News Is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century Book

LIBRARY OF CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT
"When screaming headlines turn out to be based on stories that don't support them, the tale of the boy who cried wolf gets new life. When the newspaper is filled with stupid features about celebrities at the expense of hard news, the reader feels patronized. In the process, the critical relationship of reader to newspaper is slowly undermined."
—from NEWS IS A VERB

NEWS IS A VERB Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century

"With the usual honorable exceptions, newspapers are getting dumber. They are increasingly filled with sensation, rumor, press-agent flackery, and bloated trivialities at the expense of significant facts. The Lewinsky affair was just a magnified version of what has been going on for some time. Newspapers emphasize drama and conflict at the expense of analysis. They cover celebrities as if reporters were a bunch of waifs with their noses pressed enviously to the windows of the rich and famous. They are parochial, square, enslaved to the conventional pieties. The worst are becoming brainless printed junk food. All across the country, in large cities and small, even the better newspapers are predictable and boring. I once heard a movie director say of a certain screenwriter: 'He aspired to mediocrity, and he succeeded.' Many newspapers are succeeding in the same way."                        

School Library Journal

YA--A veteran journalist takes a look at the state of the modern press in this insightful and highly personal essay. News is not about the craft of newspaper writing, but rather the crafting of today's papers. Hamill's thesis is that fatuous, celebrity-centered journalism is dumbing down America's newspapers, patronizing readers, and undermining the press's credibility. The author's ideas for correcting these problems and strengthening other aspects of the modern newspaper will interest YAs who are considering a career in journalism. Students of current events will also find intelligent analysis of a chain of issues that effect movie grosses and political races alike: Is the media's attention to half-truth, scandal, and celebrity due to wrongheaded editorial decisions or to an accurate understanding of the public's appetite for drivel? If a sports announcer's personal oddities are given A-1 coverage while stories of global importance are relegated to the back pages, will the end result be successful newspaper sales or a nation disinterested in issues central to its own survival? Hamill considers these issues and concludes that publishers must not succumb to "giving people what they want," but rather must make a commitment to quality of content. YAs will be inspired by his outspoken love of journalism, his conversational and candid style, and his thought-provoking discussion of many of today's hot topics.--Pamela Cooper-Smuzynski, Fairfax County Public Library, VA