Best of
Journalism

2017

I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad


Souad Mekhennet - 2017
    I was not to carry any identification, and would have to leave my cell phone, audio recorder, watch, and purse at my hotel. . . ."For her whole life, Souad Mekhennet, a reporter for The Washington Post who was born and educated in Germany, has had to balance the two sides of her upbringing - Muslim and Western. She has also sought to provide a mediating voice between these cultures, which too often misunderstand each other.In this compelling and evocative memoir, we accompany Mekhennet as she journeys behind the lines of jihad, starting in the German neighborhoods where the 9/11 plotters were radicalized and the Iraqi neighborhoods where Sunnis and Shia turned against one another, and culminating on the Turkish/Syrian border region where ISIS is a daily presence. In her travels across the Middle East and North Africa, she documents her chilling run-ins with various intelligence services and shows why the Arab Spring never lived up to its promise. She then returns to Europe, first in London, where she uncovers the identity of the notorious ISIS executioner "Jihadi John," and then in France, Belgium, and her native Germany, where terror has come to the heart of Western civilization.Mekhennet's background has given her unique access to some of the world's most wanted men, who generally refuse to speak to Western journalists. She is not afraid to face personal danger to reach out to individuals in the inner circles of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, and their affiliates; when she is told to come alone to an interview, she never knows what awaits at her destination.Souad Mekhennet is an ideal guide to introduce us to the human beings behind the ominous headlines, as she shares her transformative journey with us. Hers is a story you will not soon forget.

I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street


Matt Taibbi - 2017
    On July 17, 2014, a forty-three-year-old black man named Eric Garner died on a Staten Island sidewalk after a police officer put him in what has been described as an illegal chokehold during an arrest for selling bootleg cigarettes. The final moments of Garner's life were captured on video and seen by millions. His agonized last words, "I can't breathe," became a rallying cry for the nascent Black Lives Matter protest movement. A grand jury ultimately declined to indict the officer who wrestled Garner to the pavement. Matt Taibbi's deeply reported retelling of these events liberates Eric Garner from the abstractions of newspaper accounts and lets us see the man in full—with all his flaws and contradictions intact. A husband and father with a complicated personal history, Garner was neither villain nor victim, but a fiercely proud individual determined to do the best he could for his family, bedeviled by bad luck, and ultimately subdued by forces beyond his control. In America, no miscarriage of justice exists in isolation, of course, and in I Can't Breathe Taibbi also examines the conditions that made this tragedy possible. Featuring vivid vignettes of life on the street and inside our Kafkaesque court system, Taibbi's kaleidoscopic account illuminates issues around policing, mass incarceration, the underground economy, and racial disparity in law enforcement. No one emerges unsullied, from the conservative district attorney who half-heartedly prosecutes the case to the progressive mayor caught between the demands of outraged activists and the foot-dragging of recalcitrant police officials. A masterly narrative of urban America and a scathing indictment of the perverse incentives built into our penal system, I Can't Breathe drills down into the particulars of one case to confront us with the human cost of our broken approach to dispensing criminal justice.

Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell


Louise Milligan - 2017
    He was the Ballarat boy with the film-star looks who studied at Oxford and rose through the ranks to become the Vatican's indispensable 'Treasurer'. As an outspoken defender of church orthodoxy, 'Big George's' ascendancy within the clergy was remarkable and seemingly unstoppable.The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse has brought to light horrific stories about sexual abuse of the most vulnerable and provoked public anger at the extent of the cover-up. George Pell has always portrayed himself as the first man in the Church to tackle the problem. But questions about what the Cardinal knew, and when, have persisted.The nation's most prominent Catholic is now the subject of a police investigation into allegations spanning decades that he too abused children. Louise Milligan is the only Australian journalist who has been privy to the most intimate stories of complainants.She pieces together a series of disturbing pictures of the Cardinal's knowledge and his actions, many of which are being told here for the first time.Conspiracy or cover-up? Cardinal uncovers uncomfortable truths about a culture of sexual entitlement, abuse of trust and how ambition can silence evil.

Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win


Luke Harding - 2017
    Beginning with a meeting with Christopher Steele, the man behind the shattering dossier that first brought the allegations to light, Harding probes the histories of key Russian and American players with striking clarity and insight. In a thrilling, fast-paced narrative, Harding exposes the disquieting details of the “Trump-Russia” story—a saga so huge it involves international espionage, off-shore banks, sketchy real estate deals, mobsters, money laundering, disappeared dissidents, computer hacking, and the most shocking election in American history.

The Best of A.A. Gill


A.A. Gill - 2017
    Gill's columns every Sunday - for his fearlessness, his perception, and the laughter-and-tear-provoking one-liners - but mostly because he was the best. 'By miles the most brilliant journalist of our age', as Lynn Barber put it. This is the definitive collection of a voice that was silenced too early but that can still make us look at the world in new and surprising ways.In the words of Andrew Marr, A.A. Gill was 'a golden writer'. There was nothing that he couldn't illuminate with his dazzling prose. Wherever he was - at home or abroad - he found the human story, brought it to vivid life, and rendered it with fierce honesty and bracing compassion. And he was just as truthful about himself. There have been various collections of A.A. Gill's journalism - individual compilations of his restaurant and TV criticism, of his travel writing and his extraordinary feature articles. This book showcasesthe very best of his work: the peerlessly funny criticism, the extraordinarily knowledgeable food writing, assignments throughout the world, and reflections on life, love, and death. Drawn from a range of publications, including the Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, Tatler and Australian Gourmet Traveller, The Ivy Cookbook and his books on England and America, it is by turns hilarious, uplifting, controversial, unflinching, sad, funny and furious.

If Only They Didn't Speak English: Notes From Trump's America


Jon Sopel - 2017
    In the time it’s taken for a reality star to go from laughing stock to leader of the free world, Jon has travelled the length and breadth of the United States, experiencing it from a perspective that most of us could only dream of: he has flown aboard Air Force One, interviewed President Obama and has even been described as ‘a beauty’ by none other than Donald Trump.Through music, film, literature, TV and even through the food we eat and the clothes that we wear we all have a highly developed sense of what America is and through our shared, tangled history we claim a special relationship. But America today feels about as alien a country as you could imagine. It is fearful, angry and impatient for change.In this fascinating, insightful portrait of American life and politics, Jon Sopel sets out to answer our questions about a country that once stood for the grandest of dreams, but which is now mired in a storm of political extremism, racial division and increasingly perverse beliefs.

The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight


Cathy Scott-Clark - 2017
    It tells the human story, and illuminates the global political workings. It is a tale of evasion, collusion, betrayal and the deep pain of isolation. Staying with a small group of characters throughout, The Exile moves through a series of dramatic set-pieces, from the shocking failure of the Battle of Tora Bora, one of the most significant losses in US strategic history, when, outgunned and outflanked, Osama still managed to give the world's most accomplished trackers the slip, through his covert journey from safe-house to safe-house in Pakistan, to the years spent hiding in the military compound in Abottabad where he was eventually to be killed. Using the contacts built up through years of research, including wives of key players such as Osama bin Laden and his mastermind, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the authors have gained extraordinary and intimate insight into Osama bin Laden and those closest to him. Meticulously researched, beautifully written, this is an enthralling and revelatory journey.

All We Leave Behind: A Reporter's Journey Into the Lives of Others


Carol Off - 2017
    Asad Aryubwal became a key figure in their documentary on the terrible power of thuggish warlords who were working arm in arm with Americans and NATO troops. When Asad publicly exposed the deeds of one of the warlords, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, it set off a chain of events from which there was no turning back. Asad, his wife, Mobina, and their five children had to flee their home.The family faced an uncertain future. But their dilemma compelled a journalist to cross the lines of disinterested reporting and become deeply involved. Together, they navigated the Byzantine international bureaucracy and the decidedly unwelcoming policies of Stephen Harper's government until the family finally found a new home.Carol Off's powerful account traces not only one family's journey and fraught attempts to immigrate to a safe place, it also illustrates what happens when a journalist becomes irrevocably caught up in the lives of the people in her story and finds herself unable to leave them behind.

Threads: From the Refugee Crisis


Kate Evans - 2017
    This new town, known as the Jungle, is the home of thousands of refugees, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, all hoping, somehow, to get to the UK. Into this squalid shantytown of shipping containers and tents, full of rats and trash and devoid of toilets and safety, the artist Kate Evans brought a sketchbook and an open mind. Combining the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling, Evans has produced this unforgettable book, filled with poignant images by turns shocking, angering, wry, and heartbreaking.Weaving into the story hostile comments about the migrants from nativist politicians and Internet trolls, Threads addresses one of the most pressing issues of modern times making a compelling case, through intimate evidence, for compassionate treatment of refugees and the free movement of peoples. Evans s creativity and passion as an artist, activist, and mother shine through.

Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives


Dana Canedy - 2017
    None of them were published by The Times--until now. UNSEEN uncovers these never-before published photographs and tells the stories behind them.It all started with Times photo editor Darcy Eveleigh discovering dozens of these photographs. She and three colleagues, Dana Canedy, Damien Cave and Rachel L. Swarns, began exploring the history behind them, and subsequently chronicling them in a series entitled Unpublished Black History, that ran in print and online editions of The Times in February 2016. It garnered 1.7 million views on The Times website and thousands of comments from readers. This book includes those photographs and many more, among them: a 27-year-old Jesse Jackson leading an anti-discrimination rally of in Chicago, Rosa Parks arriving at a Montgomery Courthouse in Alabama a candid behind-the-scenes shot of Aretha Franklin backstage at the Apollo Theater, Ralph Ellison on the streets of his Manhattan neighborhood, the firebombed home of Malcolm X, Myrlie Evans and her children at the funeral of her slain husband , Medgar, a wheelchair-bound Roy Campanella at the razing of Ebbets Field.Were the photos--or the people in them--not deemed newsworthy enough? Did the images not arrive in time for publication? Were they pushed aside by words at an institution long known as the Gray Lady? Eveleigh, Canedy, Cave, and Swarms explore all these questions and more in this one-of-a-kind book. UNSEEN dives deep into The Times photo archives--known as the Morgue--to showcase this extraordinary collection of photographs and the stories behind them.

