Preface

Introduction

Part I Media and Public Life

1. Journalism as an Act of Education If journalism is to educate, then journalists need an honest definition of fairness, an appreciation of the future and a commitment to the real interests of the public

Jonathan Alter

Albert Gore Jr.

William A. Henry III

2. How Vast the Wasteland Now? In 1961 the author, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called television "a vast wasteland." Thirty years later, he urges a new generation "to put the vision back into television, to travel from the wasteland to the promised land and to make television a saving radiance in the sky."

Newton N. Minow

3. Traits of a Good Reporter Advice from a veteran editor, distilled from his own career and the careers he has observed, for aspiring journalists and those who will hire them. "First look for a high energy level."

Thomas Winship

4. In the South--When It Mattered to Be an Editor The civil rights movement challenged Southern newspaper editors to take a stand on racial equality, writes an author and journalist with personal and professional roots in the South. "Those who had the courage and integrity to claim the moment, who saw the right and spoke for it, were few in number, but they filled a tremendous void created by politicians who were less clear-eyed and forthright."

Dudley Clendinen

5. Seething in Silence--News in Black and White "For reporters, race can be a treacherous subject, raising questions that go to the heart of the journalist's craft," observes the author, a contributing editor at Newsweek. "Anyone doubting the polarizing potential of race in America (and beyond) need look no farther than the typical American newsroom."

Ellis Cose

6. Surviving Being a Survivor, Or, Whatever Became of What's Her Name? One of seven named plaintiffs in the landmark 1973 sex discrimination suit Boylan v. Times, who today writes the New York Times' "The Practical Traveler" column, recalls the fight against inequality and the lessons learned therein. "Though we may walk invisible among our legatees, we know that we opened doors for a new generation that may not know they were ever closed."

Betsy Wade

7. Requiem for the Boys on the Bus A woman who has covered national political campaigns turns the tables: It's not the appearance of women journalists that tamed the boys on the bus. "Before the new breed of New Age stiffs came on the campaign bus in the last few years, things were different," writes the author, a White House reporter for the New York Times. "Now the road is filled with a bunch of 30- something, touchy-feely guys, tying up all the cellular phone circuits trying to call home to talk baby talk to their wives and kids."

Maureen Dowd

8. The Best Seat in the House? "History will measure our nation's achievements not by our wealth or our superiority in our free-market forces, but by our cultural legacy and the character of our civilization". The author, a former president of the lic Broadcasting Service, and now president of the PBS Horizons Cable Network, shows how the arts got lost in the commercial imperatives of television.

Lawrence K. Grossman

9. From Pollock to Mapplethorpe--The Media and the Artworld A scholar and critic explores the role of the media in transforming art from a private matter to a subject for public debate. The author concludes, "Art has come a long way and society has come a long way, with the media the mirror of their mingling."

Arthur C. Danto

10. A Decade of Change Results of Media Studies Center dialogue and Media Studies Journal interviews on critical trends and events in the media with comments from Ken Auletta, Walter Cronkite, Jannette L. Dates, Alex Jones and Robert Schulman.

Jennifer Kelley

Part II The Media, Politics and Policy

11. Journalism, Publicity and the Lost Art of Argument "What democracy requires is public debate, not information," argues a cultural historian. "Increasingly information is generated by those who wish to promote something or someone--a product, a use, a political candidate or officeholder--without arguing their case on its merits or explicity advertising it as self-interested material either. Much of the press, in its eagerness to inform the public, has become a conduit for the equivalent of junk mail."

Christopher Lasch

12. Bystanders as Opinion Makers--A Bottoms-Up Perspective "The conventional wisdom about public opinion has it shaped largely by opinion makers--by the politicians and other persuaders", writes a Columbia University sociologist and media scholar. "Nonetheless, the prime controllers of long-term public opinion, the people who dispose over it and propose more of it than the conventional wisdom gives them credit for, are the Americans I call bystanders. These are the normally politically uninvolved members of the general public, and altogether they constitute the vast majority of that public."

Herbert J. Gans

13. Let's Put on a Convention A former president of NBC News, who created the standard for modern television convention coverage, explains why the networks have cut back on live convention coverage. "There is, in sum, no more news at conventions."

Reuven Frank

14. A Consumer's Guide to Media Truth "Most of us are media consumers, and we all--media people and `civilians' alike--have a big stake in figuring out what's objective and fair in the news and what isn't." Here is a 10-point plan from a journalist, novelist and former presidential campaign press secretary.

Patricia O'Brien

15. The End of Predictability "The Cold War was a simple measuring stick for determining the relevance and importance of international affairs," writes a former newspaper editor-publisher and currently editor of Foreign Affairs. "With the old gauges broken, the press is struggling to understand the new international order of risks and opportunities."

James F. Hoge Jr.

16. Follow That Tank! A veteran foreign correspondent reflects on how new technology reduces the autonomy of correspondents and speeds the transmission of news. "Has all the speed made for better reporting?"

Bernard Kalb

17. The Flickering Images That May Drive Presidents "Television has created a different order of public opinion," writes the former executive editor of the "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour." "In the issues that touch foreign affairs, the public witnesses the same apparent reality as its leaders. The public is no longer a mass to be sold a policy after it is decided. It is now active in seeing policy made and, one might even say, getting policy made."

Robert MacNeil

Part III What Kind of Future?

18. Peering Over the Edge Changes in economics and ownership have transformed the television networks and their place in American society. A media analyst and author analyzes the causes, the consequences and the prospects for the future. "The networks need to find a way out of their trap, which is that they rely on a single source of revenue and are but three channels in a 150-channel universe."

Ken Auletta

19. Media Complexes and Juvenile Distractions Much of American media is "burdened by complexes and juvenile distractions that are not really indicative of American life," observes a Boston University professor who once edited a Moscow newsweekly. Nevertheless, CNN and the International Herald Tribune "have become prototypes for tomorrow's mass media, uniting us in humanity."

Vitaly Korotich

20. Media Globalism in the Age of Consumer Sovereignty It is a paradox, argues the president of Oxford's Magdalen College: While a substantial number of the world's entertainment businesses are concentrated into huge international companies, media technology has made it easier and cheaper for new firms in all media to enter the market. "What we need to understand are all of the cultural implications of the rapidly changing media map of the world."

Anthony Smith

21. The Inevitable Global Conversation Government efforts to regulate the revolution in communications are either wrong or ineffectual, argues the former CEO of Citicorp. "Fortunately for us all, the market has a way of supplying what people need or w ant if the government gets out of the way, or sometimes even if it doesn't."

Walter B. Wriston

22. Highway to the Stars or Road to Nowhere? An author and media scholar explores the possible consequences of new information systems. "The pioneers of television had the sense that they were riding the crest of a great wave of changes that went far beyond communication to engulf every aspect of human life. The architects of today's telecommunications deals and mergers are no less conscious of the changes they are fashioning. Do they have the same sense of responsibility and concern for the consequences?"

Leo Bogart

23. Prospects for the Future Results of dialogue and interviews on trends to watch for in the future with comments from Leo Bogart, John Corry, Walter Cronkite, Jannette L. Dates, Neal Gabler, George Gerbner, Loren Ghiglione, Suzanne Braun Levine, Newton N. Minow and Craig L. LaMay, Anthony Smith and Tabitha Soren.

Jennifer Kelley

For Further Reading

Index