New Books In Journalism

Aside from being John’s (younger, suaver and beardier) brother, what has the inimitable David Plotz done lately? Only hosted “The Slate Political Gabfest“, written two books (“The Genius Factory” and “The Good Book“) and left Atlas Obscura to found City Cast. So, when John called him up in April 2020 for the Books in Dark Times series, what was his Pandemic reading? The fully absorbing “other worlds” of Dickens and Mark Twain tempt David, but he goes another direction. He picks one book that shows humanity at its worst, heading towards world war. And another that shows how well we can behave towards one another (and even how happy we can be…) at “moments of super liquidity” when everything melts and can be rebuilt. He also guiltily admits a yen for Austen, Rowling, and Pullman–and gratuitously disses LOTR. John and David bond about their love for lonnnnnnng-form cultural history in the mold of Common Ground. Finally the brothers enthuse over their favorite book about Gettysburg, and reveal an embarrassing ree

Gordon Katic is in conversation with Nicole M. Krause. She is a PhD candidate focussing on science communication, looks at conceptual problems in the research of misinformation and disinformation. What’s “true” and who gets to decide? SUPPORT THE SHOW You can support the show for free by following or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button. If you want to do a little more we would love it if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too. ABOUT THE SHOW For a full list of credits, contact information, and more, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

The dangerous, trailblazing work of a white journalist and black leader who struck a shocking early blow against legal segregation In 1948, most white people in the North had no idea how unjust and unequal daily life was for 10 million African Americans living in the Jim Crow South. Then, Ray Sprigle, a famous white journalist from Pittsburgh, went undercover and alongside Atlanta s black civil rights pioneer John Wesley Dobbs lived as a black man in the South for thirty days. His impassioned newspaper series shocked millions and sparked the first nationally aired television-and-radio debate about ending America s shameful system of apartheid.  With 30 Days a Black Man: The Forgotten Story That Exposed the Jim Crow South (Lyons Press, 2017), author Bill Steigerwald returns this long-forgotten part of American history to its rightful place among the seminal events of the Civil Rights movement. For 30 days and 3,000 miles, Sprigle and Dobbs traveled among dirt-poor sharecroppers, principals of ramshackle black

Steve Fainaru and his brother Mark Fainaru-Wada wrote a bestselling and award-winning book (and accompanying PBS documentary series) about the NFL coverup of concussion trauma, League of Denial. This conversation inaugurates an occasional Recall this Book series on collaborative work: who does it well, what makes it succeed, why can't grumpy isolatos like English professors get with the program? The brothers generously praise the colleagues and mentors who helped them on their way. They also dig into questions of trust between collaborators and constant choices reporting and writing entails. Some stories are dogs, some are "unmakeable" and some you can't see; how do you recognize the situation and cope? Almost as afterthought, they lay bare the amount of persistent, patient long-term conversation and relationship-building that goes into finding out the truth behind events that powerful organizations. Steve explains the reporting behind his 2008 Pulitzer-winning stories about American private contractors durin

Journalists around the world agree that autonomy is central to their work, but what exactly is it journalists should be autonomous from, and for what should they use this autonomy? Henrik Örnebring and Michael Karlsson discuss their book Journalistic Autonomy: The Genealogy of a Concept (University of Missouri Press, 2022), which traces the genealogy of the idea of journalistic autonomy from the press freedom debates of the 17th century up to the digital, networked world of the 21st century. In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, the authors talk about what is ‘autonomy’ and what it means in the context of journalism, and the journey of exploring the concept, using a theoretical framework that draws upon Friedrich Nietzsche, feminist philosophy, theoretical biology, and other disciplines. They reflect on whether the concept could be applied not only in liberal democracies but also in totalitarian regimes, and also discuss their ideals of journalism as an institution and what conditions are needed to facilitate t

How can scholars employ the practices and techniques of investigative journalism? Susan Hartman provides an answer in her intimate look at refugee experience in the United States. In City of Refugees: The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life Into A Dying American Town (Beacon Press 2022), Hartman introduces readers to Utica, a small Rust Belt city located in upstate New York, just 250 miles north of Manhattan. The city provides the backdrop as Hartman examines the lives of three refugees: a Somali Bantu teenager who straddles the expectations of her Somali mother and those of her American peers; an Iraqi interpreter who worked with the American military in Baghdad; and a Bosnian entrepreneur who finally achieves her American dream of opening a café and bakery in March 2020. Across 48 short chapters, Hartman traces how Utica’s economic and cultural renewal is tied to the city’s policy of welcoming refugees from across the globe. But not everyone is happy as locals often seen refugees as foreigners who st

