PR Media Consultants®
Public Interest Media Since 1968
Recommended Reading List:
Top Priority:
1. On Writing Well, William Zinsser, Harper and Row.
After reading over 100 books on journalism and writing, I attest that this is the only book you really need on writing well. It is incredibly clear and concise.
2. The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, The Associated Press.
With the agonizing death of UPI, AP is now the standard news style. Pick up this stylebook at any good bookstore. As you incorporate its information, your relations with reporters and resultant news coverage will markedly improve.
3. The Media Monopoly, Ben Bagdikian, Beacon Press.
Bagdikian, former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, provides a fascinating and shocking overview of chains, mergers, acquisitions, and over-all corporate concentration of media ownership. A "must" if we are to understand the media beast within which we work.
4. Any Basic Journalism Text.
Since new ones can be expensive, buy "Any Basic Journalism Text" at your 2nd hand book store. Read it and you'll know as much as many of the journalists with whom you're working. Standards include: News Reporting and Writing - Columbia University; and News Reporting and Writing - The Missouri Group, St. Martin?s.
Of course, this basic text won't give you the real story about corporate acquisitions, chain management, shrinking "news holes," taboo topics, hesitancy to upset advertisers, increased tendencies towards inoffensive "Lifestyle" and "McNews;" but it will at least tell you how it is supposed to be.
After reading this basic text, you'll have a common basis of understanding with your reporter. This common basis can be quite productive. You can help remind the reporter how it is supposed to be. Your reporter can help remind the editor how it is supposed to be. The editor can help remind the publisher/broadcaster how it is supposed to be. Water wears away stone.
It's just like politics. Leadership comes not from the top, but from the bottom. We have to assert what is "news" and "information," instead of merely being told by trans-national corporations.
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