Why be a journalist? It can be a difficult job with long hours, hard work and an uncertain future. Journalists face relentless criticism and an industry in transition. Aaron Chimbel has put together a collection of essays from working journalists who answer the question — why be a journalist? — with their personal stories of coming up, toiling in the field and writing important, career-defining stories. These journalists come from different platforms, beats and locations, offering varying accounts of the travails and rewards of being a working journalist across changing landscapes and timelines. The essays in Why I’m a Journalist offer encouragement and wisdom about the path to being a reporter, a broadcaster, an editor or a media professional. This is a collection for students interested in the field, early upstarts engaged with building their careers and seasoned pros looking to learn from their colleagues.

News stories are like collective memories, encapsulating the most iconic moments in recent history around the world. But to those who work in journalism, up-close involvement with these stories can also be life-changing. In That’s Why I’m a Journalist, veteran broadcaster Mark Bulgutch interviews 44 prominent Canadian journalists, who each share their behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the most memorable stories of their careers and describe the moment that made them say to themselves, “That’s why I’m a journalist.” Although many of the contributors’ stories are related to their roles in the most high-profile events of the 20th and 21st centuries, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11, here too are reflections on quieter and more intimate moments that had a deep personal impact. Peter Mansbridge talks about a trip to Vimy Ridge on the hundredth anniversary of World War I, Adrienne Arsenault recalls bringing together old friends separated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Terence McKenna recounts what it’s like to worry about being kidnapped as part of the job and Wendy Mesley reflects on the satisfaction of asking tough questions—and uncovering the truth. Together, these enthralling and varied accounts provide an intimate understanding of the people we see on camera and hear on the radio. As Bulgutch argues, modern journalism is undergoing existential threats. News has never been more accessible yet, paradoxically, important news has become harder to find, often buried by pseudo-news of celebrity, lifestyle tips and the latest viral video of a water-skiing squirrel. The stories in this book serve as reminders of the importance of real journalists and real journalism.

A look at the history of the idea of the objective journalist and how this very ideal can often be used to undercut itself. In The View from Somewhere, Lewis Raven Wallace dives deep into the history of “objectivity” in journalism and how its been used to gatekeep and silence marginalized writers as far back as Ida B. Wells. At its core, this is a book about fierce journalists who have pursued truth and transparency and sometimes been punished for it—not just by tyrannical governments but by journalistic institutions themselves. He highlights the stories of journalists who question “objectivity” with sensitivity and passion: Desmond Cole of the Toronto Star; New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse; Pulitzer Prize-winner Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah; Peabody-winning podcaster John Biewen; Guardian correspondent Gary Younge; former Buzzfeed reporter Meredith Talusan; and many others. Wallace also shares his own experiences as a midwestern transgender journalist and activist who was fired from his job as a national reporter for public radio for speaking out against “objectivity” in coverage of Trump and white supremacy. With insightful steps through history, Wallace stresses that journalists have never been mere passive observers. Using historical and contemporary examples—from lynching in the nineteenth century to transgender issues in the twenty-first—Wallace offers a definitive critique of “objectivity” as a catchall for accurate journalism. He calls for the dismissal of this damaging mythology in order to confront the realities of institutional power, racism, and other forms of oppression and exploitation in the news industry. The View from Somewhere is a compelling rallying cry against journalist neutrality and for the validity of news told from distinctly subjective voices.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse trains an autobiographical lens on a moment of transition in U.S. journalism. Calling herself “an accidental activist,” she raises urgent questions about the role of journalists as citizens and participants in the world around them.

A seminal work and examination of the psychopathology of journalism. Using a strange and unprecedented lawsuit by a convicted murder againt the journalist who wrote a book about his crime, Malcolm delves into the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject. Featuring the real-life lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision. In Malcolm's view, neither journalist nor subject can avoid the moral impasse that is built into the journalistic situation. When the text first appeared, as a two-part article in The New Yorker, its thesis seemed so radical and its irony so pitiless that journalists across the country reacted as if stung. Her book is a work of journalism as well as an essay on journalism: it at once exemplifies and dissects its subject. In her interviews with the leading and subsidiary characters in the MacDonald-McGinniss case -- the principals, their lawyers, the members of the jury, and the various persons who testified as expert witnesses at the trial -- Malcolm is always aware of herself as a player in a game that, as she points out, she cannot lose. The journalist-subject encounter has always troubled journalists, but never before has it been looked at so unflinchingly and so ruefully. Hovering over the narrative -- and always on the edge of the reader's consciousness -- is the MacDonald murder case itself, which imparts to the book an atmosphere of anxiety and uncanniness. The Journalist and the Murderer derives from and reflects many of the dominant intellectual concerns of our time, and it will have a particular appeal for those who cherish the odd, the off-center, and the unsolved.