Lines in the Sand: Collected Journalism


A.A. Gill - 2017
    Lines in the Sand

Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction


Travis Lupick - 2017
    Fighting for Space follows the lives of two women—Liz Evans, who founded the Portland Hotel Society, and Ann Livingston, who co-founded the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users—and the extraordinary lengths they went to help their community weather a crisis.Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, this group of residents from Canada’s poorest neighbourhood organized themselves in response to a growing number of overdose deaths and demanded that addicts be given the same rights as any other citizen.But just as their battle came to an end, fentanyl arrived and opioid deaths across North America reached an all-time high.It’s prompted many to rethink the war on drugs. Public opinion has slowly begun to turn against prohibition, and policy-makers are finally beginning to look at addiction as a health issue as opposed to one for the criminal justice system.The previous epidemic in Vancouver sparked government action. Twenty years later, as the same pattern plays out in other cities, there is much that advocates for reform can learn from Vancouver’s experience. Fighting for Space tells that story, with the same passionate fervor as the activists whose tireless work gave dignity to addicts and saved countless lives.

Orwell on Truth


George Orwell - 2017
    With an introduction by Alan Johnson. 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.' This selection of George Orwell’s writing, from both his novels and non-fiction, gathers together his thoughts on the subject of truth. It ranges from discussion of personal honesty and morality, to freedom of speech and political propaganda. Orwell’s unique clarity of thought and illuminating scepticism provide the perfect defence against our post-truth world of fake news and confusion. 'The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.' Includes an introduction by Alan Johnson and passages from Burmese Days, The Road to Wigan Pier, Coming Up for Air, The Lion and the Unicorn, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell’s letters, war-time diary, criticism and essays including ‘Fascism and Democracy’, ‘Culture and Democracy’, ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’, ‘As I Please’, ‘Notes on Nationalism’, ‘The Prevention of Literature’, ‘Politics and the English Language’ and ‘Why I Write’.

Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus


Matt Taibbi - 2017
    Years before the clown car of candidates was fully loaded, Taibbi grasped the essential themes of the story: the power of spectacle over substance, or even truth; the absence of a shared reality; the nihilistic rebellion of the white working class; the death of the political establishment; and the emergence of a new, explicit form of white nationalism that would destroy what was left of the Kingian dream of a successful pluralistic society.Taibbi captures, with dead-on, real-time analysis, the failures of the right and the left, from the thwarted Bernie Sanders insurgency to the flawed and aimless Hillary Clinton campaign; the rise of the "dangerously bright" alt-right with its wall-loving identity politics and its rapturous view of the "Racial Holy War" to come; and the giant fail of a flailing, reactive political media that fed a ravenous news cycle not with reporting on political ideology, but with undigested propaganda served straight from the campaign bubble. At the center of it all stands Donald J. Trump, leading a historic revolt against his own party, "bloviating and farting his way" through the campaign, "saying outrageous things, acting like Hitler one minute and Andrew Dice Clay the next." For Taibbi, the stunning rise of Trump marks the apotheosis of the new postfactual movement.Taibbi frames the reporting with original essays that explore the seismic shift in how we perceive our national institutions, the democratic process, and the future of the country. Insane Clown President is not just a postmortem on the collapse and failure of American democracy. It offers the riveting, surreal, unique, and essential experience of seeing the future in hindsight."Scathing . . . What keeps the pages turning in this so freshly familiar story line is the vivid observation and original turns of phrase."--San Francisco Chronicle

The Woman Who Fooled The World: Belle Gibson’s Cancer Con, and the Darkness at the Heart of the Wellness Industry


Beau Donelly - 2017
    She built a global business based on her story. There was just one problem: she never had cancer in the first place.In 2015, journalists uncovered the truth behind Gibson’s lies. This hero of the wellness world, with more than 200,000 followers, international book deals, and a best-selling mobile app, was a fraud. She had lied about having cancer--to her family and friends, to her business partners and publishers, and to the hundreds of thousands of people who were inspired by her, including real cancer survivors.Written by the two journalists who uncovered the details of Gibson’s deception, The Woman Who Fooled the World tracks the 23-year-old's rise to fame and fall from grace. Told through interviews with the people who know her best, it explores the lure of alternative cancer treatments, exposes the darkness at the heart of the wellness and "clean eating" movements, and reveals just how easy it is to manipulate people on social media.With the idea of clean eating now routinely debunked by dietary experts, and growing skepticism about the authenticity of what we read online, The Woman Who Fooled the World is a timely and important book that answers not just how, but why, Gibson was able to fool so many.

Tangible Spirits


Becki Willis - 2017
    Gera Stapleton does not believe in ghosts.In the infamous town of Jerome, Arizona, a once-friendly ghost named Mac has reportedly embarked on a petty crime spree, and Gera is there to investigate. Has her journalism career come down to this? How can she accurately report a story on something she doesn't believe exists? Now there's been a murder, and the townspeople are content to blame Mac for this, too. In a town filled with curiosities, she befriends a lonely old woman, butts heads with an ornery sheriff, falls for a sexy hotel owner, and uncovers an amazing tale about greed, deception, and family honor. And when the killer targets her as the next victim, an unlikely savior comes to her rescue. Now Gera has a difficult choice to make: write the story of a lifetime, or save the legacy of a town—and a man—she has come to love. Smart dialogue, plenty of action, and a touch of the supernatural make this a must-read novel. You'll find yourself wondering Is it possible?Are there truly such things as tangible spirits, after all?From readers like you:"A delicious read. It has ghostly whispers, a brave leading character, bad guys, fun, danger and love. " ..."Loved this book!" ..."What an interesting, captivating cast of characters!" ..."The setting and the ghost legends all added to the atmosphere. The story was good and so were the characters." ...

Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World


Suzy Hansen - 2017
    Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.Hansen arrived in Istanbul with romantic ideas about a mythical city perched between East and West, and with a naïve sense of the Islamic world beyond. Over the course of her many years of living in Turkey and traveling in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, she learned a great deal about these countries and their cultures and histories and politics. But the greatest, most unsettling surprise would be what she learned about her own country—and herself, an American abroad in the era of American decline. It would take leaving her home to discover what she came to think of as the two Americas: the country and its people, and the experience of American power around the world. She came to understand that anti-Americanism is not a violent pathology. It is, Hansen writes, “a broken heart . . . A one-hundred-year-old relationship.”Blending memoir, journalism, and history, and deeply attuned to the voices of those she met on her travels, Notes on a Foreign Country is a moving reflection on America’s place in the world. It is a powerful journey of self-discovery and revelation—a profound reckoning with what it means to be American in a moment of grave national and global turmoil.

The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage


Jared Yates Sexton - 2017
    One of the first journalists to attend these rallies and give mainstream readers an idea of the raw anger that occurred there, Sexton found himself in the center of a maelstrom. Following a series of tweets that saw his observations viewed well over a million times, his reporting was soon featured in The Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg, and Mother Jones, and he would go on to write two pieces for the New York Times. Sexton gained over eighteen thousand followers on Twitter in a matter of days, and received online harassments, campaigns to get him fired from his university professorship, and death threats that changed his life forever. The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 Presidential Election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into the White House. Featuring in-the-field reports as well as deep analysis, Sexton’s book is not just the story of the most unexpected and divisive election in modern political history. It is also a sobering chronicle of our democracy’s political polarization—a result of our self-constructed, technologically-assisted echo chambers. Like the works of Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer—books that have paved the way for important narratives that shape how we perceive not only the politics of our time but also our way of life—The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is an instant, essential classic, an authoritative depiction of a country struggling to make sense of itself.

A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa


Alexis Okeowo - 2017
    This debut book by one of America's most acclaimed young journalists illuminates the inner lives of ordinary people doing the extraordinary--lives that are too often hidden, underreported, or ignored by the rest of the world.

Moscow Calling: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent


Angus Roxburgh - 2017
    He has come under fire in war zones and been arrested by Chechen thugs. He was wooed by the KGB, who then decided he would make a lousy spy and expelled him from the country.In Moscow Calling Roxburgh presents his Russia - not the Russia of news reports, but a quirky, crazy, exasperating, beautiful, tumultuous world that in forty years has changed completely, and yet not at all. From the dark, fearful days of communism and his adventures as a correspondent as the Soviet Union collapsed into chaos, to his frustrating work as a media consultant in Putin's Kremlin, this is a unique, fascinating and often hilarious insight into a country that today, more than ever, is of global political significance.

Violated: Exposing Rape at Baylor University amid College Football's Sexual Assault Crisis


Paula Lavigne - 2017
    As the world's largest Baptist university, it was unabashedly Christian. It condemned any sex outside of marriage, and drinking alcohol was grounds for dismissal. Students weren't even allowed to dance on campus until 1996.During the last several years, however, Baylor officials were hiding a dark secret. Female students were being sexually assaulted at an alarming rate. Baylor administrators did very little to help victims, and their assailants rarely faced discipline for their abhorrent behavior.Finally, after a pair of high-profile criminal cases involving football players, an independent examination of Baylor's handling of allegations of sexual assault led to sweeping changes, including the unprecedented ouster of its president, athletics director, and popular, highly successful football coach.For several years, campuses and sports teams across the country have been plagued with accusations of sexual violence, and they've been criticized for how they responded to the students involved. But Baylor stands out. A culture reigned in which people believed that any type of sex, especially violent non-consensual sex, simply "doesn't happen here." Yet it was happening. Many people within Baylor's leadership knew about it. And they chose not to act.Paula Lavigne, and Mark Schlabach, weave together the complex - and at times contradictory - narrative of how a university, and football program, ascending in national prominence came crashing down amidst the stories of woman after woman coming forward describing their assaults, and a university system they found indifferent to their pain.

War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century


David Patrikarakos - 2017
    Whether you are a president or a terrorist, if you don't understand how to deploy the power of social media effectively you may win the odd battle but you will lose a twenty-first century war. Here, journalist David Patrikarakos draws on unprecedented access to key players to provide a new narrative for modern warfare. He travels thousands of miles across continents to meet a de-radicalized female member of ISIS recruited via Skype, a liberal Russian in Siberia who takes a job manufacturing "Ukrainian" news, and many others to explore the way social media has transformed the way we fight, win, and consume wars-and what this means for the world going forward.

