The Business Of News

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.

News and journalism are in the midst of upheaval: shifts such as declining print subscriptions and rising website visitor numbers are forcing assumptions and practices to be rethought from first principles. The internet is not simply allowing faster, wider distribution of material: digital technology is demanding transformative change. Out of Print analyzes the role and influence of newspapers in the digital age and explains how current theory and practice have to change to fully exploit developing opportunities. In Out of Print George Brock guides readers through the history, present state and future of journalism, highlighting how and why journalism needs to be rethought on a global scale and remade to meet the demands and opportunities of new conditions. He provides a unique examination of every key issue, from the phone-hacking scandal and Leveson Inquiry to the impact of social media on news and expectations. He presents an incisive, authoritative analysis of the role and influence of journalism in the digital age. Online supporting resources for this book include downloadable lecture slides.

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.

The Business of News in England, 1760-1820 explores the commerce of the English press during a critical period of press politicization, as the nation confronted foreign wars and revolutions that disrupted domestic governance.

Former executive editor of The New York Times and one of our most eminent journalists Jill Abramson provides a “valuable and insightful” (The Boston Globe) report on the disruption of the news media over the last decade, as shown via two legacy (The New York Times and The Washington Post) and two upstart (BuzzFeed and VICE) companies as they plow through a revolution that pits old vs. new media. “A marvelous book” (The New York Times Book Review), Merchants of Truth is the groundbreaking and gripping story of the precarious state of the news business. The new digital reality nearly kills two venerable newspapers with an aging readership while creating two media behemoths with a ballooning and fickle audience of millennials. “Abramson provides this deeply reported insider account of an industry fighting for survival. With a keen eye for detail and a willingness to interrogate her own profession, Abramson takes readers into the newsrooms and boardrooms of the legacy newspapers and the digital upstarts that seek to challenge their dominance” (Vanity Fair). We get to know the defenders of the legacy presses as well as the outsized characters who are creating the new speed-driven media competitors. The players include Jeff Bezos and Marty Baron (The Washington Post), Arthur Sulzberger and Dean Baquet (The New York Times), Jonah Peretti (BuzzFeed), and Shane Smith (VICE) as well as their reporters and anxious readers. Merchants of Truth raises crucial questions that concern the well-being of our society. We are facing a crisis in trust that threatens the free press. “One of the best takes yet on journalism’s changing fortunes” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Abramson’s book points us to the future.

The business of journalism is widely held to be in a terminal crisis today, in particular because the rise of the internet has drained audience attention and advertising revenue away from existing media platforms. This book, the first systematic international overview of how the news industry is dealing with current changes, counters such simplistic predictions of the supposedly technologically determined death of the news industry. It offers instead nuanced scrutiny of the threats and opportunities facing legacy news organisations across the world in countries as diverse as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Finland, Brazil, and India as they transition to an increasingly convergent media landscape.

Business Journalism: How to Report on Business and Economics is a basic guide for journalists working in countries moving to open-market economies, students in journalism courses, journalists changing direction from general news reporting to business and economic reporting, and bloggers. It also explains the differences in technique required for general reporters to deliver business news for text, TV, or radio. Veteran journalist Keith Hayes, who has worked for such organizations as Reuters, PBS, the BBC, CBC, and CNBC, provides a quick reference to journalistic practice that covers everything from how to meet a deadline to getting answers from company or government officials who would rather not talk. It also provides background on specific knowledge that journalists should have to report on the business and the economy accurately and with insight. That includes understanding the major markets and how they work, learning to read a balance sheet, and getting the story even when a company or government sets up roadblocks. As Hayes demonstrates, effective journalists are story tellers who need to tell the story well while making certain they are providing the facts as they find them and understand them. Among other things, readers will also learn: How to write a business news story How to report business news on television How to report in a globalized business world How to get usable information from press conferences and briefings The basics of macroeconomics, the financial markets, and company-specific financial data How to dig for facts and get the story This book covers comprehensively the basics of business and economic reporting. With its insights and tips from Hayes and other veteran journalists, it’s a book that will remain on your shelf for years to come and help you acquire and cement career-enhancing skills. It will also help you hone your craft as you begin to write more sophisticated stories and take jobs of increasing responsibility.