It is becoming increasingly important for television reporters to be proficient in many, if not all, of the steps in production. The Solo Video Journalist will make handling all these responsibilities seem possible, and do so from the hands-on perspective of a current reporter with years of experience as a multimedia journalist. This book will cover all aspects of multimedia journalism, from planning for a segment, to dressing appropriately for one’s multiple roles, to conducting interviews and editing. The instruction and guidance in this text will help make readers valuable players in their field, and it is filled with real-world examples and advice from current professionals. Whether it be college students learning from the ground up or journalists early in their careers, The Solo Video Journalist ensures they will have all the materials they need to be successful multimedia journalists.

Over the course of a thirty-year career, Samuel Freedman has excelled both at doing journalism and teaching it, and he passionately engages both of these endeavors in the pages of this book. As an author and journalist, Freedman has produced award-winning books, investigative series, opinion columns, and feature stories and has become a specialist in a wide variety of fields. As a teacher, he has shared his expertise and experience with hundreds of students, who have gone on to succeed in both print and broadcast media. In Letters to a Young Journalist, Freedman conducts an extended conversation with young journalists-from kids on the high school paper to graduates starting their first jobs. Whether he's talking about radio documentaries or TV news shows, Internet blogs, or backwater beats, shoeleather research or elegant prose, his goal is to explore the habits of mind that make an excellent journalist. It is no secret that journalism's mission is seriously imperiled these days, and Freedman's provocative ideas and fascinating stories offer students and journalists at all levels of experience wise guidance and professional inspiration.

Nineteen Arab women journalists speak out about what it’s like to report on their changing homelands in this first-of-its-kind essay collection, with a foreword by CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour “A stirring, provocative and well-made new anthology . . . that rewrites the hoary rules of the foreign correspondent playbook, deactivating the old clichés.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times A growing number of intrepid Arab and Middle Eastern sahafiyat—female journalists—are working tirelessly to shape nuanced narratives about their changing homelands, often risking their lives on the front lines of war. From sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo to the difficulty of traveling without a male relative in Yemen, their challenges are unique—as are their advantages, such as being able to speak candidly with other women at a Syrian medical clinic or with men on Whatsapp who will go on to become ISIS fighters, rebels, or pro-regime soldiers. In Our Women on the Ground, nineteen of these women tell us, in their own words, about what it’s like to report on conflicts that (quite literally) hit close to home. Their daring and heartfelt stories, told here for the first time, shatter stereotypes about the region’s women and provide an urgently needed perspective on a part of the world that is frequently misunderstood. INCLUDING ESSAYS BY: Donna Abu-Nasr, Aida Alami, Hannah Allam, Jane Arraf, Lina Attalah, Nada Bakri, Shamael Elnoor, Zaina Erhaim, Asmaa al-Ghoul, Hind Hassan, Eman Helal, Zeina Karam, Roula Khalaf, Nour Malas, Hwaida Saad, Amira Al-Sharif, Heba Shibani, Lina Sinjab, and Natacha Yazbeck

"Emmy Award-winning NPR journalist Maria Hinojosa shares her personal story interwoven with American immigration policy's coming-of-age journey at a time when our country's branding went from "The Land of the Free" to "the land of invasion.""--

This is a 1973 anthology of journalism edited by Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson. The book is both a manifesto for a new type of journalism by Wolfe, and a collection of examples of New Journalism by American writers, covering a variety of subjects from the frivolous (baton twirling competitions) to the deadly serious (the Vietnam War). The pieces are notable because they do not conform to the standard dispassionate and even-handed model of journalism. Rather they incorporate literary devices usually only found in fictional works.