Running Still


Steven Sheiner - 2017
    Less than a year after escaping the big city for a taste of the simple life, his family is sick. His wife and kids have all been diagnosed with a never before seen illness. But why isn't he sick? And how is there already a drug available for this new disease? Jack will stop at nothing to get answers, and to save his family. With the help of some surprising and unexpected friends, he uncovers a conspiracy that is bigger than anything he could have imagined. But is it more than he can handle? Filled with action, drama, and suspense, Running Still is a roller coaster ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end!

Sellout: How Washington Gave Away America's Technological Soul, and One Man's Fight to Bring It Home


Victoria Bruce - 2017
    But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the U.S. government, once proprietary materials, components and technologies are increasingly commercialized outside the U.S. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China's monopoly of rare earth elements-materials that are essential for nearly all modern consumer goods, gadgets and weapons systems.Jim Kennedy is a retired securities portfolio manager who bought a bankrupt mining operation. The mine was rich in rare earth elements, but he soon discovered that China owned the entire global supply and manufacturing chain. Worse, no one in the federal government cared. Dismayed by this discovery, Jim made a plan to restore America's rare earth industry. His plan also allowed technology companies to manufacture rare earth dependent technologies in the United States again and develop safe, clean nuclear energy. For years, Jim lobbied Congress, the Pentagon, the White House Office of Science and Technology, and traveled the globe to gain support. Exhausted, down hundreds of thousands of dollars, and with his wife at her wits' end, at the start of 2017, Jim sat on the edge of victory, held his breath and bet it all that his government would finally do the right thing.Like Beth Macy's Factory Man, this is the story of one man's efforts to stem the dehumanizing tide of globalization and Washington's reckless inaction. Jim's is a fight we need to join.

Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America


Michael Reid - 2017
    His revised, in-depth account of the region reveals dynamic societies more concerned about corruption and climate change, the uncertainties of a Donald Trump-led United States, and a political cycle that, in many cases, is turning from left-wing populism to center-right governments. This essential new edition provides important insights into the sweeping changes that have occurred in Latin America in recent years and indicates priorities for the future.

The Way I See It: A Gauri Lankesh Reader


Gauri Lankesh - 2017
    It takes an assassination these days for us to sit up, get the full measure of the life and work of a person, and cherish her for it. A late start, in the grisliest sense. Yet, two years before her killing, Gauri Lankesh wrote: “No one knows who will gain materially by Kalburgi’s death. But it is clear that it is the right-wing fascist forces that will gain ideologically when reformist voices such as Basavanna’s and Kalburgi’s are brutally and fatally shut down. Ideas, however, never die.”The prospect of getting her own name on this list did not deter her. A selfish silence that values personal comfort over facing down bullies was never an option. We are left with her ideas, her words—like with Basava and Kalburgi. As a journalist and social activist, Gauri Lankesh (1962–2017) joined the battle against not just Hindutva but all forms of bigotry and obscurantism. As the editor of Gauri Lankesh Patrike, a major political weekly in Kannada, she hosted critical discussions on a range of compelling social, cultural and political issues. Activists from different spheres of social struggle found a ready ally in her.The life and work of Gauri inspire those who still care to speak the truth, especially conveying it to power. Hence this reader compiled by Chandan Gowda, a scholar-translator who had been her friend for over two decades. The Way I See It collects the best of Gauri’s writings translated from Kannada, her work in English, as well as the remembrances of people who knew her well, each in their own way.Says Chandan Gowda, “The book brings together select political and cultural writings of the courageous activist-journalist. Published over the last two decades, these writings, many of which were originally written in Kannada, offer a rich introduction to her varied political commitments and cultural interests. Her political journalism reveals a constant concern for the fate of India’s democracy and an unswerving passion for social justice. Gauri’s essays in the autobiographical mode also illustrate the affection and seriousness she brought to human relationships.”Kavitha Lankesh, whose kind permission made this work possible, says: “Anyone who cherishes and respects India’s diversity will find this book valuable. India belongs not just to the socially privileged classes but to its marginalized sections as well: women, Muslims, Dalits, tribals, among others. If we aspire that our children live to respect the many voices of our country, people like Gauri should be heard.”

The Most Hated Man in America - Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment


Mark Pendergrast - 2017
    But what if that story is wrong? What if the former Penn State football coach and founder of the Second Mile is an innocent man convicted in the midst of a moral panic fed by the sensationalistic media, police trawling, and memory-warping psychotherapy? The Most Hated Man in America reads like a true crime psychological thriller and is required reading for everyone from criminologists to sports fans.

Fifty Years of 60 Minutes: The Inside Story of Television's Most Influential News Broadcast


Jeff Fager - 2017
    The show has profiled every major leader, artist, and movement of the past five decades, perfecting the news-making interview and inventing the groundbreaking TV expose. From legendary sit-downs with Richard Nixon in 1968 (in which he promised “to restore respect to the presidency”) and Bill Clinton in 1992 (after the first revelations of infidelity) to landmark investigations into the tobacco industry, Lance Armstrong’s doping, and the torture of prisoners in Abu-Ghraib, the broadcast has not just reported on our world but changed it too.Now, Executive Producer Jeff Fager pulls back the curtain on how this remarkable journalism is done, taking the reader into the editing room with the show’s brilliant producers and beloved correspondents, including hard-charging Mike Wallace, writer’s-writer Morley Safer, soft-but-tough Ed Bradley, relentless Lesley Stahl, ace interviewer Charlie Rose, tireless Anderson Cooper, intrepid Scott Pelley, and illuminating storyteller Steve Kroft. He details the decades of human drama that have made the show’s success possible: the ferocious (and encouraged) competition between correspondents, the door slamming, the risk-taking, and the pranks. Fager takes on the program’s mistakes and describes what it learned from them. Above all, he reveals the essential tenets that have never changed: why founder Don Hewitt believed “hearing” a story is more important than seeing it, why the “small picture” is the best way to illuminate a larger one, and why the most memorable stories are almost always those with a human being at the center.At once a sweeping portrait of fifty years of American cultural history and an intimate look at how the news gets made, Fifty Years of 60 Minutes shares the secret of what’s made the nation’s favorite TV program exceptional for all these years.

The Edge of the World: A Visual Adventure to the Most Extraordinary Places on Earth


Outside Magazine - 2017
    -More than 140 of the best adventure photos ever featured in Outside With a foreword by world-renowned photographer Jimmy Chin and an introduction by Outside magazine's editor Christopher Keyes, Edge of the World is a stunning collection of the best photography ever published by the leader in outdoor adventure photography and journalism. Covering Outside's most compelling stories from throughout the years, it offers readers an inside and dramatic look through the lens of the world's top adventure photographers. First published in 1977, Outside magazine's mission is "to inspire active participation in the world outside through award-winning coverage of the sports, people, places, adventure, discoveries, health and fitness, gear and apparel, trends and events that make up an active lifestyle."

Finally Got the News: The Printed Legacy of the U.S. Radical Left, 1970-1979


Brad DuncanEmily K. Hobson - 2017
    It uses original printed materials--from pamphlets to posters, flyers to record albums--to tell this politically rich and little-known story. The dawn of the 1970s saw an explosion of interest in revolutionary ideas and activism. Young people radicalized by the antiwar movement became anti-imperialists, veterans of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements increasingly identified with communism and Pan-Africanism, radical groups sent members into factories to organize the working class, and women were building for autonomy and liberation. Across movements with different roots, an incredible overlap and intermingling of activists, ideologies, and hybrid organizations emerged.These diverse movements used printed materials as organizing tools in every political activity, creating a remarkable array of publishing styles, techniques, and formats. Through the lens of printed materials we can see the real nuts and bolts of political organizing in an era when thousands of young revolutionaries were attempting to put their beliefs into practices in workplaces and neighborhoods across the US.Finally Got the News uses this agitational material to shine a light on the full breadth of organizations and collectives that were a part of the '70s radical renaissance. The book features original materials from Amiri Baraka's Congress of African People, radical broadsides distributed in factories, queer socialist pamphlets, and agitational newspapers from Puerto Rican revolutionary groups like the Young Lords Party.These materials were made to be ephemeral and disposable, making collecting and preserving the paper legacy of '70s radical activism especially difficult. But many materials have survived and offer an irreplaceable insight into this period. Finally Got the News highlights many essential issues that are still resoundingly contemporary: from community responses to police brutality, to battles for better wages and working conditions, to opposition to US imperialism in the Middle East. Radical movements of the '70s attempted to confront concerns that are still central to today's campaigns for social justice.The full-color book that accompanies the exhibition will collect almost 100 images of materials included in the show, original essays by 14 contributors, and a round table discussion amongst a broad collection of producers of propaganda in the 1970s. The majority of this exhibition is from the archive of Brad Duncan, amassed over twenty years of collecting and activism. Additional items are from the collection of Interference Archive.

