David B. Sachsman, S. Kittrell Rushing, and Debra Reddin van Tuyll, editors
Historians generally have paid little attention to the role of the press in defining and disseminating the conflicting views of the North and the South. The Civil War and the Press measures the influence of the press of the day, explores its diversity, and profiles prominent editors and publishers. The book is divided into three sections. Part 1, "Setting the Agenda for Secession and War," considers the issues of abolitionism, secession, and armed resistance as reflected in Northern and Southern newspapers. Part 2, "In Time of War," offers discussions of journalistic images and ideas of womanhood in the context of war, and issues of censorship and opposition journalism. Part 3, "Reconstructing a Nation," details the infiltration of the former Confederacy by hundreds of federally subsidized Republican newspapers, and editorial reactions to voting rights for freed slaves. In tracing the confluence of journalism and politics from its source, this volume opens a wide variety of perspectives on a crucial period in American history, while raising questions that remain pertinent to contemporary tensions between press power and government power.
An Exploratory Assessment Peter M. Sandman, David B. Sachsman, Michael R. Greenberg, and Michael Gochfeld
Since the mid-1970s, environmental issues have received increasing attention in the press. Toxic spills, acid rain, unacceptable air quality---these are just a few of the types of stories that seem to break daily. Nowhere is this more true than in New Jersey, a leader in the production of chemicals, and the state with the greatest number of Superfund cleanup sites. How extensive and accurate is environmental risk reporting in the press? What can be done to improve the quality of news coverage of environmental risk? Environmental Risk and the Press: An Exploratory Assessment evaluates environmental risk reporting using New Jersey newspapers as a case study, and explores ways to improve reporting on environmental issues.
David B. Sachsman, James Simon, and JoAnn Myer Valenti
Environment Reporters in the 21st Century is the story of specialized journalists who, because of their expertise, their experience, or their willingness, regularly write about environmental issues. This is the story of a relatively new journalistic beat, one that developed during the lifetime of the authors. This book provides a view of American journalism in the first decade of the new century, when newspapers and television were the major source of news in America.
The authors have divided the work into three parts. The first, Environment Reporting, includes a review of the literature and a detailed explanation of the methodology of the current study. Part II, The Environment Reporters of the 21st Century, describes the results of the present research. Part III, The Craft: Telling the Environment Story, provides in-depth accounts of environment reporters at work. Was the first decade of the 21st century a golden age of environmental reporting? The final chapter puts this research in historical perspective, viewing it in terms of the economic decline of the newspaper business and of local television news.
Environment reporters and their sources are eager to get news out, but not always in the same way, or at the same time. There is a constant struggle among the thousands of environmental activists, corporate public relations people, government officials, and scientists to frame the message in a way that is advantageous to their point of view. This has been called the great ecological communication war, the war between conflicting public relations forces to influence public policy. These competing interests need to understand how journalists think and function. This volume tells the story of environmental reporting imaginatively and innovatively.
