This book is the first to address the tenor of the journalistic coverage of Africa, using multiple case studies of news production processes conducted in Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mali and South Sudan.

Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century is the first book in over twenty years to examine the international media’s coverage of sub-Saharan Africa. It brings together leading researchers and prominent journalists to explore representation of the continent, and the production of that image, especially by international news media. The book highlights factors that have transformed the global media system, changing whose perspectives are told and the forms of media that empower new voices. Case studies consider questions such as: how has new media changed whose views are represented? Does Chinese or diaspora media offer alternative perspectives for viewing the continent? How do foreign correspondents interact with their audiences in a social media age? What is the contemporary role of charity groups and PR firms in shaping news content? They also examine how recent high profile events and issues been covered by the international media, from the Ebola crisis, and Boko Haram to debates surrounding the "Africa Rising" narrative and neo-imperialism. The book makes a substantial contribution by moving the academic discussion beyond the traditional critiques of journalistic stereotyping, Afro-pessimism, and ‘darkest Africa’ news coverage. It explores the news outlets, international power dynamics, and technologies that shape and reshape the contemporary image of Africa and Africans in journalism and global culture.

International news has long been studied and understood as produced by outsiders – foreign correspondents working in exotic, international locales. This book challenges this established view by putting the spotlight on the insiders working in their own countries producing news for international audiences. Western male foreign correspondents who report from areas affected by crises and conflicts for an ‘audience back home’ have long stood in as visible metaphors of international news production. But the understanding of who produces international news is starting to shift as scholars come to take into account the often-invisible role played by locally based, non-Western news-workers who have always been part and parcel of international news production. The roles and responsibilities of these professional, specialised locals within the global flow of news have only increased as falling news industry revenues have meant reductions in non-local staff in foreign news bureaus. Available research shows that the involvement of local journalists and fixers, as well as NGOs, as sources of news and information in international news production is marked by economic, socio-cultural and practice-related tensions. To shed light on these growing yet relatively less investigated changes happening in international news-making, this book brings together the latest of studies conducted on this form of journalistic labour around the world. This book will contribute to both the breadth and depth of our future understanding of local news-work that benefits distant audiences, and also help cement the place of such journalistic work as a vital topic of analysis in its own right. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

From the tsunami to Hurricane Sandy, the Nepal earthquake to Syrian refugees—defining images and accounts of humanitarian crises are now often created, not by journalists but by ordinary citizens using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat. But how has the use of this content—and the way it is spread by social media—altered the rituals around disaster reporting, the close, if not symbiotic, relationship between journalists and aid agencies, and the kind of crises that are covered? Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews with journalists and aid agency press officers, participant observations at the Guardian, BBC and Save the Children UK, as well as the ordinary people who created the words and pictures that framed these disasters, this book reveals how humanitarian disasters are covered in the 21st century – and the potential consequences for those who posted a tweet, a video or photo, without ever realising how far it would go.

This book documents the unique reporting practices of humanitarian journalists – an influential group of journalists defying conventional approaches to covering humanitarian crises. Based on a 5-year study, involving over 150 in-depth interviews, this book examines the political, economic and social forces that sustain and influence humanitarian journalists. The authors argue that – by amplifying marginalised voices and providing critical, in-depth explanations of neglected crises – these journalists show us that another kind of humanitarian journalism is possible. However, the authors also reveal the heavy price these reporters pay for deviating from conventional journalistic norms. Their peripheral position at the ‘boundary zone’ between the journalistic and humanitarian fields means that a humanitarian journalist’s job is often precarious – with direct implications for their work, especially as ‘watchdogs’ for the aid sector. As a result, they urgently need more support if they are to continue to do this work and promote more effective and accountable humanitarian action. A rigorous study of how unique professional practices can be produced at the ‘boundary zone’ between fields, this book will interest students and scholars of journalism and communication studies, sociology and humanitarian studies. It will also appeal to those interested in studies of news and media work as occupational identities.

