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How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
Bloomsbury USA, 2010
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

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Recommendation

With so much information available on the Internet, more news consumers are helping themselves to exactly the current events information they want, instead of letting the media determine what they see and hear. Average citizens can become better judges of the quality of the news reports they receive by practicing certain techniques that professional journalists use. These methods require the disciplined exercise of judgment, curiosity and skepticism. This illuminating book provides useful steps for identifying reliable journalists and news organizations, for instance, by evaluating their sources of information. Media veterans Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel illustrate many of their points with references to leading journalists and their reporting techniques. getAbstract recommends their instructive book to busy professionals seeking effective ways to stay informed.

Summary

More Information, Less Certainty

Self-service increasingly will characterize news consumption. Countless Internet-based sources of information now compete with traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations. Consumers have easy access to a massive supply of news, opinion, gossip and other information, including personal messages and images. Rather than relying on a newspaper or a TV station to stay informed, more people are creating personalized “news packages.”

This trend raises concerns about the reliability of publicly disseminated information. With so many sources, distinguishing the reliable ones from the rest is a challenge. Traditional media, which offer both news and ads, maintain “legacy” business models that are cracking under competitive pressure from websites that operate solely as ad media. In this way, the Internet has “decoupled” editorial content and advertising. Classified ad platform Craigslist and auction site eBay are just two Internet companies that attracted a large following without providing any information other than ads. As such online competitors have taken revenue from established media, employment has dropped in ...

About the Authors

Bill Kovach was Washington bureau chief for The New York Times and editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tom Rosenstiel led Newsweek’s congressional reporting and was a media critic for the Los Angeles Times and MSNBC.

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