Customer Reviews

Inside Reporting: A Practical Guide to the Craft of Journalism

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been a reporter and journalism instructor for 20 years and have used everything out there during that time. I've also used Tim's other text "The Newspaper Designer's Handbook" in my editing sections. This book is a joy to use --- last night I went over chapter 4 during a 6-9 p.m. class and as I added my anecdotes to the lecture, two hours flew by thanks to the slick structure of this text.
All instructors think they could do it better when assembling a textbook, but I can't say that any more. Tim has done it. This book covers everything I could ever think of and more. He discusses style. He includes tests and exercises and there is even an anthology he uses as a "morgue." Get a desk copy and require it for your students. It is a great book, one that will not be sold at the end of the semester, but kept on the shelf and used as a reference for years to come. He stresses convergence and the move from print to the web in a way that makes us old timers feel less of the pain. This is the new basic text for me. Wow what a book!

Newspaper editors bemoan the unpreparedness of the entry-level reporters they hire right out of college. You need only look at the typical college journalism texts to see part of the problem. These ancient tomes read and look as if they were prepared a century ago - and many of them were.

This is not the case with Tim Harrower's "Inside Reporting: A practical guide to the craft of journalism." This amazing book is chock-full of everything that motivated me to become an ink-stained wretch 30 years ago. It's relevant, compelling and interesting in ways you'd never expect from a textbook.

Harrower has written the book not just on reporting, but on how to produce a college textbook on any subject -- with an editing style and design that is absolutely captivating.

This book will do for newspaper reporting what "All the President's Men" did for journalism a generation ago - encourage a whole new generation of young people to take up today's digital tools and get the story.

I am both a veteran journalist and a veteran college journalism teacher and "Inside Reporting" is the best introductory book ever. Interesting, accurate, visually pleasing and fun to read, it is the new "gold standard" of books with which to teach news writing and reporting. I am adopting it as the required text for the fall semester, and I keep my own copy handy to remind me of what I should be doing.

If you want to learn or teach journalism, this is the book.

Good night and good luck.

I have purchased dozens of books on journalism over the past few months, but nothing matches the content, style or ease in finding information of this great book.

While there are many great books on journalism, most if not all of them are much the same as any other textbook, pages and pages of text which you must read and interpret to find what you want.

This book is visual in the most unique way I have ever seen in a textbook. Almost like a cross between a real newspaper and a comic book, all the information is presented in little snippets and pictures that are easy to understand and easy to digest.

As an example it has a page in the news writing section about writing a lead for a plane crash and gives examples of how different leads could be written highlighting the who, what, when, where and why. Most texts have something like this, but most would not go to the lengths that this author has done to enable the reader to understand the benefits and pitfalls of leading with a particular method.

The text has dozens of tips and information from working journalists and I liked the section in the back called the Morgue which contains examples of the stories used in the text.

The text has great background information on journalism which I would otherwise have ignored in other texts because of the way it is normally presented and overall I would rate this from a student's perspective as the single best investment I have made so far.

It is simply a gem of a book that is easily lost in Amazons catalogue. Decide for yourself if this book is for you but I would be surprised if anyone interested in journalism could not come away from reading this book and not have learned anything.

Tim Harrower's Inside Reporting is unlike any textbook I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them throughout my years and years of college.

It looks weird on the shelf because it's an inch taller and an inch wider than most typical textbooks. Open it up to any one of the first 186 pages and stunning graphics jump off the page. Sections are small and fit nicely on one sheet. It looks like a colorful newspaper. The following hundred pages (aka, "The Morgue") look like the typical textbook--large blocks of text. The Morgue is a section of reference articles and examples.

Inside Reporting is well organized. Each section is brief but packs a punch. Look to the bottom of most pages and you'll find directions to other page numbers with more material or references to the Morgue. Each chapter is also full of surveys, quotes from those in the industry, tests, and extra tidbits to help the budding journalist.

I'm not yet and established journalists and I don't teach the subject. In fact, I'm not even in a journalism class. I picked up Inside Reporting because I wanted a good survey of journalism. This grad student of a different study wants to learn more about journalism. I wanted a book with meat but was fearful that an introductory book would be too fluffy and lack the information I needed. This book was not the case.

Inside Reporting is a fantastic textbook. I couldn't have picked a better book, and I'm sure I'll be going back to it often as I move forward in the journalism arena.

When I purchased this book I found the title from a previous school that I went to. I knew that I was going to get an in-depth book, because of the university that uses it. However, I was not expecting this book to be so creative!! This is not your typical book. Your average "textbooks" have chapter after chapter of "how-tos" and give historical backgorund. The layout of this book is similar to that of a magazine with various "articles", historical facts and review questions. It makes for an easy read (so easy I believe a teenager could understand it). This book also offers an online student website that gives review of terminology, additional review questions, and many other things.(There is no need for special key or access codes. Yay!)

If you are able to get this at a great price then this is a definite "must have" book and worth the investment!

Regarding the order, the book got to my house on the day they predicted. I am very pleased with my order and will surely purchase books from them next time. Regarding the book, I this book is not like other text books, it has a many illustrations and a newspaper type layout that gives you the impression of reading a newspaper or a magazine. It is very easy to read, and also fun.

This "Kindle" edition is not usable on a Kindle. Please note, this review is not for book content, but only for the Kindle Edition of the book. I just want to make sure no one buys this for a Kindle user, since it's unusable for them.

The book arrived quickly and in new condition other than the cover as advertised. Happy with the purchase and at a great price.

I've used this book through two journalism classes and let me tell you that it is an excellent book. It teaches nearly every style of journalistic writing and included actual journalism articles in the back of the book. It is also very entertaining to read unlike many dry college textbooks. I will keep this book for as long as I'm writing anything in life.