Deadlines And Disruption My Turbulent Path From Print To Digital

A Top Editor’s Take on the State of Journalism Today—and His Prescient Forecast of Its Future “This is a personal and insightful book about one of the most important questions of our time: how will journalism make the transition to the digital age? Steve Shepard made that leap bravely when he went from being a great magazine editor to the first dean of the City University of New York journalism school. His tale is filled with great lessons for us all.” —Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs “An insightful and convivial account of a bright, bountiful life dedicated to words, information and wonder.” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) "This is two compelling books in one: Shepard’s story of his life in print journalism, and a clearheaded look at the way journalism is evolving due to electronic media, social networking, and the ability of anyone with a computer and an opinion to make him- or herself heard." —Booklist Shepard's book will resonate with many and should be read by anyone interested in the flow of information today and its simpact on society as a whole." —Library Journal “The book is in part a memoir, a tale of a life lived at the height of print journalism when print journalism itself was at its height. But it is also an analysis, an examination of the new challenges facing an old industry as it ambles and occasionally sprints its way into the digital age.” —The Washington Post About the Book: “My personal passage is, in many ways, a microcosm of the larger struggle within the journalism profession to come to terms with the digital reckoning. Will the new technologies enhance journalism . . . or water it down for audiences with diminished attention spans? What new business models will emerge to sustain quality journalism?” Stephen B. Shepard has seen it all. Editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek for more than 20 years, Shepard helped transform the magazine into one of the most respected voices of its time. But after his departure, he saw it collapse—another victim of the digital age. In Deadlines and Disruption, Shepard recounts his five decades in journalism—a time of radical transformations in the way news is developed, delivered, and consumed. Raised in the Bronx, Shepard graduated from City College and Columbia, joined BusinessWeek as a reporter, and rose to the top editorial post. He has closed the circle by returning to the university that spawned him, founding the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. In the digital age, anyone can be a journalist. Opinion pieces are replacing original reporting as the coin of the realm. And an entire generation is relying on Facebook friends and Twitter feeds to tell them what to read. Is this the beginning of an irreversible slide into third-rate journalism? Or the start of a better world of interactive, multimedia journalism? Will the news industry live up to its responsibility to forge a well-informed public? Shepard tackles all the tough questions facing journalists, the news industry, and, indeed, anyone who understands the importance of a well-informed public in a healthy democracy. The story of Shepard’s career is the story of the news industry—and in Deadlines and Disruption, he provides peerless insight into one of the most critical issues of our time.

Publishing today requires a presence in local and global markets, and successful publishers can be more effective in reaching both by employing current technology at all stages of the publishing process. Finding the most efficient and profitable business models has become more challenging (and more rewarding) by the same advancements in technology. Michael Ross provides a roadmap to the essential aspects of the international publishing industry, from how to develop content that can be easily adapted to other cultures, to establishing relationships and negotiating licensing and co-publishing contracts. With a discussion of the critical innovations in the industry and through case studies from all stages in the publishing process, the book provides insights into the maturing of digital publishing and the challenges and opportunities provided by new technologies. Many publishing models have emerged over the last 15 years, and technology has made the mechanics of publishing in general, and web publishing in particular, easier. Thus, the role of the professional publisher is being challenged, and issues of quality and trust are now competing with easy access to information. Publishing, in all forms, can be viewed as a conspicuous bellwether for any business that must make strategic and tactical adjustments quickly to innovate and grow. Ross applies principles from both consumer and educational publishing to explore publishing's ongoing 'sea change' and its implications for other industries.

The impact of cyberspace on newsprint journalism is at the core of this text. After a brief history of U.S. news dailies and weeklies it turns attention to those journals' status today. A wide range of forces that impinge on their success and failure are explored, including the decline of their relevancy for an increasing percentage of the population. Newspapers' prospects for the future is the primary focus as papers curtail their dependency on historically physically-delivered patterns to shift to more economical and faster methods of supplying the news. Rivals for the attention of traditional readers are burgeoning. Possibilities for the outcome over the next decade are investigated. The profound effects of change on newsrooms, advertising, circulation, economics, and the place of newspapers and their communities are fully examined.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter details “how the U.S. business press could miss the most important economic implosion of the past eighty years” (Eric Alterman, media columnist for The Nation). In this sweeping, incisive post-mortem, Dean Starkman exposes the critical shortcomings that softened coverage in the business press during the mortgage era and the years leading up to the financial collapse of 2008. He examines the deep cultural and structural shifts—some unavoidable, some self-inflicted—that eroded journalism’s appetite for its role as watchdog. The result was a deafening silence about systemic corruption in the financial industry. Tragically, this silence grew only more profound as the mortgage madness reached its terrible apogee from 2004 through 2006. Starkman frames his analysis in a broad argument about journalism itself, dividing the profession into two competing approaches—access reporting and accountability reporting—which rely on entirely different sources and produce radically different representations of reality. As Starkman explains, access journalism came to dominate business reporting in the 1990s, a process he calls “CNBCization,” and rather than examining risky, even corrupt, corporate behavior, mainstream reporters focused on profiling executives and informing investors. Starkman concludes with a critique of the digital-news ideology and corporate influence, which threaten to further undermine investigative reporting, and he shows how financial coverage, and journalism as a whole, can reclaim its bite. “Can stand as a potentially enduring case study of what went wrong and why.”—Alec Klein, national bestselling author of Aftermath “With detailed statistics, Starkman provides keen analysis of how the media failed in its mission at a crucial time for the U.S. economy.”—Booklist

The Routledge Companion to Business Journalism provides a complete and critical survey of the field of business and economic journalism. Beginning by exploring crucial questions of the moment, the volume goes on to address such topics as the history of the field; differentiation among business journalism outlets; issues and forces that shape news coverage; globalism; personal finance issues; and professional concerns for practicing business journalists. Critical perspectives are introduced, including: gender and diversity matters on the business news desk and in business news coverage; the quality of coverage, and its ideological impact and framework; the effect of the internet on coverage; differences in approaches around the world; ethical issues; and education among journalists. Contributions are drawn from around the world and include work by leading names in the industry, as well as accomplished and rising-star academics. This book is an essential companion to advanced scholars and researchers of business and financial journalism as well as those with overlapping interests in communications, economics, and sociology.

In the twenty-first century, business news has shifted its focus from local coverage to national news. In The Future of Business Journalism, Chris Roush shows the causes of this recent divide, its impact on local businesses, and how the field can once again provide the content a broad society needs to make informed financial decisions.