In this episode, Thomas Aiello joins E. James West to discuss Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate (University of Georgia Press, 2023).  Building on his earlier book The Grapevine of the Black South, which focused on the rise and fall of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate through its flagship publication the Atlanta Daily World, this book further reshapes the place of southern newspapers in the historiography of Black journalism. Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration traces the development and trajectory of the individual newspapers of the Syndicate, evaluating those with surviving issues, and presenting them as they existed in proximity to their Atlanta hub. In so doing, he emphasizes the thread of practical radicalism that ran through Syndicate editorial policy, providing a fuller picture of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate and the Black press in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. James West is a historian of race, media and business in the modern Un

What is digital politics? What new creative and experimental tools can we use to study digital politics historically and analyse and create future imaginaries of digital politics? Adi Kuntsman and Liu Xin about their co-edited book Digital Politics, Digital Histories, Digital Futures: New Approaches for Historicising, Politicising and Imagining the Digital (2023, Emerald Publishing Limited). In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, Adi Kuntsman and Liu Xin speak about how they managed to bring together contributions from junior and experienced scholars in a book that examines digital politics theoretically, methodologically, and ethically, offering interdisciplinary perspectives and innovative pedagogies. The first part of the book presents research chapters that look at misinformation and reactionary online activism, digital imperialism and capitalism, future internet governance, digital memory, digital waste, and environmental imagination. The second part showcases several creative and experimental tools for stu

In the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had ambitions of his own: to get rich off the sudden infusion of foreign attention and cash. In this gripping adventure story, Stern writes of how he and Aimal navigated an environment full of guns and danger and opportunity, and how they forged a deep bond. Then Stern got a call that changed everything. He discovered that Aimal had become an arms dealer, and was ultimately forced to flee the country to protect his family from his increasingly dangerous business partners. Tragic, powerful, and layered, The Mercenary: A Story of Brotherhood and Terror in the Afghanistan War (PublicAffairs, 2023) is more than a wartime drama. It is a Rashomon-like story about how politics and violence warp our humanity, and keep the most important truths hidden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbo

While now a prominent and controversial surf journalist, Chas Smith started his career as a war correspondent in the Middle East. Obsessed with Joan Didion, but really working in the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson, he embarked on a series of often ill-fated reporting trips to Yemen and Lebanon. Smith’s adventures ranged from discovering new surfing beaches on the Arabian Peninsula to being kidnapped by Hezbollah. His experiences are chronicled in Reports from Hell with his trademark wry, self-effacing, and ironic, but also insightful, informed, and even touching, prose. Smith’s previous books include Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell: A True Story of Violence, Corruption, and the Soul of Surfing and Cocaine + Surfing: A Sordid History of Surfing's Greatest Love Affair. In 2022, he published Blessed Are the Bank Robbers: The True Adventures of an Evangelical Outlaw, a family history of his Bible preaching and bank robbing uncle. Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University

Most dictators no longer rule by fear but by spin instead. That’s the contention of Sergei Guriev who has co-authored (with Daniel Treisman) Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century (Princeton UP, 2022). He explains his thinking to Owen Bennett Jones. Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

In this episode of International Horizons, journalist and UN director of Human Rights Watch Louis Charbonneau describes the US's government misinformation campaign to justify its invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its aftermath. Charbonneau also discusses the role of media in the lack of questioning of the information they were spreading and contrasts it with the right practices journalists should conduct in their reporting. Finally, the interviewee talks about the consequences of lies from an official source in the spread of fake news, and how the government's actions in 2002 are being used by Russia to respond to the US's criticisms of its invasion of Ukraine. International Horizons is a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly expertise to bear on our understanding of international issues. John Torpey, the host of the podcast and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, holds conversations with prominent scholars and figures in state-of-the-art international issues in

Anjan Sundaram is an award-winning journalist who has written three books on African people and places: Democratic Republic of Congo in Stringer, Rwanda in Bad News and now Central African Republic in Breakup. Each of Anjan’s books are glorious for their storytelling, told in great detail through years professional engagement with violence, war and genocide from the perspective of those living through it. I’m delighted to have Anjan with me today to talk about his forthcoming book: Break Up: A Marriage in Wartime (Catapult 2023). I read the book in a single sitting, for the prose is unflinching in its human rights reporting of the ongoing civil war in the Central African Republic. It is also about the demise of a marriage, meaning Break Up documents the ways in which war and marriage tear people apart. At the end of our interview, Anjan recommends A House Without Windows, a graphic novel by Didier Kassaï (Simon & Schuster 2021). Susan Thomson is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University.

