Book picks similar to
Custodians of Conscience: Investigative Journalism and Public Virtue by James S. Ettema
journalism
media-sociology
type-nonfiction
media
I Killed Pink Floyd's Pig: Inside Stories of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll
Beau Phillips - 2014
Never-been-told stories of sex, drugs and rock & roll. Plus exclusive photos! It's your all-access pass...a behind-the-scenes VIP tour of when rock was great. The author takes you backstage and inside bands' dressing rooms, hotel suites and private planes of Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and dozens more.
Morning Miracle: Inside the Washington Post A Great Newspaper Fights for Its Life
Dave Kindred - 2010
Morning Miracle definitively answers the question “Do newspapers still matter?” with a resounding yes.What The Kingdom and the Power did for the New York Times, Morning Miracle will do for the Washington Post. A reporter for more than forty years, Dave Kindred takes you inside the heart of the legendary newspaper and offers a unique opportunity to see what it really takes to produce world-class journalism every day. Granted unprecedented access to every nook and cranny of the paper, including candid exchanges with its most celebrated journalists, such as Bob Woodward, Sally Quinn, David Broder, and former executive editor Ben Bradlee (who gave the book its title), Kindred provides a no-holds-barred look at the twenty-first-century newsroom. As it becomes more difficult to maintain journalistic integrity, stay relevant in the age of blogs, and meet Wall Street’s demands for profits, the newspaper—more than any other medium—also shoulders the tremendous responsibility of acting as a watchdog for democracy. Perhaps no one sums up the overwhelming challenges that face the Post and its power to endure better than the author himself: “It is still a miracle that you can put 700 overcaffeinated misfits in a newsroom, on deadline, adrenaline running, secrets to spill, and before midnight a messenger delivers a smoking-hot city edition to Don Graham’s manse in Georgetown.”
Aja
Don Breithaupt - 2007
A double-platinum, Grammy-winning bestseller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. Odd, then, that its creators saw it as an "ambitious, extended" work, the apotheosis of their anti-rock, anti-band, anti-glamour aesthetic. Populated by thirty-fi ve mostly jazz session players, Aja served up prewar song forms, mixed meters and extended solos to a generation whose idea of pop daring was Paul letting Linda sing lead once in a while. And, impossibly, it sold. Including an in-depth interview with Donald Fagen, this book paints a detailed picture of the making of a masterpiece.
Communication Theories: Origins, Methods and Uses in the Mass Media
Werner J. Severin - 1979
The book also applies communication theories to the mass media with current examples from journalism, broadcasting, advertising and public relations to clarify the concepts. A new chapter on cyber communications explores the influential new medium, using discussions of mediamorphosis, hypertext, multimedia, interface design, Internet addiction and Internet dependency. An extensively rewritten chapter on media chains and conglomerates addresses key developments in the field. The book also includes unique coverage of media uses and institutions, meant as an alternative way to think about mass communication. For readers interested in exploring mass communication theory.
Don McCullin
Don McCullin - 2001
This book was conceived on a grand scale that does justice to his extraordinary life and the events he has witnessed. It forms one of the great documents of the latter part of the last century.The book begins and ends in the Somerset landscape that surrounds McCullin's home, but the whole sequence of more than two hundred photographs encompasses a ravaged northern England, war in Cyprus, Biafra, Vietnam, Cambodia, Beirut and riots in Derry. The climax of the book is among the cannibals and tribespeople deep in the jungles of Irian Jaya, where McCullin focuses on humanity in an almost Stone Age condition.The introduction by Harold Evans, the acclaimed newspaper editor and authority on photojournalism, is drawn from his long experience of working with McCullin. The distinguished novelist and essayist, Susan Sontag, has contributed an essay on McCullin and the role of witness to conflict - a subject of timely pertinence.
My Week at the Blue Angel: Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas
Matthew O'Brien - 2010
Thompson’s Las Vegas, with the Good Doctor as tour guide. A Lord of the Rings-like adventure in the city’s underground flood channels. A seven-day stay at a seedy motel on East Fremont Street.The stories in My Week at the Blue Angel aren’t about Steve Wynn, Cirque du Soleil, or how to play poker and they aren’t set in Caesars Palace, XS Nightclub, or a 2,000-seat showroom. They’re about prostitutes, ex-cons, and the homeless and they’re set under Caesars Palace and in trailer parks and weekly motels.In this creative-nonfiction collection, Matthew O’Brien—author of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas—and veteran photographer Bill Hughes show a side of the city rarely seen. A side beyond the neon lights, themed facades, and motel-room doors. A side beyond the barbwire fences, “No Trespassing” signs, and midnight shadows.A side of Las Vegas many locals and visitors are curious about, but few ever explore.
