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It's the 1954 memoir of Ben Hecht, the reporter-turned-Hollywood script writer. Sections of the book tell about his time on the Chicago Daily News and the sensational stories he broke. He's credited with a number of clever quotes, including, "The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links."

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History comes alive as former Washington Post editor Bradlee recalls his life as a journalism and eyewitness to the major events of the last half of the 20th century.

Comment on A Good Life: Newspapers and Other Adventures

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Wife of the late Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, Marianne Pearl recounts her harrowing search for his kidnappers. Both journalists, the Pearls settled in Pakistan post-9/11 to uncover truths about terrorism, particularly the group associated with shoe bomber Richard Reid. Daniel is set up and abducted, leaving pregnant Marianne to search for him before he is killed.

Comment on A Mighty Heart

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A brief, comprehensive history of women in the American newspaper business over the last 100 years with a sharp assessment of their present status. Mills interviewed more than 150 current and former journalists. She describes how today's women journalists have reached their present positions and argues that the increased presence of women reporters is having an important impact on the kind of news that appears in daily newspapers.

Comment on A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page

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Cronkite's memoir gives readers his recollection of dozens of his scoops and major stories.

Comment on A Reporter's Life

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Woodward and Bernstein tell their story about coverage that brought down the Nixon presidency. What started out as a burglary story ended up as a major motion picture and propelled both reporters into the national spotlight.

Comment on All the President's Men

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Henry combines elements of memoir with media research to explore issues ranging from reporting on the Iraq War, to American race relations, to the exploitation of the image of journalism by advertisers and politicians. The author argues that, given the amount of fraud in many institutions in American life today, the decline of journalistic professionalism sparked by the economic challenge of New Media poses serious implications for democracy.

Comment on American Carnival: Journalism under Siege in an Age of New Media

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425 images of Pulitzer Prize and other annual award winners for editorial cartoons make this a source of student ideas, and a guide for artistic development.

Comment on Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 2007 Edition

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From community service journalism to watchdog reporting, this book provides examples students and teachers can learn from. The books contains stories, photos, interviews and tips about the best in journalism.

Comment on Best Newspaper Writing 2006-2007

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After nearly three decades with CBS News, Emmy winner Goldberg argues that there is a corporate news culture that slants to the left and liberal opinion. He contends that fairness, balance and integrity have disappeared from network television.

Comment on Bias

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A collection of the writing of 23 African-American colmnists, including Betty Winston Bayé, Lisa Baird, Lewis Diuguid, Gregory Freeman, Loretta Green, Derrick Jackson, Vernon Jarrett, Tannette Johnson-Elie, Eugene Kane, Jerry Large, Wil LaVeist, Dwight Lewis, Norman Lockman, Errol Louis, Peggy Peterman, Richard Prince, Rochelle Riley, Gregory Stanford, Adrienne Washington, Rod Watson, Tonyaa Weathersbee and the book's co-authors, Wayne Dawkins and DeWayne Wickham. They are all past or present members of the Trotter Group. Their namesake is William Monroe Trotter, longtime publisher of the Boston Guardian.

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Brave Men is a collection of journalist Ernie Pyle's newspaper columns from 1943 and 1944, in which he details the fighting in Europe primarily from the perspective of the common U.S. G.I. This angle of reporting brought the front-line war back to the families of those serving in the armed forces. On April 18, 1945, while riding a jeep toward a forward command post on the Japanese island of le Shima to cover the front-line combat, Pyle was shot and killed.

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Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, shares his insight into how he became a business success. He isn’t afraid to say he can be ruthless — and explain just how to do it. No one thought a national newspaper (founded in 1982) would draw readers, but clearly it did.

Comment on Confessions of an S.O.B.

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A collection of brief biographies of 285 notable news folk, divided into 16 categories that include political animals, war reporters and sleuths.

Comment on Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists: The Newseum's Most Intriguing Newspeople

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Herr, who who wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting and turned them into this account of war coverage. The first edition was released in 1977.

Comment on Dispatches

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Fred Friendly's 1967 memoir presents fundamental truths and warnings about the role of television in American society. Friendly, at the book's end, calls for a commercial-free television network free of outside pressures.

Comment on Due to Circumstances Beyond our Control

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Edited by Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, this is a collection of articles and excerpts from McLuhan's most important books about the Global Village, history of print, and the rise of digital media.

Comment on Essential McLuhan

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First published in 1972, Thompson (1937-2005) travels in a drug-driven, alcohol-soaked search for the American dream. A master of the first-person narrative, his style of immersion was coined "gonzo journalism."