Every two seconds a person is displaced, caught in one of the more than 40 active conflicts around the world that show no sign of ending. Since 1994, there has been ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has uprooted millions of people and resulted in the deaths of millions more. In the West, we have entered a political era where our border policies are underpinned by unending wars. At this critical juncture, how can journalists, especially those engaged in foreign correspondence, tell these stories? How can they make connections across time and space, and across politics, economics, environments, and crucially, people? Given its colonial history, are these connections possible for the profession of foreign correspondence? In Borderland: Decolonising the Words of War (Oxford University Press, 2022), Dr. Chrisanthi Giotis argues that decolonization is possible and necessary for the development of a truly global, public sphere. New global narratives need to meaningfully include the voices, and k

Taking Sides: A Memoir about Love, War, and Changing the World (Scribe, 2023) is a personal memoir by Sherine Tadros, the United Nations Representative and Deputy Director of Advocacy for Amnesty International. An award-winning broadcast journalist and war correspondent for Sky News and Al Jazeera English, where she reported on the Gaza War, the Arab Spring, and rise of the Islamic State, Tadros decided in 2016 to leave journalism for human rights activism after concluding that her reporting work “ended up at the wrong point”. In this wide-ranging interview she talks about overcoming discrimination as an Egyptian-British “halfie”, a woman, and an immigrant, the importance and limits of being an acclaimed war correspondent, the duty she feels to fight for the rights of others and why individual action makes a difference. Nicholas Bequelin is a human rights professional with a PhD in history and a scholarly bent. He has worked about 20 years for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, most recently as Reg

Hello, world! This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. In this episode, our host Yuval Katz discusses the book The Ethics of Engagement: Media, Conflict and Democracy in Africa (Oxford UP, 2020) by Herman Wasserman. You’ll hear about: The ethical and methodological challenges of studying media in Africa; Why democratization is not a linear process; What tools journalists have at their disposal to support processes of democratization; Reflections on the professional conduct of journalists and what they can do to be more attentive to the needs of ordinary people; Why conflicts are not necessarily detrimental to democracy; Some tips and advice for early career scholars studying the Global South. About the book The book discusses the relationship between media, conflict, and democratization in Africa from the perspective of media ethics. Despite the commonly held view that conflict is a destructive political force that can destabilize democracies, the argument in this book is that while m

For over twenty years, James W. Cortada has pioneered research into how information shapes society. In Birth of Modern Facts: How the Information Revolution Transformed Academic Research, Governments and Businesses (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), he tells the story of how information evolved since the mid-nineteenth century. Cortada argues that information increased in quantity, became more specialized by discipline (e.g., mathematics, science, political science), and more organized. Information increased in volume due to a series of innovations, such as the electrification of communications and the development of computers, but also due to the organization of facts and knowledge by discipline, making it easier to manage and access. He looks at what major disciplines have done to shape the nature of modern information, devoting chapters to the most obvious ones. Cortada argues that understanding how some features of information evolved is useful for those who work in subjects that deal with their very construct

Today I talked to Michelle Chihara, Editor-in-Chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books and Annie Berke, the Film Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books. We talked about book reviewing in the age of the Internet and LA literary culture. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/journalism

The concept of bias is familiar enough, partly because it is deployed frequently and in different contexts. For example, we talk about biased jurors, biased procedures, biased laws, biased decisions, and biased people. But we also talk about bias as a feature of certain frames of mind, habits, dispositions, and mental processes. In most of these contexts, bias is seen as a kind of failing or a bad-making feature. Attributions of bias are hence often accusatory, or at least a matter of negative assessment. Although these phenomena are familiar, questions remain. Is bias is a single thing? Is bias always bad? Is bias always misleading? Can bias be eliminated? In Bias: A Philosophical Study (Oxford University Press, 2023), Thomas Kelly addresses a broad range of such questions. He develops a norm-theoretic account of what bias is, and then explores its implications. Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic

Why are people judged on whether or not they are compelling? Why isn’t telling the truth enough? What are people really listening for when others share their truths? And how does this harm asylum seekers? Dina Nayeri joins us to share: Why our perceptions of other people’s experiences impact them and us. What makes a “credible” story, and what doesn’t. How her own stories shape her. Why it can be difficult to believe a messy truth. What she had to forgive herself for. The book Who Gets Believed. Today’s book is: Who Gets Believed by Dina Nayeri, which asks unsettling questions about lies, truths, and the difference between being believed and being dismissed. Dina Nayeri begins with asking why are honest asylum seekers dismissed as liars? She shares shocking and illuminating case studies, as the book grows into a reckoning with our culture’s views on believability. From learning the tools of persuasion and performance in her job at McKinsey to struggling to believe her troubled brother-in-law, Nayeri e