The Good Fight: America's Ongoing Struggle for Justice


Rick Smolan - 2017
    Fought in the streets, the courthouse, and the corridors of Congress, it is a story that has become America's own morality play, illustrated here through more than 180 memorable photographs, nearly 60 embedded videos, over a dozen compelling essays plus examples of music and lyrics that rallied America's resistance to injustice. For those who wish to eradicate bigotry and intolerance in America, The Good Fight is a call to action. It shows us how much we as a nation have accomplished; it also reminds us of the fragility of our success and how quickly this hard-fought progress can slip away if we do not remain vigilant.   In addition, The Good Fight features a smartphone app (THE GOOD FIGHT VIEWER) that enables readers to point their smartphones or tablets at over 60 photos to immediately stream online video clips, including TED Talks, that vividly bring each story to life.   This timely book captures the struggles—and the successes—experienced by women, African Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, Latinos, Asian Americans, and the disabled. Along with the eloquent images and graphics, The Good Fight includes short guest essays from individuals representing each group. The writers include:  George Takei, Star Trek television and film starBret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York TimesTodd Brewster, award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and historianBryan Stevenson, bestselling author and founder of the Equal Justice InitiativeCleve Jones, best-selling author and creator of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial QuiltJonathan Broder, award-winning journalist, formerly of the Chicago Tribune, NPR and NewsweekRay Suarez, best-selling author and former correspondent for PBS NewsHour and NPR’s Talk of the NationCharles Ramsey, former DC Police Chief and President’s Task Force on 21st Century PolicingAimee Mullins, actress and Paralympics world-record holderZak Ebrahim, bestselling author and speaker on nonviolenceWajahat Ali, New York Times columnist and creative director of Affinis LabsTiffany Shlain, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and founder of The Webby AwardsMat Johnson, bestselling author and recipient of the United States Artists James Baldwin FellowshipRichard Bernstein, bestselling author, former Time Bureau Chief and New York Times correspondent

In Search of Good Government: Great Expectations & Political Amnesia


Laura Tingle - 2017
    What has happened to good government? Can Malcolm Turnbull apply the lessons of the past to put things right? When leaders surf the wave of discontentment all the way to power, how do they deal with our great expectations?In her crisp, profound and witty essays, Laura Tingle seeks answers to these questions. In Political Amnesia, she ranges from ancient Rome to the demoralised state of the once-great Australian public service, from the jingoism of the past to the tabloid scandals of the internet age. In Great Expectations, Tingle shows how since the deregulation era of the 1980s, governments can do less, but we wish they could do more, leading to anger, frustration and disengagement.In Search of Good Government also contains a major new essay that analyses recent events under Turnbull’s leadership and brings the story up to date.

On The Frontlines Of The Television War: A Legendary War Cameraman In Vietnam


Yasutsune Hirashiki - 2017
    His soaring video, often acquired only at great personal risk, gave wings to even the most mundane narration. For those of us who worked with him he was also a source of gentleness and joy in a place where both were in terribly short supply.- - Ted Koppel, Former Nightline anchor ABCOn The Frontlines of the Television War is the story of Yasutsune -Tony- Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnam--beginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out. His memoir has all the exciting tales of peril, hardship, and close calls as the best of battle memoirs but it is primarily a story of very real and yet remarkable people: the soldiers who fought, bled, and died, and the reporters and photographers who went right to the frontlines to record their stories and memorialize their sacrifice. The great books about Vietnam journalism have been about print reporters, still photographers, and television correspondents but if this was truly the first -television war, - then it is time to hear the story of the cameramen who shot the pictures and the reporters who wrote the stories that the average American witnessed daily in their living rooms. An award-winning sensation when it was released in Japan in 2008, this book been completely re-created for an international audience. In 2008, the Japanese edition was published by Kodansha in two hardback volumes and titled -I Wanted to Be Capa.- It won the 2009 Oya Soichi Nonfiction Award-a prize usually reserved for much younger writers--and Kodansha almost doubled their initial print run to meet the demand. In that period, he was interviewed extensively, a documentary was filmed in which he returned to the people and places of his wartime experience, and a dramatization of his book was written and presented on NHK Radio. A Kodansha paperback was published in 2010 with an initial printing of 17,000 copies and continues to sell at a respectable pace.-Tony Hirashiki is an essential piece of the foundation on which ABC was built. From the day he approached the Bureau Chief in Saigon with a note pinned to his shirt saying he could shoot pictures to the anxious afternoon of 9/11 when we lost him in the collapse of the Twin Towers (and he emerged covered in dust clutching his precious beta tapes, ) Tony reported the news with his camera and in doing so, he brought the truth about the important events of our day to millions of Americans.- David Westin, Former President of ABC News

We Chose to Speak of War and Strife: The World of the Foreign Correspondent


John Cody Fidler-Simpson - 2017
    

How Dare We! Write


Sherry Quan Lee - 2017
    Pollard, PhD, Professor of English at West Chester University extols: “HOW DARE WE! WRITE offers a much needed corrective to creative writing pedagogy. The collection asks us to consider the following questions: what does it mean for an indigenous, or black, or Latinx, or Asian, or Middle Eastern, or LGBTQIA+ (or a combination of these identities) American to become a writer? ...What does it mean to work through resistance from supposed mentors, to face rejection from publishers and classmates, to stand against traditions that silence you, to stand in your truth about your identity so that you can claim, fearlessly, your history, your trauma, your joy...” Contributors include: Gabriella Anais Deal-Marquez, Marcie Rendon, Marlina Gonzalez, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Lori Young-Williams, Jessica Lopez Lyman, Luis M Lopez, Sagirah Shahid, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, Tou SaiKo Lee, Anya Achtenberg, Ginny Allery, Wesley Brown, Kandace Creel Falcón, Olive Lefferson, Christine Stark, Isela Gomez R., Bell Brown, Brenda, "William S. Yellow Robe, Jr, Ching-In Chen, Sweta Vikram, Hei Kyong Kim, Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, and Taiyon Coleman.

Maximum Harm: The Tsarnaev Brothers, the FBI, and the Road to the Marathon Bombing


Michele R. McPhee - 2017
    McPhee unravels the complex story behind the public facts of the Boston Marathon bombing. She examines the bombers' roots in Dagestan and Chechnya, their struggle to assimilate in America, and their growing hatred of the United States—a deepening antagonism that would prompt federal prosecutors to dub Dzhokhar Tsarnaev “America's worst nightmare.” The difficulties faced by the Tsarnaev family of Cambridge, Massachusetts, are part of the public record. Circumstances less widely known are the FBI's recruitment of the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as a “mosque crawler” to inform on radical separatists here and in Chechnya; the tracking down and killing of radical Islamic separatists during the six months he spent in Russia—travel that raised eyebrows, since he was on several terrorist watchlists; the FBI's botched deals and broken promises with regard to his immigration; and the disenchantment, rage, and growing radicalization of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, along with their mother, sisters, and Tamerlan's wife, Katherine.Maximum Harm is also a compelling examination of the Tsarnaev brothers' movements in the days leading up to the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, the subsequent investigation, the Tsarnaevs' murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier, the high-speed chase and shootout that killed Tamerlan, and the manhunt in which the authorities finally captured Dzhokhar, hiding in a Watertown backyard. McPhee untangles the many threads of circumstance, coincidence, collusion, motive, and opportunity that resulted in the deadliest attack on the city of Boston to date.“McPhee nails it. Happiness, fear, tragedy, anger, heroism, and hope are all on display in this riveting new book about terror in Boston. A must-read, so we never forget, and learn from, the lessons of that historic day.”—Scott Brown, former United States senator and author of Against All Odds: My Life of Hardship, Fast Breaks, and Second Chances“Maximum Harm is a riveting, eye-opening page-turner that takes you into the real world of international terrorism and the difficulties for local, state, and federal law enforcement. . . . It raises the question: Are we prepared?”—Bernard B. Kerik, New York City police commissioner (retired)“No single reporter has covered the Boston bombing as thoroughly as Michele McPhee. She knows Boston—its streets, its cops, and its corridors of power. Maximum Harm is riveting—a tribute to the first responders, and, startlingly, a troubling exposé of the FBI’s botched handling of the Tsarnaev brothers. You may think you know this story, but until you read this book, you don’t.”—T. J. English, New York Times–bestselling author of Where the Bodies Were Buried and The Westies“In Maximum Harm, Michele McPhee uncovers shocking new truths about the Boston Marathon bombers and those in government, law enforcement, and their own community who gave them free rein to plot and execute one of the most vicious terror attacks ever carried out on American soil. This book will grab you, shake you, and will not let you go!”—Casey Sherman, New York Times–bestselling author of The Finest Hours and Boston Strong<

The Best American Magazine Writing 2017


Sid Holt - 2017
    The pieces included here explore the fault lines in American society. Shane Bauer's visceral "My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard" (Mother Jones) and Sarah Stillman's depiction of the havoc wreaked on young people's lives when they are put on sex-offender registries (The New Yorker) examine controversial criminal-justice practices. And responses to the shocks of the recent election include Matt Taibbi's irreverent dispatches from the campaign trail (Rolling Stone), George Saunders's transfixing account of Trump's rallies (The New Yorker), and Andrew Sullivan's fears for the future of democracy (New York).In other considerations of the political scene, Jeffrey Goldberg talks through Obama's foreign-policy legacy with the former president (The Atlantic), and Gabriel Sherman analyzes how Roger Ailes's fall sheds light on conservative media (New York). Linking personal stories to the course of history, Nikole Hannah-Jones looks for a school for her daughter in a rapidly changing, racially divided Brooklyn (New York Times Magazine), and Pamela Colloff explores how the 1966 University of Texas Tower mass shooting changed the course of one survivor's life (Texas Monthly). A selection of Rebecca Solnit's Harper's commentary ranges from a writer on death row to the isolation at the heart of conservatism. Becca Rothfeld ponders women waiting on love from the Odyssey to Tinder (Hedgehog Review). Siddhartha Mukherjee depicts the art and agony of oncology (New York Times Magazine). David Quammen ventures to Yellowstone to consider the future of wild places (National Geographic), and Mac McClelland follows a deranged expedition to Cuba in search of the ivory-billed woodpecker (Audubon). The collection concludes with Zandria Robinson's eloquent portrait of her father as reflected in the music he loved (Oxford American).

