A Future for the News - by Jim A Kuypers (Paperback)

About the Book

Bringing together academics and news industry professionals, this daring book investigates and offers solutions to significant problems with the productive functioning of the mainstream news media. Each chapter offers a pathway for improvement for individual reporters, the ins...

Book Synopsis

A Future for the News: What's Wrong with Mainstream News Media in America and How to Fix It investigates and offers solutions to significant problems with the productive functioning of the mainstream news media. Criticism of the mainstream news media is almost a national pastime in America, and widespread polling shows credibility ratings of journalists among the lowest of any institution in America, almost as low as that of Congress.
The institution of news media faces a plummeting morale of journalists; loss of readership; loss of viewers to competing, non-traditional venues for news; and so on. Moving from these problems to realistic solutions, this book serves as an instruction manual of sorts, with each chapter offering a pathway of improvement.
This collection brings together academics and news industry professionals with individual chapters taking a specific area of concern and making a case for particular solutions to the problems presented. Solutions range from ones designed for individual reporters to consider, to those that target newsrooms, the institution of journalism, and news consuming audiences. Together they aim to help a beleaguered institution restore itself as a fully functioning asset of the American Republic.
Contributors: Abe Aamidor, Brent Baker, Alex Christy, Jennifer Cox, Michelle Ferrier, John Gable, Katherine Haenschen, Michael Horning, Michael Max Knorpp, Jim A. Kuypers, Serena Miller, Cayce Myers, Stephen D. Perry, Soo Young Shin, Benjamin Voth, Adriel Warren.

Review Quotes

"This book's 12 chapters (from 18 different authors) address some of the news media's contemporary challenges, such as the public's declining trust in journalism. Kuypers, the editor, provides an introductory overview of each chapter's contributions. Chapters offer background information on a selected topic and suggested solutions. Kuypers's clear writing is accessible to journalism professionals and graduate student audiences. The book is an excellent companion to Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen's Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism (CH, Apr'24, 61-2132). Recommended for libraries in higher education with journalism and mass communication degree programs. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals." --Choice Reviews

"A Future for the News provides not only a comprehensive account of the issues facing the news media in America but also much needed responses to those issues. The consideration of the philosophical underpinnings of the field is a valuable source of direction for aspiring and working professionals." --Larry King, professor of mass communication, Stephen F. Austin State University

"In an age where many media outlets appear most interested in reporting their interpretations of the news, the authors pinpoint problem areas and offer remedies to change the left and right ideological leanings that facilitate the public's mistrust in journalism. This book is a must-read for anyone who gets their news from broadcast, print, and social media and questions if objectivity ever had a pulse in the first place." --George Bovenizer, assistant professor of broadcast journalism, University of South Alabama, former NBC Universal TV producer, 6-time Emmy nominee

A Future for the News provides not only a comprehensive account of the issues facing the news media in America but also much needed responses to those issues. The consideration of the philosophical underpinnings of the field is a valuable source of direction for aspiring and working professionals.

In an age where many media outlets appear most interested in reporting their interpretations of the news, the authors pinpoint problem areas and offer remedies to change the left and right ideological leanings that facilitate the public's mistrust in journalism. This book is a must-read for anyone who gets their news from broadcast, print, and social media and questions if objectivity ever had a pulse in the first place.

This book's 12 chapters (from 18 different authors) address some of the news media's contemporary challenges, such as the public's declining trust in journalism. Kuypers, the editor, provides an introductory overview of each chapter's contributions. Chapters offer background information on a selected topic and suggested solutions. Kuypers's clear writing is accessible to journalism professionals and graduate student audiences. The book is an excellent companion to Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen's Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism (CH, Apr'24, 61-2132). Recommended for libraries in higher education with journalism and mass communication degree programs. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

About the Author

Jim A. Kuypers is professor of communication in the School of Communication at Virginia Tech. He is the author, editor, or co-author of 16 books, including Purpose, Practice, and Pedagogy in Rhetorical Criticism (winner of the Everett Lee Hunt Award for Outstanding Scholarship) and Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States (a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2014). He is a former co-editor for the American Communication Journal. He is the recipient of the American Communication Association's Outstanding Contribution to Communication Scholarship Award, the Southern States Communication Association's Early Career Research award, and Dartmouth College's Distinguished Lecturer Award.