Murrow is the biography of America's foremost broadcast journalist, Edward R. Murrow. At twenty-nine, he was the prototype of a species new to communications-an eyewitness to history with power to reach millions. His wartime radio reports from London rooftops brought the world into American homes for the first time. His legendary television documentary See It Now exposed us to the scandals and injustices within our own country. Friend of Presidents, conscience of the people, Murrow remained an enigma-idealistic, creative, self-destructive. In this portrait, based on twelve years of research,...

When Giants Ruled takes the reader behind the scenes of a century of newspaper life. It relates how Benjamin Day, a job printer desperate for more money, started The Sun and inadvertently established the first successful daily for the masses. His main rival was James Gordon Bennett the Elder, whose innovations and success culminated in the most unusual war in journalism: an attempt by rival publishers to halt his efforts to revolutionize the press and to exterminate his Herald.During the Civil War, with only Lincoln excluded, no person had greater sway upon the nation's thinking than Horace...

This selection of essays, articles, lectures, and other writings by Erik Barnouw, dean of American media scholars, chronicles "the phenomenon of old media giving way to new, and then being replaced by them, as the ghosts of old media rise in new forms." In Media Lost and Found, the sixteenth century will introduce us to early stirrings of photography, as well as the rise of "black lists," which have a too-familiar ring within our own lifetime. The collection begins with an article on documentary film pioneer Robert Flaherty. Barnouw then moves to a discussion of his Dutch heritage and its...

For almost forty years, DeeDee Halleck has been involved in a variety of projects that involve media making by "non-professionals." Her goal has been to develop a critical sense of the potential and limitations of mediated communication through practical exercises that generate a sense of both individual and non-hierarchical group power over the various apparati of media and electronic technology. Hand-Held Visions is a collection of essays, presentations, and lectures that she has written throughout this process. Halleck starts with a discussion of her own development as a teacher, producer,...

For the Record focuses on the experiences of journalists, primarily in their own words, who worked in Rochester, New York, on the Gannett owned Democrat & Chronicle and the Times Union. While there are occasional glimpses back to the beginning of the twentieth century and conversations regarding current newsroom policies by those who are still involved in the business, most of the material in this study centers on Gannett during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s-a period that may be seen as pivotal to the development of the Gannett Company.Although there is an enormous wealth of material available...

Today, seventy-three years after his death, journalists still tell tales of Charles E. Chapin. As city editor of Pulitzer's New York Evening World, Chapin was the model of the take-no-prisoners newsroom tyrant: he drove reporters relentlessly-and kept his paper in the center ring of the circus of big-city journalism. From the Harry K. Thaw trial to the sinking of the Titanic, Chapin set the pace for the evening press, the CNN of the pre-electronic world of journalism. In 1918, at the pinnacle of fame, Chapin's world collapsed. Facing financial ruin, sunk in depression, he decided to kill...