Reversing the Apocalypse: Hijacking the Democratic Party to Save the World


Krystal Ball - 2017
    Krystal argues that Donald Trump is a predictable response to the massive economic dislocation of the past 40 years. Reversing the Apocalypse is not simple Trump bashing, but a powerful and self-reflective critique of where the Party went wrong and what Progressives can do to turn the tide. Krystal Ball narrates the modern descent of the Democratic Party from the party of workers and New Deal Progressives to the party of Silicon Valley elites and the managerial class. Tragically, this working class abandonment happened right when ordinary Americans needed the most help. But Krystal’s critique is radically action focused-what can we do to reclaim the Democratic Party for workers and start winning elections again. Critical Praise for Reversing the Apocalypse: "If you read one chapter of this book, it should be 'Preventing the Next Trump', but then you won't be able to put it down." -Lawrence O'Donnell, host of The Last Word on MSNBSC "It's easy to look at the disastrous policies and anti-working class politics of the other side instead of looking in the mirror for how we got here as a country. Krystal's book challenges progressives to look inward-for where we have gotten it wrong and how to think creatively to meet the challenges facing working people. For those within the progressive movement who want to be agents of the change we need-look no further, Krystal has the answers." -Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) of Youngstown "There will be many books emerging about how we ended up with Trump and what to do about it, along with others about what the Democratic Party needs to do to recapture its mojo. Some will be good, some not so good; some will be shallow, others deep with ideas and plans. Reversing the Apocalypse is good, deep and necessary." -Norm Ornstein, co-author of It’s Even Worse than it Looks "In Reversing the Apocalypse, Krystal makes it plain that there is a cry for systemic change in America that the political class, particularly Democrats, have failed to answer. She reminds us that we all have the responsibility and amazing opportunity to be the light for each other, our community and nation. In particular, she encourages us to find the causes that unite and ignite us, join forces and build." -Nina Turner, Former Ohio State Senator and Our Revolution board member Krystal has a prescription that includes fielding a dramatically different candidate slate around the country for US Congress, including those earning the minimum wage and those without a college degree. She also argues forcefully that the only litmus tests that matter for Democrats should have to do with economic issues and inclusion-and that the social and cultural issues, such as guns and abortion, need to take a back seat to issues of economic justice. Reversing the Apocalypse also takes on the dominant narrative regarding race in the Democratic Party and shows how a narrow focus on "white privilege" and on lecturing well-intentioned working class whites creates closed mindedness and division instead of receptivity to an economic justice message. If you want to take your party and your country back, not back in time to some mythical 1950s homogeny, but back to the New Deal Radicalism of the 1930s that saved us from the Great Depression, Reversing the Apocalypse has the answers you've been looking for.

Just a Journalist: On the Press, Life, and the Spaces Between


Linda Greenhouse - 2017
    Just a few years ago, the mainstream press was wrestling with whether labeling waterboarding as torture violated important norms of neutrality and objectivity. Now, major American newspapers regularly call the president of the United States a liar. Clearly, something has changed as the old rules of "balance" and "two sides to every story" have lost their grip. Is the change for the better? Will it last?In Just a Journalist, Linda Greenhouse--who for decades covered the U.S. Supreme Court for The New York Times--tackles these questions from the perspective of her own experience. A decade ago, she faced criticism from her own newspaper and much of journalism's leadership for a speech to a college alumnae group in which she criticized the Bush administration for, among other things, seeking to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo Bay--two years after the Supreme Court itself had ruled that the detainees could not be hidden away from the reach of federal judges who might hear their appeals.One famous newspaper editor expressed his belief that it was unethical for a journalist to vote, because the act of choosing one candidate over another could compromise objectivity. Linda Greenhouse disagrees. Calling herself "an accidental activist," she raises urgent questions about the role journalists can and should play as citizens, even as participants, in the world around them.

Inside Story: Everyone's Guide to Reporting and Writing Creative Nonfiction


Julia Goldberg - 2017
    Drawing on and integrating examples and advice from diverse practitioners in the field, Inside Story extends beyond idea and inspiration with practical advice, examples and exercises geared toward everyone from writing students, citizen journalists, bloggers and working writers. Inside Story provides a keen focus on the fundamental aspects of reporting, including interviewing and researching, while also offering advice and exercises toward writing nonfiction dialogue, devising structure and creating a sense of people and place from the ground-up. The book also explores the ethical implications of writing in the real world, providing insight and humor at each step of the way.“Fellow journalists and memo writers, here is a book to keep close at hand. Not only does Goldberg nail all the ingredients of good writing and reporting, but she also provides an illuminating set of examples from the very best in the industry. It reads the way a book on writing should read.”—Erik Wemple, media critic, the Washington Post"Who needs a four-year journalism degree or a two-year master's when you have this book? Julia's tome distills the wisdom, wit, fearlessness, judiciousness and sheer joy that all great nonfiction writers need in easy-to-read prose and with great case studies. If you don't win a Pulitzer after reading Inside Story, then you didn't read it close enough."—Gustavo Arellano, editor of OC Weekly and author of ¡Ask a Mexican!"Digital disruption, creative destruction, revolutionary technology, the fall and rise of old and new journalism and publishing paradigms—amid all this noise and opportunity, good writing and honest, well-crafted reporting endure. Julia Goldberg's transcendently intelligent guide offers any fact writer who aspires to navigate the 21st century a beautifully stocked toolbox of advice, strategies, craft wisdom, encouraging examples, and hard-won perspectives on getting the job done right. Beyond its up-to-date practical wealth, Inside Story inspires by being the kind of stylish, authoritative, and vividly alive creative nonfiction it will empower its readers to make."—Hal Espen, former editor of Outside magazine

Big Capital: Who Is London For?


Anna Minton - 2017
    Despite the desperate shortage of housing, tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of affordable homes are being pulled down, replaced by luxury apartments aimed at foreign investors. In this ideological war, housing is no longer considered a public good. Instead, only market solutions are considered - and these respond to the needs of global capital, rather than the needs of ordinary people. In politically uncertain times, the housing crisis has become a key driver creating and fuelling the inequalities of a divided nation. Anna Minton cuts through the complexities, jargon and spin to give a clear-sighted account of how we got into this mess and how we can get out of it.

Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange But True Stories from the Yiddish Press


Eddy Portnoy - 2017
    But this book is not about the success stories. It's a paean to the bunglers, the blockheads, and the just plain weird-Jews who were flung from small, impoverished eastern European towns into the urban shtetls of New York and Warsaw, where, as they say in Yiddish, their bread landed butter side down in the dirt. These marginal Jews may have found their way into the history books far less frequently than their more socially upstanding neighbors, but there's one place you can find them in force: in the Yiddish newspapers that had their heyday from the 1880s to the 1930s. Disaster, misery, and misfortune: you will find no better chronicle of the daily ignominies of urban Jewish life than in the pages of the Yiddish press.An underground history of downwardly mobile Jews, Bad Rabbi exposes the seamy underbelly of pre-WWII New York and Warsaw, the two major centers of Yiddish culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With true stories plucked from the pages of the Yiddish papers, Eddy Portnoy introduces us to the drunks, thieves, murderers, wrestlers, poets, and beauty queens whose misadventures were immortalized in print. There's the Polish rabbi blackmailed by an American widow, mass brawls at weddings and funerals, a psychic who specialized in locating missing husbands, and violent gangs of Jewish mothers on the prowl-in short, not quite the Jews you'd expect. One part Isaac Bashevis Singer, one part Jerry Springer, this irreverent, unvarnished, and frequently hilarious compendium of stories provides a window into an unknown Yiddish world that was.

A Treasury of XX Century Murder Compendium I: Including The Lindbergh Child, The Axe-Man of New Orleans, and Madison Square Tragedy


Rick Geary - 2017
    Witness the most controversial and famous true crime cases that shook the 20th century! These 240 pages retell the love affair that ended the life of prominent architect Stanford White, the New Orleans’ Axe-Man and his gruesome killing spree, and the abduction (and resulting media circus) of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son—all collected in a handsome quarter-bound omnibus.

Visual Journalism: Infographics from the World's Best Newsrooms and Designers


Javier Errea - 2017
    

Is Anything Happening?: My Life as a Newsman


Robin Lustig - 2017
    During a distinguished career spanning more than forty years, he watched the world of news change beyond recognition, as he reported on terror attacks, wars and political coups.In this witty and illuminating memoir, Lustig looks back on his life as a newsman, from coming under fire in Pakistan to reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall; from meeting Nelson Mandela to covering Princess Diana's sudden death.Back in the studio, Lustig lets us in through the BBC's back door for a candid, behind-the-scenes look at some of his triumphs and disasters working for the nation's favourite broadcaster. He writes of his childhood as the son of refugees from Nazi Germany and, drawing on thirty years of reporting about the Middle East, he comes to a startling conclusion about the establishment of the state of Israel.Astute, incisive and frequently hilarious, Is Anything Happening? is both an irresistible personal memoir and an insightful reflection on world events over the past forty-five years.

With Ash on Their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State


Cathy Otten - 2017
    That summer, ISIS massacred Yezidi men and enslaved women and children. More than one hundred thousand Yezidis were besieged on Sinjar Mountain.The headlines have moved on, but thousands of Yezidi women and children remain in captivity. Sinjar is now free from ISIS but the Yezidi homeland is at the center of growing tensions, making a return home for those who fled almost impossible.The mass abduction of Yezidi women and children is here conveyed with extraordinary intensity in the first-hand reporting of a young journalist who has been based in Iraqi Kurdistan for the past four years, covering the war with ISIS.The Yezidi women who were caught up in this disaster often followed the tradition of their ancestors who, a century ago during persecutions at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, put ash on their faces to make themselves unattractive in order to try to avoid rape.Today, over 3,000 Yezidi women and girls remain in the Caliphate where they are bought and sold, and passed between fighters as chattel. But many other have escaped or been released. Otten bases her book on interviews with these survivors, as well as those who smuggled them to safety, painstakingly piecing together their accounts of enslavement. Their deeply moving personal narratives bring alive a human tragedy.

Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth


David Gessner - 2017
    Like his teammates and rivals, he trained for countless hours, sacrificing his body and potential career for a chance at fleeting glory without fortune or fame. His only goal: to win Nationals and go down in Ultimate history as one of the greatest athletes no one has ever heard of.With humor and raw honesty, Gessner explores what it means to devote one's life to something that many consider ridiculous. Today, Ultimate is played by millions, but in the 1980s, it was an obscure sport with a (mostly) undeserved stoner reputation. Its early heroes were as scrappy as the sport they loved, driven by fierce competition, intense rivalries, epic parties, and the noble ideals of the Spirit of the Game. Ultimate Glory is a portrait of the artist as a young ruffian. Gessner shares the field and his seemingly insane obsession with a cast of closely knit, larger-than-life characters. As his sport grows up, so does he, and eventually he gives up chasing flying discs to pursue a career as a writer. But he never forgets his love for this misunderstood sport and the rare sense of purpose he attained as a member of its priesthood.

