Articles

Tuesday February 07, 2012

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.


Queen of Queens and the News of New York	Queen of Queens was the big news in New York on the last day of March. It had to be the big news because it was the headline, in big, black, four-and-a-half-inch-high letters, of the lead story in New York's Daily News.
The Lives of the Party	Like many periodicals, The New York Review of Books covered last month’s Tea Party Convention in Nashville. Considering that what the computer nerds would call NYRB’s default political position is decidedly left of center, some readers might have been surprised at the result.
Journalists Love Polls	Journalists love polls. And how could they not? Polls contain information. Objective, mathematical, precise information, presented with scientific certainty. No opinion. No fuzziness. Just the facts, ma'am.
Village People	Timing may not be as vital in journalism as it is in comedy, but prominent pundits David Broder and Joe Klein might have been at least a tad embarrassed by the concurrence of their recent columns on Sarah Palin and the latest poll about her.
You talkin' to us, Mr. President?	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.
The Color of Money	Nobody ever said it was easy, being in this news biz. One blankety-blank thing happens right after another, or worse, now that there's this 24-hour-a-day cable/talk radio/blog domination-the next thing happens even before the first thing has stopped happening. They're yelling at you from the right side, scoffing at you from the left, lying to you from both sides, and, well hell you know how it is...a fella (and we're talking here about fellas of both genders) can get confused.
No, Virginia (and New Jersey), the World Did Not Begin in 2006	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
Getting it Wrong in the Neighborhood.	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
The Press Pass Shield	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.”
Reason and Its Discontents	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
Self Knowledge	There are a lot of skills involved in being a good journalist, but here’s one that often gets left off the list: self-knowledge. What kind of journalist are you? What methods are your strengths? What are you not so good at?
It’s My Business or, Is the Personal Always Political?	I spent my Saturday in the capital of “The Hoosier State,” Indianapolis Ind. While Indianapolis is a beautiful city worth a visit on its own merits, this was a working trip to lead a panel called “When the Story Hits Home” at SPJ’s national convention. The question we were trying to answer? Can lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) journalists cover issues like marriage,

J-Tools

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

view a-z index

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.