UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A distinguished professor of journalism at Penn State and a faculty member at Saint Louis University who earned her doctoral degree in mass communications from Penn State have coauthored a book the offers a concise look at U.S. journalism.
“How America Gets the News: A History of U.S. Journalism,” focuses on various types of journalism — including newspapers, magazines, radio, television and digital — and introduces readers to the news media from the first colonial newspapers to the rise of current news conglomerates.
Distinguished Professor Ford Risley coauthored the book with Ashley Walter, an assistant professor at Saint Louis University who earned her doctoral degree at Penn State.
The 238-page hardcover book is part of a series titled “American Ways” from Rowman & Littlefield. The publisher started the series because librarians were saying that readers were craving short, concise American histories. The series includes histories on basketball, culture, food and war.
“At a time when many doubt the trustworthiness of the media, we aim to provide a historical perspective that will be of interest to all consumers of news,” Risley said. “For general interest readers less familiar with U.S. journalism, we hope readers find this work especially timely.”
Risley and Walter brought an important combination of complementary interests to the project. Risley examines Civil War-era journalism and Walter studies women’s media history, with both broadly concerned with questions surrounding media production and media consumption.
They examined historical trends, including advocacy journalism, yellow journalism, investigative journalism, tabloid journalism and digital journalism. The book focuses on significant individuals, from Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Pulitzer to Ida Wells and Nellie Bly; and noteworthy news organizations, from the New York Times and Life magazine to CBS and Fox News. It also examines the role of new technologies, developing professional standards and the impact of corporate business practices.
Seven chapters covering different eras of journalism allowed the authors to organize the book logically for readers and to focus on their individual strengths.
The move away from academic writing was a welcome challenge for the authors.
“Academic writing, rightly so, is often narrow and detailed. But general interest readers might lose interest if a book is too meticulous and too long. A book this broad could have been 500 pages,” Walter said. “But for readers who are dipping their toes into a topic, it’s vital to make it accessible and broad.”