The Beaverton Presents Glorious And/Or Free: The True History of Canada


Luke Gordon Field - 2017
    Its headlines have been misinforming Canadians across the country (and world), while also providing some of the most insightful social commentary found anywhere. Now, in its first book, The Beaverton looks back over Canada's past to tell the story of how we became the ridiculous nation we are today. Through the lens of the venerable Beaverton, one of the country's oldest and proudest newspapers, the editors share the headlines and news stories that defined the times. From the earliest days of independence ("Paternity Test Confirms John A. Actual Father of Confederation") to war heritage ("Vimy Ridge: Canada Becomes a Nation After Killing Germans for Britain on French Soil") and right up to the 21st century ("Peter McKay sends Make-Up, High Heels to Oppressed Women in Afghanistan")--this is history like you've never seen it. Part mock-history, part fake-scrapbook, Glorious and/or Free is a hilarious and entertaining stab at our national myths and legends. And, like all great satire, it's funny because it's true.

Giles's War


Timothy S. Benson - 2017
    . . Wonderful cartoons.’ Nick Robinson, Radio 4 TodayFew contemporaries captured Britain's indomitable wartime spirit as well or as wittily as the cartoonist Carl Giles. Now, for the first time, the very best of the cartoons he produced between 1939 and 1945 are brought together, including many that have not seen the light of day in over 75 years.As a young cartoonist at Reynold’s News and then the Daily Express and Sunday Express, Giles's work provided a crucial morale boost – and much-needed laughs – to a population suffering daily privations and danger, and Giles's War shows why. Here are his often hilarious takes on the great events of the war – from the Fall of France, via D-Day, to the final Allied victory – but also his wryly amusing depictions of ordinary people in extraordinary times, living in bombed-out streets, dealing with food shortages, coping with blackouts, railing against bureaucracy and everyday annoyances. It's a brilliantly funny chronicle of our nation’s finest hour, as well as a fitting tribute to one of our greatest cartoonists.

Lavil: Life, Love & Death in Port-au-Prince


Peter Orner - 2017
    This immersive and engrossing book, based on five years of research and scores of interviews translated from Haitian Kreyol, gives voice to the continuing struggle of Haitian people to reconstruct their nation from the devastation of the earthquake, and from many decades of political and economic disaster. The earthquake killed more than 200,000, rendered more than a million and a half homeless, and wiped out what little infrastructure existed in the country. But prior to the quake, half the country was illiterate and two-thirds of Haitians lived in poverty. This book makes clear the long genesis of the ongoing crisis and illuminates the depths of the continuing problems, and does so through some of the most marginal and least-heard people in the world. An interview with a restavek--a child sent by poor parents to work as an unpaid servant in a wealthier household--is an example. A recent study determined a figure of 173,000 restaveks--about 8 percent of the population of children.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online


Alice E. Marwick - 2017
    Available at https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataA...

Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road (Book 1)


Clark Hays - 2017
    Cradling an antique rifle and standing over a freshly dug grave, the woman claims to be Bonnie Parker, 75 years old, there to bury the love of her life--who has just died--Clyde Barrow.  Impossible, says the reporter. The murdering duo died 50 years ago. But the woman insists that it wasn't Bonnie and Clyde who were ambushed and killed on that fateful day on a county road near Sailes, Louisiana in 1934. Instead, the outlaws were kidnapped, forced into a covert life and given a desperate mission--save President Roosevelt from an assassination plot financed by industrialist fat cats determined to sink the progressive New Deal policies. The thrilling story cuts back and forth between the modern era where the shocked reporter begins to investigate the potential scoop-of-the-century, and the dangerous undercover exploits of Bonnie and Clyde, as they are thrust into a fight to defend the working class against corporate greed during America's Great Depression. With reflections on a rigged economic system that still ring true, Resurrection Road tells a gripping, page-turning tale, recasting the Bonnie and Clyde legend into a powerful parable about the Gilded Age mirrored in today's economic landscape.Outlaws become patriots in the suspenseful, imaginative tale.Resurrection Road is the first book in the Bonnie and Clyde series. Dam Nation is the second book in the Bonnie and Clyde series.

How to Be A Travel Writer


Lonely Planet - 2017
    You don't have to make money to profit from travel writing. Sometimes, the richest rewards are in the currency of experience. How to be a Travel Writer reveals the varied possibilities that travel writing offers and inspires all travellers to take advantage of those opportunities. That's where the journey begins - where it takes you is up to you. Let legendary travel writer Don George show you the way with his invaluable tips on: The secrets of crafting a great travel story How to conduct pre-trip and on-the-road research Effective interviewing techniques How to get your name in print (and money in your bank account) Quirks of writing for newspapers, magazines, online and books Extensive listings of writers' resources and industry organisations Interviews with established writers, editors and agents About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. The world awaits! Lonely Planet guides have won the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Award in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' -- Fairfax Media 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

Rogue Nation


Royce Kurmelovs - 2017
    Reporting from the backrooms and corridors of Parliament House in Canberra to the streets of post-industrial Burnie in Tasmania, the struggling rural communities of Gippsland and the Queensland heartland, Royce Kurmelovs captures with perceptive, real-time analysis the rise of Australian populism. The people and places he profiles tell the story of those independent political figures who have tried to take power from the outside and those who feel abandoned by both the left and right of politics. Overshadowing it all is the controversial figure of Pauline Hanson, a woman who came back from oblivion to become a power broker just as the country breathlessly watched the election of Donald Trump and wondered whether the same could happen here. Rogue Nation is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what is happening to politics in this country, and what the future might hold.

Lapham's Quarterly: States of Mind


Lewis H. Lapham - 2017
    

Movies That Mattered: More Reviews from a Transformative Decade


Dave Kehr - 2017
    Among his admirers are some of his most influential contemporaries. Roger Ebert called Kehr “one of the most gifted film critics in America.” James Naremore thought he was “one of the best writers on film the country as a whole has ever produced.” But aside from remarkably detailed but brief capsule reviews and top-ten lists, you won’t find much of Kehr’s work on the Internet, and many of the longer and more nuanced essays for which he is best known have not yet been published in book form.             With When Movies Mattered, readers welcomed the first collection of Kehr’s criticism, written during his time at the Chicago Reader. Movies That Mattered is its sequel, with fifty more reviews and essays drawn from the archives of both the Chicago Reader and Chicago magazine from 1974 to 1986. As with When Movies Mattered, the majority of the reviews offer in-depth analyses of individual films that are among Kehr’s favorites, from a thoughtful discussion of the sobering Holocaust documentary Shoah to an irresistible celebration of the raucous comedy Used Cars. But fans of Kehr’s work will be just as taken by his dissections of critically acclaimed films he found disappointing, including The Shining, Apocalypse Now, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Whether you’re a long-time reader or just discovering Dave Kehr, the insights in Movies That Mattered will enhance your appreciation of the movies you already love—and may even make you think twice about one or two you hated.

The Us Vs China: Asia's New Cold War?


Jude Woodward - 2017
    Concerned that the rise of China will challenge the its hegemony in world affairs, the US has decided to reassert its influence in Asia to counteract any challenge. Examining and challenging the dominant causal explanations for and professed intentions of this shift in US policy, this book uncovers the real dynamics of contemporary Sino-American relations, surveying their complex interactions in the context of their post-war history, offering the reader an accessible and informative survey of the relations between China and the US in Asia, ranging from Russia's turn to the east, the rise of Japanese nationalism, democracy in Myanmar, North Korea's nuclear programme to disputes in the South China Sea. This book is an illuminating introduction to the defining issue shaping global politics for our time.

Journalism After Snowden: The Future of the Free Press in the Surveillance State


Emily Bell - 2017
    The publication of these documents, facilitated by three journalists, as well as efforts to criminalize the act of being a whistleblower or source, signaled a new era in the coverage of national security reporting. The contributors to Journalism After Snowden analyze the implications of the Snowden affair for journalism and the future role of the profession as a watchdog for the public good. Integrating discussions of media, law, surveillance, technology, and national security, the book offers a timely and much-needed assessment of the promises and perils for journalism in the digital age.Journalism After Snowden is essential reading for citizens, journalists, and academics in search of perspective on the need for and threats to investigative journalism in an age of heightened surveillance. The book features contributions from key players involved in the reporting of leaks of classified information by Edward Snowden, including Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian; ex-New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson; legal scholar and journalist Glenn Greenwald; and Snowden himself. Other contributors include dean of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Steve Coll, Internet and society scholar Clay Shirky, legal scholar Cass Sunstein, and journalist Julia Angwin. Topics discussed include protecting sources, digital security practices, the legal rights of journalists, access to classified data, interpreting journalistic privilege in the digital age, and understanding the impact of the Internet and telecommunications policy on journalism. The anthology's interdisciplinary nature provides a comprehensive overview and understanding of how society can protect the press and ensure the free flow of information.

The Creative Shopkeeper


Lucy Johnston - 2017
    While big-chain retailers have suffered through lack of originality, new independent retailers are rapidly growing in number, rejuvenating neighborhoods across the world. Flexible, pop-up shops are becoming an increasingly popular and effective strategy not only for kickstarting new businesses but also for energizing established brands.To catch the attention of busy customers passing by and to build an engaging shopping environment that stands out from the competition, the savvy shopkeeper needs to get creative—and can do so on a budget.This timely book features the best and most beautiful independent retail spaces from around the world, which combine marketing savvy with interior design. Organized by themes—Props Icons, Navigation Choice, Journey Discovery, Craft Process, Edit Abundance, Staging Scenery, Highlights Lowlights, Glimpses Visions, Gestures Details, and Digital Graphic—the book presents a dazzling spectrum of case studies and offers highly imaginative and cost-effective solutions for this increasingly popular area of design.

Three Paperclips a Grey Scarf


Sheldon Charles - 2017
    Because the book has languished unfinished, Davis finds himself presented with an ultimatum by his agent: Take a three month assignment as a press embed in Afghanistan or risk losing his book contract. Since the job does have a salary attached he takes it, but before departing, a friend hands Davis a hastily gathered good luck charm: three paperclips. Over the months in country he gets to know the men of a small team of US soldiers that he is deployed with and rediscovers his muse writing about their experiences in Southwest Asia for a truth hungry American public. Davis also finds use for each of his talismans, as they save his life and those of the men he comes to regard as his team; the men who promised each other that they would all make it home in one piece.

