Description

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The sudden meltdown of the news media has sparked one of the liveliest debates in recent memory, with an outpouring of opinion and analysis crackling across journals, the blogosphere, and academic publications. Yet, until now, we have lacked a comprehensive and accessible introduction to this new and shifting terrain.

In Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights, celebrated media analysts Robert W. McChesney and Victor Pickard have assembled thirty-two illuminating pieces on the crisis in journalism, revised and updated for this volume. Featuring some of today's most incisive and influential commentators, this comprehensive collection contextualizes the predicament faced by the news media industry through a concise history of modern journalism, a hard-hitting analysis of the structural and financial causes of news media's sudden collapse, and deeply informed proposals for how the vital role of journalism might be rescued from impending disaster.

Sure to become the essential guide to the journalism crisis, Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights is both a primer on the news media today and a chronicle of a key historical moment in the transformation of the press.

About the Author

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Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of several books on the media, including the award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy, and a co-editor (with Ben Scott) of Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism (both available from The New Press). He lives in Urbana, Illinois. Victor Pickard is an assistant professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. His research on the politics and history of media has been published widely in anthologies and scholarly journals. He lives in New York City.

Praise For…

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"This collection highlights journalism's role as a crucial component of democracy and an institution that needs to be reinvigorated... anyone concerned about the state of journalism should read this book."
Library Journal

Bold, meditative, engrossing, this is an indispensable guide for followers of modern media.”
Booklist

[I]nformative and conciseA well-curated collection of essays on the decline of the newspaper industry and the future of journalism.”
Kirkus