Journalism permeates our lives and shapes our thoughts in ways that we have long taken for granted. Whether it is National Public Radio in the morning or the lead story on the Today show, the morning newspaper headlines, up-to-the-minute Internet news, grocery store tabloids, Time magazine in our mailbox, or the nightly news on television, journalism pervades our lives. The Encyclopedia of Journalism covers all significant dimensions of journalism, such as print, broadcast, and Internet journalism; U.S. and international perspectives; and history, technology, legal issues and court cases, ownership, and economics. The encyclopedia will consist of approximately 500 signed entries from scholars, experts, and journalists, under the direction of lead editor Gregory Borchard of University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Exploring the deep transformation that journalism has undergone in the last decade, this book provides students, professors and working journalists with the background on the demise of traditional media in the U.S. and the changes happening in the digital newsrooms. Houston discusses today’s changes in journalism in the U.S., comparing and contrasting them with those around the world. Topics discussed include the decimation of the traditional newsrooms, contemporary corporate ownership and investors, the rise of bloggers and digital journalism, finding new audiences, the surge in nonprofit newsrooms and collaborations, investigative centers in the U.S. and globally, new model start-ups, and changing streams of revenue with the expansion of new technologies. The text also looks at the new relationship between journalism professionals and the academy, including the rise in content and stories supplied by university-based newsrooms. Houston, who has been on the frontline of these changes, also discusses the culture clashes and ethical dilemmas in cyber environments accompanied by new challenges to maintaining credibility and creating trust. To fully explore the rapid-fire changes in news media and online journalism in recent years, this book will be of interest to students of journalism and communications, working journalists, and professors helping prepare budding journalists for their future careers in journalism.

News "fixers" are locally-based media employees who serve as translators, coordinators, and guides to foreign journalists in unfamiliar terrain. Operating in the shadows, fixers' contributions to journalism are largely hidden from us, yet they underpin the entire international news industry: almost every international news story we read today could not be produced without a fixer. Indeed, without fixers' on-the-ground skill and intimate knowledge of a territory, journalists would struggle to document stories unfolding in countries outside their own. Despite this, however, fixers remain one of the most under-protected and undervalued groups contributing to the production of news. Targeted by militant groups and governments, even by their neighbors, they must often engage in a precarious balancing act, bridging the divides between foreign journalists and the people who live and work in fixers' own communities. In this book, Lindsay Palmer reveals the lives and struggle of those performing some of the most important work in international news. Drawing on interviews with 75 fixers around the world, Palmer is the first researcher to illuminate fixers' own rich narratives, offering a glimpse of how difficult it is to play the role of cultural mediator, both in and out of conflict zones. A news fixers' is not simply administrative; rather, the fixer's engagement with the story is editorial and, more importantly, cultural. Each task that a fixer takes on is a creative effort at mediating between different lived experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, community, and nation. Ultimately, The Fixers offers a different picture of international reporting than most people are accustomed to seeing: one that is more collaborative, more contested, and more fluid in its understanding of "truth" in a global, cross-cultural context.

The Voice of America (VOA) is the oldest and largest U.S. government-funded international media organization. In 2020, Donald Trump nominated Michael Pack, a right-wing documentarian and close friend of Steve Bannon, to lead the organization and curb what Trump saw as the network's overly negative reporting on the U.S. During the seven months that Pack oversaw the agency, more than 30 whistleblowers filed complaints against him, a judge ruled that he had infringed journalists' constitutional right to freedom of speech, and he refused to respond to a subpoena issued by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. How did such a major international public service media network become intensely politicized by government allies in such a short time, despite having its editorial independence protected by law? What were the effects on news output? And what can we learn from this situation about how to protect media freedom in the future? Capturing News, Capturing Democracy puts these events in historical and international context--and develops a new analytical framework for understanding government capture and its connection to broader processes of democratic backsliding. Drawing from in-depth interviews with network managers and journalists, and analysis of private correspondence and internal documents, Wright, Scott, and Bunce analyze how political appointees, White House officials, and right-wing media influenced VOA changing its reporting of the Black Lives Matter movement, the presidential election, and its contested aftermath. The authors stress that leaving the VOA unprotected opens it and other public media to targeting by authoritarian leadership and poses serious risks to US democracy. Further, they offer practical recommendations for how to protect the network and other international public service media better in the future.