Ink: The Years of Journalism Before the Days of Bloggers


Robert Coram - 2017
    His persistence is an object lesson for anyone who wants to write.In his early life, he failed at everything he did. He flunked out of college, served time in a military stockade, and was fired from numerous jobs. But all he wanted from life was to become a reporter at the Atlanta Journal. He returned to college and was hired by the paper while only a sophomore. During his six years at the paper he became a senior investigative reporter.He was fired and began a freelance career that saw him published in many national magazines. His articles about drug smuggling caught the attention of an editor at the Atlanta Constitution and he became one of the few reporters ever fired by the Atlanta papers who was invited to return. During the two years he spent at the Constitution, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize both years. Then he was fired.He covered the war in Biafra and taught for twelve years at Emory. He wrote five novels, all rejected by editors. He persisted and eventually published seven novels, seven works of non-fiction, and a memoir. Four of the non-fiction works are acclaimed military biographies.This book is infused with his pile-driver determination, his love of old-time newspapering, and his reverence for the written word.

The Baffler No. 35 (The Bad Society)


Chris Lehmann - 2017
    But the New Bad things have lately mutated out of control. In a few short political generations, Lyndon Johnson’s bold vision of the Great Society has ceded the field to its photographic negative; we are now marooned in the sprawling wasteland of the Bad Society.How did we get here, exactly? That’s what this thirty-fifth Baffler is determined to explain. Starting with our rancid head of state, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw dissects the racist logic behind Donald Trump’s rise to power—a tale in which liberal fables of “colorblindness” play no small part. Adele Stan takes a close look at the networks of private capital that allow our Trumpian overlords to ransack the public weal with impunity. James Livingston chronicles the way that American culture has yoked itself to the work ethic, even at the moment when all the basic conditions of industrial-age labor are obsolescing before our eyes.Perhaps, then, we are at last free to pursue glorious, self-determined leisure of the kind that Marx and Engels extolled in The German Ideology? No such luck, Miya Tokumitsu reports: the American romance with leisure is a rote and joyless affair, resembling nothing so much as the drudgery of the shop floor. Our cinemas and streaming set-top boxes offer no relief, notes Tom Carson: the superhero sagas now stoking the culture industries are studies in social fatalism. And as Ann Friedman reminds us, blue-state secession efforts are only cruel delusions.What, then, is to be done? Far be it from Team Baffler to prescribe a reformist blueprint, but if we were to make a start, we could do worse than to build on the researches of our contributors by resisting the various best-case scenarists still contaminating our civitas. Heed our own chastened editorial history, and remember that bad things can always get worse.

The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam


Paisley Rekdal - 2017
    To make sense of the shocking and baffling incident--in which a young homeless man born in Vietnam stabbed a number of white men purportedly in retribution for the war--Paisley Rekdal draws on a remarkable range of material and fashions it into a compelling account of the dislocations suffered by the Vietnamese and also by American-born veterans over the past decades. She interweaves a narrative about the crime with information collected in interviews, historical examination of the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s, a critique of portrayals of Vietnam in American popular culture, and discussions of the psychological consequences of trauma. This work allows us to better understand transgenerational and cultural trauma and advances our still complicated struggle to comprehend the war."A moving and often gripping meditation on the fallout of war, from violence and racism to melancholy and trauma."--Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Refugees"Assembling a remarkable range of materials and testimonies, she shows us both the persistence of war's trauma and how we might more ethically imagine those it harms."--Beth Loffreda, author of Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder"A compact, thoughtful debut addressing violence, immigrant identity, and the long shadow of the Vietnam War.... A poignant, relevant synthesis of cultural studies and true-crime drama.--Kirkus Reviews

The Baffler: The Snare of Preparation (Baffler Number 34)


Chris Lehmann - 2017
    The data-bedazzled twenty-first century was to be a time of painlessly enhanced social justice and seamless market accommodation. The arc of history bent unmistakably toward a bigger, shinier Information Age.Instead, America slouches toward this century’s second decade with a lunatic bigot directing our national politics. Fascism is on the march in these United States, and the painful truth is that it’s been feeding on all the social forces we’d naively entrusted to a feckless expert class. In recognition of this dramatically altered status quo, The Baffler gives you Issue 34, “The Snare of Preparation.”Mystified by the counsel of economists who’ve made a punitive fetish of the idea of austerity? Dean Baker dismantles all the errors that make up this profession-wide delusion. Still flummoxed by how fundamentally worthless the polling industry proved to be over the course of Election ’16? Worry not: Sam Kriss has identified the ancient superstitions that explain the follies of political soothsaying in our high-tech civitas.Thomas Frank pierces the dark heart of the liberal cult of curation, while Yasha Levine ventures into the wild frontiers of Russian cyberhacking—and finds that here, too, a body of self-anointed experts is foisting a self-interested boondoggle on our credulous press and battered sense of procedural fair play. If all that hasn’t left you scandalized enough, check out Carey Dunne’s account of the ghastly posture fad known as the Mensendieck System, or Brandon Garrett’s report on the abuses packaged under the professional imprimatur of courtroom forensic science.Meanwhile, Rick Perlstein lays out, in sobering detail, the empty presumptions that inform the cult of smartness across yon political spectrum. How, in the age of Trump, can we begin to reverse the march of credentialed folly? Fortunately, the Baffler business model forbids the publication of anything resembling “solutions journalism.” But even so, Alexander Zaitchik has returned from the occupation at Standing Rock with news of a principled left protest that actually worked—at least until our Orange Mussolini reopened the Dakota Access Pipeline with an executive order. Hey, the only person to tell you any of this might be easy would be a stupid fucking expert.

The Propaganda Front: Postcards from the Era of World Wars


Benjamin Weiss - 2017
    Adoring crowds greet Hitler and Mussolini. Uncle Sam orders Americans to enlist. In the first half of the 20th century, these images and many more circulated by the millions on postcards intended to change minds and inspire actions. Whether produced by government propaganda bureaus, opportunistic publishers, aid organizations or resistance movements, postcards conveyed their messages with striking graphics, pithy slogans and biting caricatures--all in a uniquely personal form.The more than 350 cards reproduced in full color in this book advocate for political causes and celebrate war efforts on all sides of the major conflicts of their time. The accompanying text shows how a ubiquitous form of communication served increasingly sophisticated campaigns in an age of propaganda, and highlights the postcards collected here as both priceless historical documents and masterworks of graphic design.

Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams During the Civil War


Jonathan W. White - 2017
    Sleeplessness plagued the Union and Confederate armies, and dreams of war glided through the minds of Americans in both the North and South. Sometimes their nightly visions brought the horrors of the conflict vividly to life. But for others, nighttime was an escape from the hard realities of life and death in wartime. In this innovative new study, Jonathan W. White explores what dreams meant to Civil War era Americans and what their dreams reveal about their experiences during the war. He shows how Americans grappled with their fears, desires, and struggles while they slept, and how their dreams helped them make sense of the confusion, despair, and loneliness that engulfed them.White takes readers into the deepest, darkest, and most intimate places of the Civil War, connecting the emotional experiences of soldiers and civilians to the broader history of the conflict, confirming what poets have known for centuries: that there are some truths that are only revealed in the world of darkness. "

From Trudeau to Trudeau: Fifty Years of Aislin Cartoons


Terry Mosher - 2017
    A retrospective by Terry Mosher (better knows as "Aislin") of his fifty years of cartooning, primarily with the Montreal Gazette.

Understanding Photojournalism


Jennifer Good - 2017
    Carefully chosen, international case studies represent a cross section of key photographers, practices and periods within photojournalism, enabling students to understand the central questions and critical concepts.Illustrated with a range of photographs and case material, including interviews with contemporary photojournalists, this book is essential reading for students taking university and college courses on photography within a wide range of disciplines and includes an annotated guide to further reading and a glossary of terms to further expand your studies.

Malpractice: A Neurosurgeon Reveals How Our Health-Care System Puts Patients at Risk


Larry Schlachter - 2017
    More recent research indicates that estimate was, if anything, a drastic understatement of the patient-safety epidemic in the US health care system.In Malpractice, neurosurgeon and attorney Dr. Larry Schlachter makes a case that most patients enter the system without any idea of the risks they face, due to a medical culture that denies there is a patient safety problem. He argues that medical culture actively avoids transparency, perpetuates an atmosphere of blind deference to doctors, and protects dangerous doctors from any accountability.Drawing on 23 years of experience, Dr. Schlachter provides unbelievable stories that illustrate the host of risks patients face whenever they seek diagnostic evaluation or go under the knife. This book provides an all-access pass to the inner sanctums of the health care citadel, exposing the cultural flaws that fuel doctor’s egos and outlining the steps every patent should take to protect himself or herself.

Kent Monkman: Shame and Prejudice, A Story of Resiliance


Kent Monkman - 2017
    With its entry points in the harsh urban environment of Winnipeg’s north end, and contemporary life on the reserve, Kent Monkman: Shame and Prejudice, A Story of Resilience takes us all the way back to the period of New France and the fur trade. The Rococo masterpiece The Swing by Jean-Honore´ Fragonard has been reinterpreted as an installation with Monkman’s alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, in a beaver trimmed baroque dress, swinging back and forth between the Generals Wolfe and Montcalm.The book includes Monkman’s own paintings, drawings and sculptural works, in dialogue with historical artefacts and art works borrowed from museum and privatecollections from across Canada.