Killing Fairfax: Packer, Murdoch and the Ultimate Revenge
Pamela Williams - 2013
Silent Rage: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer
Michael Newton - 1994
Raised by an abusive mother and weak father, Cole accomplished his first murder before he was ten years old. He went on to murder at least 14 women. Sexual attacks, necrophilia, and cannibalization peppered his wanderings. Backed by 32 weeks of exclusive interviews with Cole and years of exhaustive research, Michael Newton paints one of the most chilling true portraits of the development of a sociopathic personality ever made available to the public. Newton traces Cole's gruesome career across four decades, until Cole's execution by the state of Nevada. ***** They are law enforcement's most elusive prey. More dangerous than hitmen, gang assassins, and crowd snipers, the "recreational killer" is almost impossible to capture. Choosing their victims at random, drifting from town to town, their brutal crimes leave a smoking trail of bloodshed across the nation-and many of them are never apprehended until they decide to turn themselves in. This year, 3,500 "thrill killings" will go unsolved. Cole's story is a searing lesson in the horror of crimes like this-and the terrifying inability of our society to prevent them.
Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary
Denis Kitchen - 2013
But at the height of his career, his groundbreaking comic strip, Li'l Abner, reached ninety million readers. The strip ran for forty-three years, spawned two movies and a Broadway musical, and originated such expressions as "hogwash" and "double-whammy." Capp himself was a familiar personality on TV and radio; as a satirist, he was frequently compared to Mark Twain.Though Li'l Abner brought millions joy, the man behind the strip was a complicated and often unpleasant person. A childhood accident cost him a leg-leading him to art as a means of distinguishing himself. His apprenticeship with Ham Fisher, creator of Joe Palooka, started a twenty-year feud that ended in Fisher's suicide. Capp enjoyed outsized publicity for a cartoonist, but his status abetted sexual misconduct and protected him from the severest repercussions. Late in life, his politics became extremely conservative; he counted Richard Nixon as a friend, and his gift for satire was redirected at targets like John Lennon, Joan Baez, and anti-war protesters on campuses across the country.With unprecedented access to Capp's archives and a wealth of new material, Michael Schumacher and Denis Kitchen have written a probing biography. Capp's story is one of incredible highs and lows, of popularity and villainy, of success and failure-told here with authority and heart.
Kurt Cobain: The Cobain Dossier
Martin Clarke - 1999
This collection provides a complete picture of the man, his influence, and the impact of his life and death on his fans. Color photos. 72 b&w photos.
Grantland Issue 3
Bill Simmons - 2012
It will feature the best sports writing from the website, delivered in a full-color book featuring original artwork and a host of print exclusives—including original fiction, new writing from editor-in-chief Bill Simmons, posters and pull-out sections, old-school baseball cards and mini-booklets, and a cover that looks and feels like you're holding a basketball. Like its namesake website, Grantland Quarterly will regularly include some of the most exciting and form-pushing sports writers currently plying the trade, including Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Bissell, Harris Wittels, John Brandon, Anna Clark, Chris Jones, Colson Whitehead, and many more.
A Neutral Corner: Boxing Essays
A.J. Liebling - 1990
Liebling's abiding passion for the "sweet science" of boxing, A Neutral Corner brings together fifteen previously unpublished pieces written between 1952 and 1963. Antic, clear-eyed, and wildly entertaining, these essays showcase a The New Yorker journalist at the top of his form. Here one relives the high drama of the classic Patterson-Johansson championship bout of 1959, and Liebling's early prescient portrayal of Cassius Clay's style as a boxer and a poet is not to be missed.Liebling always finds the human story that makes these essays appealing to aficionados of boxing and prose alike. Alive with a true fan's reverence for the sport, yet balanced by a true skeptic's disdain for sentiment, A Neutral Corner is an American treasure.
But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop and Other Writings
Anthony Burgess - 1986
The Far Corner
Harry Pearson - 1994
A book in which Wilf Mannion rubs shoulders with The Sunderland Skinhead: recollections of Len Shakleton blight the lives of village shoppers: and the appointment of Kevin Keegan as manager of Newcastle is celebrated by a man in a leather stetson, crooning 'For The Good Times' to the accompaniment of a midi organ, THE FAR CORNER is a tale of heroism and human frailty, passion and the perils of eating an egg mayonnaise stottie without staining your trousers.
It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News
Drew Curtis - 2007
Curtis has noticed several distinct patterns that the media uses to turn the non-news into the news readers see each day. Exposing just how little reporting is actually going on, his book asks why we are overexposed to so much rubbish from news outlets.