Comment on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

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On March 16, 1827, Freedom's Journal, the first African-American newspaper, began publication in New York. Histories of the black press and studies of the late 1820s have considered it only briefly, at times making assumptions about the periodical -- its founding, its focus, its goals, and its editors -- that overlook important facts, neglect to fully account for the publication's richness and depth, and leave significant questions unanswered.

Comment on Freedom's Journal: The First African-American Newspaper

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The account of her times at the White House by a veteran Washington reporter. Thomas has covered every U.S. president since JFK.

Comment on Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times

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A illustrated memoir and informal history of American politics as viewed by cartoonist Herbert Block, AKA Herblock (1909-2001), who joined The Washington Post in 1946. He won Pulitzers in 1939, 1954 and 1979 and shared one the Post won for its Watergate coverage.

Comment on Herblock: A Cartoonist’s Life

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A compilation of anecdotes from the newsroom, this is more of a story collection than a resource. The book includes several interesting "trivia tidbits," including tales of how George Washington handled the press and how journalists avoided bodily harm by dressing as FBI agents during civil rights protests. Some chapter topics include war reporting, newsroom relations and ethics.

Comment on If No News, Send Rumors

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Chandrasekaran, a former Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post, writes a history of the Coalition Provisional Authority headquartered in the Green Zone around one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.

Comment on Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

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This books summarizes the broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow from 1938 to 1961.

Comment on In Search of Light

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Focuses on the fundamental ethical and practical issues confronting newspapers today. Examines the questions journalists should ask themselves in order to prepare for tomorrow.

Comment on News Values: Ideals for an Information Age

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About America in the 20th century. Former CBS News journalist Sevareid's account of World War II is personal, of people and events.

Comment on Not So Wild a Dream

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As publisher of The Washington Post, Graham (1917-2001), led the paper through tumultuous times, including the publication of the secret Pentagon Papers against the advice of government directives and the Woodward and Bernstein investigation of the Watergate scandal. This autobiography received a Pulitzer Prize in 1998.

Comment on Personal History

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Revisit the editorials that some say changed American history, or at least made powerful points, and examples, for student journalists to examine.

Comment on Pulitzer Prize Editorials: America's Best Editorial Writing 1917-2003, 3rd ed.

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Harris traces the history of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, awarded annually to a newspaper rather than to individuals. From The New York Times and the Pentagon Papers to Watergate and TheWashington Post, the book also pursues two world wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights struggle, the Vietnam era and today's environmental and corporate exposés.

Comment on Pulitzer's Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism

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More than national news, politics, sports, entertainment or traffic, Americans want local news. But how well do local broadcasters and Web sites address this need? How well do they address the fundamental local issues that enable an informed citizenry to make choices on election day?

Comment on Reinventing Local News : Connecting Communities Through New

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In 1929, Barney Kilgore, fresh from college in small-town Indiana, took a sleepy, near bankrupt New York financial paper -- The Wall Street Journal -- and turned it into a thriving national newspaper that eventually was worth $5 billion to Rupert Murdoch. Kilgore then invented a national weekly newspaper that was a precursor of many trends we see playing out in journalism now.

Comment on Restless Genius

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Using what happened to the Sarajevo Daily in this Bosnian city during the war that broke apart Yugoslavia, this book tells the story of a people and of journalism. As the rest of the title indicates, this is “a city and its newspaper under siege.” An Army negotiator who spent time there wrote in a review that it shows “the heroes, the villains, the heartbreak, the insanity, the desertion of life-long friends or spouses due to nationalism fueled by propaganda. Propaganda that generated fear and hatred.”

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Waugh was an English satirist who wrote what reviewers called "scathingly funny" and "a comic extravaganza." His (yes, Evelyn was male.) novel follows the adventures of a 1930s London essayist who unintentionally becomes a war correspondent in Africa, allowing the author to zing the newspapers of that day. The style isn’t “modern,” but some of the barbs are still aimed dead center — perhaps the reason a paperback version came out in 2003.

Comment on Scoop

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A history of U.S. women in journalism to the present time -- told, in part, in their own words. It begins with Colonial-era women working in family-run print shops; shows women gaining public roles in the 1800s, publishing abolitionist and suffrage newspapers; and describes their struggles and achievements breaking into news reporting, war correspondence, political commentary, and broadcasting. Later chapters describe the rise of feminist journalism and challenges to media-industry employment and reporting practices.

Comment on Taking Their Place: A Documentary History of Women and Journalism.

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Crouse’s book details coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign between Nixon and McGovern, and the result is still engaging — a chronicle of the candidates' daily press releases and "pack" journalism.