Death Makes the News: How the Media Censor and Display the Dead


Jessica M Fishman - 2017
    Pictures are also at the epicenter of journalism, and when photographers and editors illustrate fatalities, it often raises questions about how they distinguish between a "fit" and "unfit" image of death.Death Makes the News is the story of this controversial news practice: picturing the dead. Jessica Fishman uncovers the surprising editorial and political forces that structure how the news and media cover death. The patterns are striking, overturning long-held assumptions about which deaths are newsworthy and raising fundamental questions about the role that news images play in our society.In a look behind the curtain of newsrooms, Fishman observes editors and photojournalists from different types of organizations as they deliberate over which images of death make the cut, and why. She also investigates over 30 years of photojournalism in the tabloid and patrician press to establish when the dead are shown and whose dead body is most newsworthy, illustrating her findings with high-profile news events, including recent plane crashes, earthquakes, hurricanes, homicides, political unrest, and war-time attacks.Death Makes the News reveals that much of what we think we know about the news is wrong: while the patrician press claims that they do not show dead bodies, they are actually more likely than the tabloid press to show them--even though the tabloids actually claim to have no qualms showing these bodies. Dead foreigners are more likely to be shown than American bodies. At the same time, there are other unexpected but vivid patterns that offer insight into persistent editorial forces that routinely structure news coverage of death.An original view on the depiction of dead bodies in the media, Death Makes the News opens up new ways of thinking about how death is portrayed.

Action Words: Journey of a Journalist


Shaune Bordere - 2017
    Lewis, makes an effort to convince the Editor of a small local newspaper to publish her critiques of the segregationist New Orleans mayor in 1935. Although she is discouraged, her heroics earn the attention of the city and US Senator Huey P. Long. Ora begins to write influential articles that inspire the people to endure segregation. Ora works closely with Senator Long who soon falls victim to assassination. The people are devastated and the City of New Orleans is nearly destroyed by the mayor who celebrates the untimely death of Senator Long. Ora somehow finds a way to lead the people and take a stand against segregation.

A Man's World: Portraits


Steve Oney - 2017
    Written over a 40-year period for publications including Esquire, Premiere, GQ, Time, Los Angeles, and The Atlanta Journal & Constitution Magazine, the stories bring to life the famous (Harrison Ford), the brilliant (Robert Penn Warren), the tortured (Gregg Allman), and the unknown (Chris Leon, a 20-year-old Marine Corps corporal killed in the Iraq war). Several of the articles are prize winners. The Talented Mr. Raywood won the City and Regional Magazine Association Award for best profile in an American city magazine. Herschel Walker Doesnt Tap Out won the Chicago Headline Clubs Peter Lisagor Award for best magazine sports story. Hollywood Fixer won the Los Angeles Press Club Award for best magazine profile. The Casualty of War was a finalist for Columbia Universitys National Magazine Award.

Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World's Best Writers


Joel Whitney - 2017
    The story continues to unfold, with the reputations of some of America’s best-loved literary figures—including Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, and Richard Wright—tarnished as their work for the intelligence agency has come to light.Finks is a tale of two CIAs, and how they blurred the line between propaganda and literature. One CIA created literary magazines that promoted American and European writers and cultural freedom, while the other toppled governments, using assassination and censorship as political tools. Defenders of the “cultural” CIA argue that it should have been lauded for boosting interest in the arts and freedom of thought, but the two CIAs had the same undercover goals, and shared many of the same methods: deception, subterfuge and intimidation.Finks demonstrates how the good-versus-bad CIA is a false divide, and that the cultural Cold Warriors again and again used anti-Communism as a lever to spy relentlessly on leftists, and indeed writers of all political inclinations, and thereby pushed U.S. democracy a little closer to the Soviet model of the surveillance state.

The Hope Store


Dwight Okita - 2017
    They vow to open the world's first Hope Store. Their slogan: "We don't just instill hope. We install it." The media descend. Customer Jada Upshaw arrives at the store with a hidden agenda, but what happens next no one could have predicted. Meanwhile an activist group called The Natural Hopers emerges warning that hope installations are a risky, Frankenstein-like procedure and vow to shut down the store. Luke comes to care about Jada, and marvels at her Super-Responder status. But in dreams begin responsibilities, and unimaginable nightmares follow. If science can't save Jada, can she save herself -- or will she wind up as collateral damage?

Blood Profits: Smugglers, Counterfeiters, Terrorists, and the Illicit Superhighways That Connect Them


Vanessa Neumann - 2017
    

Writing Abroad: A Guide for Travelers


Peter Chilson - 2017
    When we leave our homes to explore the wider world, we feel compelled to capture the experiences and bring the story home. But for those who don’t think of themselves as writers, putting experiences into words can be more stressful than inspirational.Writing Abroad is meant for travelers of all backgrounds and writing levels: a student embarking on overseas study; a retiree realizing a dream of seeing China; a Peace Corps worker in Kenya. All can benefit from documenting their adventures, whether on paper or online. Through practical advice and adaptable exercises, this guide will help travelers hone their observational skills, conduct research and interviews, choose an appropriate literary form, and incorporate photos and videos into their writing. Writing about travel is more than just safeguarding memories—it can transform experiences and tease out new realizations. With Writing Abroad, travelers will be able to deepen their understanding of other cultures and write about that new awareness in clear and vivid prose.

Dissent: The Student Press in 1960s Australia


Sally Percival Wood - 2017
    During this time, university campuses became sites of dissent, amplified by the proliferation of tertiary institutions, producing the best-educated generation in Australian history. Student newspapers began probing the Vietnam War and resisting conscription, challenging racism and the absence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at university, stirring gender politics, and testing the limits of obscenity. With erudition, wit, and daring creativity — and enabled by new printing technology — student newspapers played an immensely important role in Australia’s social, cultural, and political transformation, the results of which still resonate throughout Australia today. In Dissent, historian Sally Percival Wood encapsulates the spirit of the era, delving into the people, the places, and the politics of the time to reveal how this transformation took place. From 1961, when Monash University opened, to 1972, when the Whitlam government came to power, Dissent shows just how profoundly the political conservatism emblematic of post-war Australia struggled to adapt to this new generation, with its new, sometimes alarming, audacity — and goes on to ask: has the student press lost its nerve?

Remaking the News: Essays on the Future of Journalism Scholarship in the Digital Age


Pablo J. BoczkowskiSeth C. Lewis - 2017
    Just as media organizations and journalists have realized that technology is a central and indispensable part of their enterprise, scholars of journalism have shifted their focus to the role of technology. In Remaking the News, leading scholars chart the future of studies on technology and journalism in the digital age.These ongoing changes in journalism invite scholars to rethink how they approach this dynamic field of inquiry. The contributors consider theoretical and methodological issues; concepts from the social science canon that can help make sense of journalism; the occupational culture and practice of journalism; and major gaps in current scholarship on the news: analyses of inequality, history, and failure.

Guardians of God: Inside the Religious Mind of the Pakistani Taliban


Mona Kanwal Sheikh - 2017
    The author brings to light rare insight into the ideological basis of Pakistani Taliban, drawing upon first-hand research comprising participant observation, interviews, content analysis of organizational literature, and Talibani communications, such as recruitment videos, recorded speeches, leaflets and pamphlets, jihadi anthems, and press releases to the local media. The bookdemonstrates how religion simultaneously appears as an object to be defended, as a threat, as the purpose of violence, as the source of rules and limitations on violent action, and as the source of motivational imagery and myths. Going into an analysis of just what role religion plays in violentactivities of this group, and how does it do so, the author shows that Talibani narratives are both secular and religious at the same time, contradicting a clear-cut divide between religious and secular motivations for violence. The book advocates against extreme positions that accord religioneither a primary or a negligent position in explaining the raison d'�tre of Pakistani Taliban. It makes a plea for more informed and empathetic approach instead of the purely militaristic stance towards extremism, which has only helped it grow in the past.

Web True.0: Why the Internet and Digital Ethnography Hold the Key to Answering the Questions That Traditional Research Just Can't.


Ujwal Arkalgud - 2017
    As the cofounders of one of the world’s fastest growing research firms and pioneers in the field of Digital Ethnography, Ujwal Arkalgud and Jason Partridge use their groundbreaking methodology to scour the web and examine major shifts that have occurred in consumer culture. In these pages you’ll discover: Why polls keep getting politics all wrong Why online shopping isn’t what’s killing mid-tier retail Why patients doubt doctors more than ever before Through this book, you will discover that the Internet holds answers that traditional research can no longer uncover. Most importantly, this book will change the way you look at your customers and their unmet needs.

Spectral Edition: Ghost Reports from U.S. Newspapers, 1865-1917


Tim Prasil - 2017
    newspapers. Haunted houses, haunted roads, haunted families, and other spectral manifestations were treated as legitimate news. Tim Prasil has collected hundreds of these articles, and Spectral Edition: Ghost Reports from U.S. Newspapers, 1865-1917 displays the scariest, strangest, funniest, and most intriguing of them. Along with nearly 150 complete ghost reports, Prasil includes a well-researched Introduction, useful footnotes, rare newspaper illustrations, and an essay about how an alleged ghost encounter in Memphis ignited a debate about responsible journalism. Spectral Edition explores a curious chapter of U.S. newspapers and an era when the American press challenged scientific and religious skepticism with open-minded consideration of the possibility that specters return to haunt us!

Young William James Thinking


Paul J. Croce - 2017
    A century after his death, Young William James Thinking examines the private thoughts James detailed in his personal correspondence, archival notes, and his first publications to create a compelling portrait of his growth as both man and thinker.By going to the sources, Paul J. Croce's cultural biography challenges the conventional contrast commentators have drawn between James's youthful troubles and his mature achievements. Inverting James's reputation for inconsistency, Croce shows how he integrated his interests and his struggles into sophisticated thought. His ambivalence became the motivating core of his philosophizing, the heart of his enduring legacy. Readers can follow James in science classes and in personal "speculations," studying medicine and exploring both mainstream and sectarian practices, in museums reflecting on the fate of humanity since ancient times, in love and with heart broken, and in periodic crises of confidence that sometimes even spurred thoughts of suicide.A case study in coming of age, this book follows the famous American philosopher's vocational work and avocational interests, his education and his frustrations--young James between childhood and fame. Anecdotes placed in the contexts of his choices shed new light on the core commitments within his enormous contributions to psychology, philosophy, and religious studies. James's hard-won insights, starting with his mediation of science and religion, led to his appreciation of body and mind in relation. Ultimately, Young William James Thinking reveals how James provided a humane vision well suited to our pluralist age.