, as well as the cavalcade of colorful personalities who shaped readers’ perceptions of the world across two centuries. From the colonial era—when newspaper printers hustled down to wharfs to collect mail and periodicals from incoming ships—to the ongoing multimedia press coverage of the Iraq War, Hamilton explores journalism’s constant—and not always successful—efforts at “dishing the foreign news,” as James Gordon Bennett put it in the mid-nineteenth century to describe his approach in the New York Herald. He details the highly partisan coverage of the French Revolution, the early emergence of “special correspondents” and the challenges of organizing their efforts, the profound impact of the non-yellow press in the run-up to the Spanish-American War, the increasingly sophisticated machinery of propaganda and censorship that surfaced during World War I, and the “golden age” of foreign correspondence during the interwar period, when outlets for foreign news swelled and a large number of experienced, independent journalists circled the globe. From the Nazis’ intimidation of reporters to the ways in which American popular opinion shaped coverage of Communist revolution and the Vietnam War, Hamilton covers every aspect of delivering foreign news to American doorsteps. Along the way, Hamilton singles out a fascinating cast of characters, among them Victor Lawson, the overlooked proprietor of the Chicago Daily News, who pioneered the concept of a foreign news service geared to American interests; Henry Morton Stanley, one of the first reporters to generate news on his own with his 1871 expedition to East Africa to “find Livingstone”; and Jack Belden, a forgotten brooding figure who exemplified the best in combat reporting. Hamilton details the experiences of correspondents, editors, owners, publishers, and network executives, as well as the political leaders who made the news and the technicians who invented ways to transmit it. Their stories bring the narrative to life in arresting detail and make this an indispensable book for anyone wanting to understand the evolution of foreign news-gathering. Amid the steep drop in the number of correspondents stationed abroad and the recent decline of the newspaper industry, many fear that foreign reporting will soon no longer exist. But as Hamilton shows in this magisterial work, traditional correspondence survives alongside a new type of reporting. Journalism’s Roving Eye offers a keen understanding of the vicissitudes in foreign news, an understanding imperative to better seeing what lies ahead.