Comment on The Boys on the Bus

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Dan Rather talks about his life and role as a television journalist.

Comment on The Camera Never Blinks: Adventures of a TV Journalist

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Journalistic look at civil rights and tumultuous change.

Comment on The Changing of the South: Journalism and Civil Rights, 1960-1968

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For most of this carried and colorful career, Col. Robert R. McCormick (publisher of the Chicago Tribune from the 1920s to the 1950s) was the self-proclaimed emperor of "Chicagoland," a Middle America of his own imagination, forever at odds with the alien East and the flaky West.

Comment on The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick

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This literary journalism book chronicles the tale of novelist Ken Kesey and others as they traveled the country in a painted bus. Researched like a reporter, it evokes the indulgence of the ear.

Comment on The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

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Explanation of the enduring principles that define journalism as a profession and a calling. Excellent principles to apply to scholastic media.

Comment on The Elements of Journalism

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The behind-the-scenes account of Richard Nixon's last months as president. Moment by moment, Bernstein and Woodward portray the post-Watergate Nixon and those around him.

Comment on The Final Days

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Former Times staffer Robertson's 1992 book chronicles a group of women at The New York Times who filed a sex-discrimination lawsuit in the 1970s. The title refers to an era when female journalists were relegated to the balconies of the National Press Club in Washington.

Comment on The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men and The New York Times

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Originally published in 1969, Talese explores the internal intrigues at The New York Times, revealing the stories behind the personalities, rivalries, and scoops at the most influential paper in the world.

Comment on The Kingdom and the Power: Behind the Scenes at the New York Times

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First published in 1983 (ISBN 0060151048) and revised in 1994 as "The New News Business" the authors focus on writing and reporting for print and broadcast. In the lead chapter, they say, "The lead is where you start, which sounds simple enough, except that it isn't. More wastebaskets have been filled with crumpled paper because of trouble with leads than anything else in newsrooms. ... Properly crafted, the lead answers questions before they are asked and promises more answers that follow." Chancellor (1927-1996), was a longtime NBC News anchor and Mears, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The Associated Press, covered 11 presidential campaigns from 1960-2000. He retired in 2001.

Comment on The New News Business

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Downie and Kaiser, both of The Washington Post, take us inside America's news media to reveal why the journalism we watch and read is often so bad and explain what we can be done about it. They show that the media’s obsession with celebrity, entertainment, sensationalism and profits make a mockery of news and remind of the value of serious journalism with inside accounts of how great stories were done.

Comment on The News About The News

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This is a novel -- a work of fiction. Small-town football hero Blue Hocker can't make the team at his new Texas school. If you can't join 'em, forget 'em," he says and he joins the staff of the school newspaper instead. The Town Crier has always been a boring paper. In other words: no news. But the new staff, including Blue, becomes inspired by their enthusiastic young journalism teacher, Mr. Choate. Together they confront issues in the school such as the use of drug-sniffing dogs and the Texas No-pass, No-play rule for athletes. Student writers, photographers, editors, and even gossip columnists pull together and challenge the administration and the student body with a potent, new Town Crier. Then, when the Supreme Court changes the rules for high school journalism and Mr. Choate's job is on the line, the students face some serious questions and a hot story expodes with controversy.

Comment on The Ninth Issue

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A look at those who rule behind the daily media reports and other practices not obvious to those who look at the surface of media reporting.

Comment on The Powers That Be

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McChesney decries a decline in hard news, the growth of info-tainment and advertorials, staff cuts and concentration of ownership, increasing conformity of viewpoint and suppression of genuine debate. He advocates for a media reform movement.

Comment on The Problem of the Media

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A Washington Post reviewer said the era between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s was the "Golden Age of the American press." One of the highlights of that is coverage of the civil rights movement. The authors, veterans of that "race beat," use memoirs and interviews to show how America and the world learned about what was happening in the South.

Comment on The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation

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The history of the dynasty that created and controls The New York Times. Like any good epic, the story is filled with its fair share of personal ambition, disappointment, competition and intrigue.

Comment on The Trust

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Philip True, a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, set off on a 10-day expedition hoping to write a story on the Mexico's Huichol Indians. He never returned. This book follows his editor's efforts to find out what happened to him.

Comment on Trail of Feathers: Searching for Philip True

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For the two journalists who broke Watergate, their legacy and history are inseparable from their journalism. The author traces not only the story of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s role in Watergate, but also their widely diverging paths post-Watergate. This retrospective was drawn in part on never-before-seen archival materials. The author did more than 175 interviews, and details perhaps the biggest secret in journalism history -- Mark Felt as Deep Throat.

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