The Complete Reporter: Fundamentals of News Gathering, Writing, and Editing (7th Edition) [Paperback]

Kelly Leiter (Author), Julian Harriss (Author), Stanley Johnson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 020529586X | ISBN-13: 978-0205295869 | Publication Date: December 12, 1999 | Edition: 7

Designed to teach how to gather, write, and edit news stories, The Complete Reporter discusses the techniques that are used every day in the news business. Through a combination of descriptive text, examples, demonstrations, and exercises, this book makes fundamental concepts clear while instilling task-specific news and feature story writing skills. Along with introducing students to basic discussions about the field of reporting and basic writing, editing, and design skills, this text provides them with key guidelines and tips for writing general and specialty stories (see Parts IV-VII). Practical exercises throughout each chapter give readers experience with realistic writing situations. Based on actual newspaper articles, the exercises present a series of reporter's notes prepared at the scene of a story. Usable facts, libelous and/or unethical statements, and trivial tidbits are lumped together in order to test and help build judgment skills and abilitities to create tightly woven stories from a jumble of information. For anyone interested in basic news writing and reporting.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Designed to teach how to gather, write, and edit news stories, The Complete Reporter discusses the techniques that are used every day in the news business. Through a combination of descriptive text, examples, demonstrations, and exercises, this book makes fundamental concepts clear while instilling task-specific news and feature story writing skills.

Along with introducing students to basic discussions about the field of reporting and basic writing, editing, and design skills, this text provides them with key guidelines and tips for writing general and specialty stories (see Parts IV-VII). Practical exercises throughout each chapter give readers experience with realistic writing situations. Based on actual newspaper articles, the exercises present a series of reporter's notes prepared at the scene of a story. Usable facts, libelous and/or unethical statements, and trivial tidbits are lumped together in order to test and help build judgment skills and abilitities to create tightly woven stories from a jumble of information.

For anyone interested in basic news writing and reporting.

Product Details

• Paperback: 562 pages
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon; 7 edition (December 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 020529586X
• ISBN-13: 978-0205295869
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for anybody wanting to write news., May 6, 2003

By 

Travis C. Ward "C. William Anderson" (Silverton, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Complete Reporter: Fundamentals of News Gathering, Writing, and Editing (7th Edition) (Paperback)

I've read the fifth edition and found it to not have the number of typos other reviewers found in the 7th Ed., so I presume the typos were intentional as is common among publishers to protect their copyrights.

At any rate, this book is intended for the journalism student. It can get somewhat dry. In such a setting one can't expect cotton candy and Reese Peanut Butter Cups!

The people that can best benefit by reading this text are the people at your local weekly newspaper and the reporters for Fox News Corporation. Objectivity and source attribution are sadly lacking at many community newspapers, at Fox News and at Al Jazeera. Okay, that's a bit harsh. But I digress.

When I was younger I obtained more than two years college credit simply by obtaining business books, reading them, and working each and every exercise at the end of each chapter and then taking College Level Eaxamintions through CLEP. This book is one in which the reader could do likewise and obtain at least sufficient knowledge to earn one year credit.

Then, even if you choose not to enter the workforce as a news gatherer, writer or editor, at least you would have an appreciation for the process.

I highly recommend this book for anyone involved in writing news or features or for those who interface with newspeople.

2.0 out of 5 stars I have mixed feelings about this book., May 24, 2001

By 

H. Dolezalek (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Reporter: Fundamentals of News Gathering, Writing, and Editing (7th Edition) (Paperback)

This book has plenty of important information and it presents it in a simple way with concrete examples. That's good. HOWEVER, the edition I had was absolutely riddled with typos, misspellings, and incorrect punctuation. It's hard to take this book about newswriting fundamentals seriously, when one of the fundamentals - accuracy - is so obviously not a priority. Also, I'm not sure that a book is the best way to teach writing, at least this kind of writing. I fell way behind in the reading, but I still got an A in the class. I learned much more from On Writing Well by Zinsser than I did from this book.