Product Description: This text does for reporting what Tim Harrower's The Newspaper Designer's Handbook has previously done for design: make it fun and accessible to newcomers. Harrower is an award-winning editor, designer and columnist who has previously taught at Portland State University and currently conducts journalism workshops. Inside Reporting emphasizes the basics but also provides a wealth of information on online reporting and packaging stories in more visual, interactive ways. It also includes more useful information on feature writing--from stories to reviews and column-writing--than any other text in the field.
I'd give it 20 stars if I could I have seen many journalism books, and this one is simply the best IMO. I can't wait to buy the second edition when it comes out!
The way all textbooks should be I have purchased dozens of books on journalism over the past few months, but nothing matches the content, style or ease in finding information of this great book.
While there are many great books on journalism, most if not all of them are much the same as any other textbook, pages and pages of text which you must read and interpret to find what you want.
This book is visual in the most unique way I have ever seen in a textbook. Almost like a cross between a real newspaper and a comic book, all the information is presented in little snippets and pictures that are easy to understand and easy to digest.
As an example it has a page in the news writing section about writing a lead for a plane crash and gives examples of how different leads could be written highlighting the who, what, when, where and why. Most texts have something like this, but most would not go to the lengths that this author has done to enable the reader to understand the benefits and pitfalls of leading with a particular method.
The text has dozens of tips and information from working journalists and I liked the section in the back called the Morgue which contains examples of the stories used in the text.
The text has great background information on journalism which I would otherwise have ignored in other texts because of the way it is normally presented and overall I would rate this from a student's perspective as the single best investment I have made so far.
It is simply a gem of a book that is easily lost in Amazons catalogue. Decide for yourself if this book is for you but I would be surprised if anyone interested in journalism could not come away from reading this book and not have learned anything.
Best journalism text ever I am both a veteran journalist and a veteran college journalism teacher and "Inside Reporting" is the best introductory book ever. Interesting, accurate, visually pleasing and fun to read, it is the new "gold standard" of books with which to teach news writing and reporting. I am adopting it as the required text for the fall semester, and I keep my own copy handy to remind me of what I should be doing.
If you want to learn or teach journalism, this is the book.
Good night and good luck.
A great survey of journalism Tim Harrower's Inside Reporting is unlike any textbook I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them throughout my years and years of college.
It looks weird on the shelf because it's an inch taller and an inch wider than most typical textbooks. Open it up to any one of the first 186 pages and stunning graphics jump off the page. Sections are small and fit nicely on one sheet. It looks like a colorful newspaper. The following hundred pages (aka, "The Morgue") look like the typical textbook--large blocks of text. The Morgue is a section of reference articles and examples.
Inside Reporting is well organized. Each section is brief but packs a punch. Look to the bottom of most pages and you'll find directions to other page numbers with more material or references to the Morgue. Each chapter is also full of surveys, quotes from those in the industry, tests, and extra tidbits to help the budding journalist.
I'm not yet and established journalists and I don't teach the subject. In fact, I'm not even in a journalism class. I picked up Inside Reporting because I wanted a good survey of journalism. This grad student of a different study wants to learn more about journalism. I wanted a book with meat but was fearful that an introductory book would be too fluffy and lack the information I needed. This book was not the case.
Inside Reporting is a fantastic textbook. I couldn't have picked a better book, and I'm sure I'll be going back to it often as I move forward in the journalism arena.
A GREAT book! I've been a reporter and journalism instructor for 20 years and have used everything out there during that time. I've also used Tim's other text "The Newspaper Designer's Handbook" in my editing sections. This book is a joy to use --- last night I went over chapter 4 during a 6-9 p.m. class and as I added my anecdotes to the lecture, two hours flew by thanks to the slick structure of this text. All instructors think they could do it better when assembling a textbook, but I can't say that any more. Tim has done it. This book covers everything I could ever think of and more. He discusses style. He includes tests and exercises and there is even an anthology he uses as a "morgue." Get a desk copy and require it for your students. It is a great book, one that will not be sold at the end of the semester, but kept on the shelf and used as a reference for years to come. He stresses convergence and the move from print to the web in a way that makes us old timers feel less of the pain. This is the new basic text for me. Wow what a book!
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