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CCJ Books

The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect

Completely updated and revised
"The most important book on the relationship of journalism and democracy published in the last fifty years." – Roy Peter Clark, The Poynter Institute
We Interrupt This Newscast: How to Improve Local News and Win Ratings, Too

Just Released
A landmark study on what people watch and why. The most exhaustive study ever of local TV news -- what helps ratings, what drives viewers away, and what editorial approaches and story-telling techniques most influence viewership.




IN THE SPOTLIGHT ...

You talkin' to us, Mr. President?

by Jon Margolis

Feb 02, 2010 -

You talkin’ to us, Mr. President?

Sure sounded that way:

“The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away,” he said toward the end of his State of the Union speech.

Talking Journalism

Articles

  • One the morning of Election Day, David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s campaign last year, was on NBC’s Today show to plug his new book, The Audacity to Win. But first, co-host Meredith Vieira had to ask him about that day’s elections
  • Anybody who’s been in this business for a week or more has heard the gripe of someone who lost all faith in news coverage the first time there was a story in the neighborhood
  • Way back when I was still young and green enough to be thrilled to be in possession of an honest-to-God press pass, an old-timer passed on a piece of wisdom. “Having a press pass,” he said, “has kept me out of a lot of places I coulda gotten into if I hadn’t had a press pass.”
  • Are we all forgetting something? Or, more precisely, ignoring something? Well, not entirely, at least not any more. Not since Maureen Dowd’s column in Sunday’s New York Times declared that one reason for the current political tumult

Speeches

  • Journalists often discuss the issue of audience as a dichotomy – do we give people what they want or what they need? In the Committee’s work with journalists, we have been told that the question does not have to be either/or. Instead, why not find important news and then present it in ways that make it interesting?
  • Minnesota State University's Scott Olson delivered this uniquely narrative speech to drive home the point that it's the stories - not the medium through which they're told - that matter most for journalists and all communicators.
  • Huntly Collins outlines the potential the Web holds for journalism, and implores her audience to think creatively about how to overcome the Web's journalistic shortcomings.
  • President and CEO of the AP Tom Curley says journalism needs to take bold, decisive steps to secure audiences and funding or risk fading into obscurity.
  • CCJ Founding Chairman Bill Kovach's 2007 Baccalaureate Address to Boston University students invites graduates to view the world around them skeptically - to see it as it REALLY exists and not merely how those in powerful positions would have them see it.

Research

Journalist in Residence

A unique opportunity to work and learn in the United States.

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Bill Kovach Honored

Bill Kovach Kiplinger Award

Bill Kovach, founding chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists,will receive the National Press Foundation’s 2010 W.M. Kiplinger Award.

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J-Tools

CCJ has collected some of journalism's best ideas, strategies and techniques to help journalists and citizens alike.

Newsroom Development

Training, Strategic Planning, Critical Thinking

You can bring the Committee’s Traveling Curriculum development program to your organization. The Traveling Curriculum offers customizable newsroom workshops that our staff of respected trainers has led in scores of print, broadcast, and online newsrooms of all sizes.