News consumers made cynical by sensationalist banners--"AMERICA STRIKES BACK, " "THE TERROR OF ANTHRAX"--and lurid leads might be surprised to learn that in 1690, the newspaper Publick Occurrences gossiped about the sexual indiscretions of French royalty or seasoned the story of missing children by adding that "barbarous Indians were lurking about" before the disappearance. Surprising, too, might be the medias steady adherence to, if continual tugging at, its philosophical and ethical moorings. These 39 essays, written and edited by the nations leading professors of journalism, cover the...