What journalism could be

"What Journalism Could Be asks readers to reimagine the news by embracing a conceptual prism long championed by one of journalism's leading contemporary scholars. A former reporter, media critic and academic, Barbie Zelizer charts a singular journey through journalism's complicated contours, prompting readers to rethink both how the news works and why it matters. Zelizer tackles longstanding givens in journalism's practice and study, offering alternative cues for assessing its contemporary environment. Highlighting journalism's intersection with interpretation, culture, emotion, contingency, collective memory, crisis and visuality, Zelizer brings new meaning to its engagement with events like the global refugee crisis, rise of Islamic State, ascent of digital media and twenty-first-century combat. Imagining what journalism could be involves stretching beyond the already-known. Zelizer enumerates journalism's considerable current challenges while suggesting bold and creative ways of engaging with them. This book powerfully demonstrates how and why journalism remains of paramount importance"--Provided by publisher

Imagining journalism beginnings -- Definitions of journalism -- Intro Section 1: Cues for considering key tensions in journalism / Barbie Zelizer, Jennifer Henrichsen and Natacha Yazbeck -- On "having been there": "eyewitnessing" as a journalistic key word -- On the shelf life of democracy in journalism scholarship -- When practice is undercut by ethics -- Intro section 2: Cues for considering disciplinary matters / Barbie Zelizer, Jennifer Henrichsen and Natacha Yazbeck -- Journalism and the academy -- Journalism in the service of communication -- When facts, truth, and reality are god-terms: on journalism's uneasy place in cultural studies -- Intro section 3: cues for considering new ways of thinking about journalistic practice / Barbie Zelizer, Jennifer Henrichsen and Natacha Yazbeck -- Journalists as interpretive communities -- The culture of journalism -- When war and conflict are reduced to a photograph -- Endings: thinking temporally about journalism's future.