The Business Of Breaking News

An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, written by one of the most accomplished journalists of our time Technology has radically altered the news landscape. Once-powerful newspapers have lost their clout or been purchased by owners with particular agendas. Algorithms select which stories we see. The Internet allows consequential revelations, closely guarded secrets, and dangerous misinformation to spread at the speed of a click. In Breaking News, Alan Rusbridger demonstrates how these decisive shifts have occurred, and what they mean for the future of democracy. In the twenty years he spent editing The Guardian, Rusbridger managed the transformation of the progressive British daily into the most visited serious English-language newspaper site in the world. He oversaw an extraordinary run of world-shaking scoops, including the exposure of phone hacking by London tabloids, the Wikileaks release of U.S.diplomatic cables, and later the revelation of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency files. At the same time, Rusbridger helped The Guardian become a pioneer in Internet journalism, stressing free access and robust interactions with readers. Here, Rusbridger vividly observes the media’s transformation from close range while also offering a vital assessment of the risks and rewards of practicing journalism in a high-impact, high-stress time.

The exchange of news belongs to the fabric of functional elites and affects institutionalisation processes in seventeenth century. The news market was part of the elite’s social economy. Investment in news resulted in participation and privilege.

It is said that journalism is a vital public service as well as a business, but more and more it is also said that big media consolidation; noisy, instant opinions on cable and the Internet; and political “bias” are making a mockery of such high-minded ideals. In Backstory, Ken Auletta explores why one of America’s most important industries is also among its most troubled. He travels from the proud New York Times, the last outpost of old-school family ownership, whose own personnel problems make headline news, into the depths of New York City’s brutal tabloid wars and out across the country to journalism’s new wave, chains like the Chicago Tribune’s, where “synergy” is ever more a mantra. He probes the moral ambiguity of “media personalities”—journalists who become celebrities themselves, padding their incomes by schmoozing with Imus and rounding the lucrative corporate lecture circuit. He reckons with the legacy of journalism’s past and the different prospects for its future, from fallen stars of new media such as Inside.com to the rising star of cable news, Roger Ailes’s Fox News. The product of more than ten years covering the news media for The New Yorker, Backstory is Journalism 101 by the course’s master teacher.

"The Business of Breaking News: Management Strategies for Media Professionals" is a comprehensive guidebook designed for media professionals navigating the fast-paced world of news media. Authored by experts in the field, this book offers valuable insights and practical strategies for effectively managing news organizations in today's dynamic landscape.

As cash-strapped metropolitan newspapers struggle to maintain their traditional influence and quality reporting, large national and international outlets have pivoted to serving readers who can and will choose to pay for news, skewing coverage toward a wealthy, white, and liberal audience. Amid rampant inequality and distrust, media outlets have become more out of touch with the democracy they purport to serve. How did journalism end up in such a predicament, and what are the prospects for achieving a more equitable future? In News for the Rich, White, and Blue, Nikki Usher recasts the challenges facing journalism in terms of place, power, and inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of field research, she illuminates how journalists decide what becomes news and how news organizations strategize about the future. Usher shows how newsrooms remain places of power, largely white institutions growing more elite as journalists confront a shrinking job market. She details how Google, Facebook, and the digital-advertising ecosystem have wreaked havoc on the economic model for quality journalism, leaving local news to suffer. Usher also highlights how the handful of likely survivors—well-funded media outlets such as the New York Times—increasingly appeal to a global, “placeless” reader. News for the Rich, White, and Blue concludes with a series of provocative recommendations to reimagine journalism to ensure its resiliency and its ability to speak to a diverse set of issues and readers.

Famous for his nearly forty years in broadcast journalism, Robert MacNeil is one of the most respected television journalists in America. Now in Breaking News, a blistering, behind-the-scenes novel about the savagely competitive world of television news, he writes about this world he knows best--a world where integrity is held hostage in the relentless pursuit of the bottom line. Anchorman Grant Munro is at what should be the pinnacle of a brilliant career. Having covered every major story from the Kennedy assassination to the Clinton sex scandals, Munro has won the admiration, respect, and trust of his viewers. About to turn sixty in an industry no longer controlled by top-notch journalists but by profit-hungry conglomerates, Munro suddenly feels his career threatened--especially when Bill Donovan, a handsome reporter with little experience but a high Q rating, vies for his anchor post. Dragged into a media circus where "soft news" and tabloid television are becoming the staples of nightly news broadcasts, Munro negotiates a minefield of scheming, greed, and betrayal to hold onto what he prizes. Acclaimed for his two previous novels, Robert MacNeil is a proven storyteller, now triumphantly on his home turf. Breaking News is not only an intimate look at a fascinating industry, but a profound study of character under pressure.

When devastating news rattles a young girl's community, her normally attentive parents and neighbors are suddenly exhausted and distracted. At school, her teacher tells the class to look for the helpers—the good people working to make things better in big and small ways. She wants more than anything to help in a BIG way, but maybe she can start with one small act of kindness instead . . . and then another, and another.Small things can compound, after all, to make a world of difference. The Breaking News by Sarah Lynne Reul touches on themes of community, resilience, and optimism with an authenticity that will resonate with readers young and old.

An inside look at the shocking decline of Reuters. * Features exclusive interviews with Reuters staffers, competitors,and clients * Written by two former Reuters journalists * Examines one of the biggest stories in recent journalism history