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Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy (Institutions of American Democracy)

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There is no question that Alex S. Jones has more than enough credentials to write a book such as "Losing the News." His vast experience at a variety of levels in the field of journalism, combined with his sense of thoughtfulness, make for an author who should excel at penning a book on the history and future of the news. "Losing the News," succeeds at times, but also falls short to some extent in giving an accurate analysis of the current newspaper crisis.

First off, this book will prove to be a valuable read for people who have little to no knowledge of the role of print media in America over the decades. Jones skillfully explains how print journalism has evolved over the years, and why it has been important for the survival of democracy. However, there is not any groundbreaking information presented for people already familiar with such areas.

The most interesting aspect of Jones' book is his discussion of the erosion of the iron core of "accountability" news. Jones is highly critical of the television news' propensity to offer up opinionated talking heads in place of solid news reporting. He also is critical of the increase, over the years, by media outlets to stray away from hard news, and instead do more reporting of personal interest and entertainment stories. His argument is that this phenomenon leaves people less informed, therefore weakening democracy on the whole.

Jones also discusses in detail the concept of "citizen journalism" brought on by the Internet. He obviously feels that the proliferation of blogs and nontraditional news web sites are a threat to traditional journalism. Jones strongly believes that in order to be called a journalist, one needs to be trained as a journalist. He states, "The concepts of citizen journalism and soliciting reader input are hot at newspapers, which are looking for ways to engage people as well as to capitalize on the expertise that is undeniably out there. But that is not journalism I see it." Additionally, he speaks on the subject of how to finance journalists in an age of declining newspaper revenues and increase in news on the Internet that is free to users.

There are a couple of problems I have with "Losing the News." First, Jones does not attribute nearly enough importance to the filtering of news by the corporate interests of the owners of media sources. Perhaps the reason for the large rise in citizen journalism is because the traditional news sources are indeed filled with fluff and are negligent in giving unbiased hard news and solid investigative journalism. This leads me to my second criticism -- how does Jones think the news can be saved? Jones' prescription for saving the news is, "Journalists must hold fast and persevere. Owners must do the right thing. And citizens and news consumers must notice and demand the news that they need." Well, that is a nice thought, but far from practical advice as to how to save the news as Jones desires. Anyone with a reasonable level of understanding of the economics and technological change in the news business can immediately see that Jones' prescription is fanciful at best.

In closing, "Losing the News" does serve as a good primer for learning a basic history of journalism in America. It also raises some good questions about the direction the news has taken over the decades, especially more recently with the rise of the Internet. Unfortunately, there is a glossing over of the magnitude of corporate control of the media, which in turn leads to some significant errors in diagnosing some of the pressing problems in the media, as well as the prescription to remedying these problems.

Losing the News challenges the reader to assess the importance of news---its purpose, content, value, delivery and business mechanisms, and ethics. And, in that assessment, the reader reevaluates the importance of his or her responsibility as an `every day' American citizen and consumer of media information.

Who is this reader Alex S. Jones addresses? In keeping with major themes of the text---how news interacts with democracy, Jones writes this book for those who love to read print newspapers, for those who are connected to news electronically, for lovers of US history, government, ethics, and all social sciences, for newspaper people and journalists, elected officials, policy makers, and private citizens. The wise teacher or professor who wishes to deliver a dynamic, thought-provoking, provocative (and, probably, the most popular on campus) course will use this book as a text.

But, most of all, Losing the News is for people who love good books. Written by a master storyteller, the prose is gorgeous. Jones' style empowers the reader to enjoy the book from his or her unique experience.

I noticed the Amazon release date for Losing the News is August 19; a very fitting date as it is the birthday of the great 20th century British writer and fierce journalistic defender of freedom, Bernard Levin, CBE. Whether your purchase is print or Kindle (ironic chuckle), Losing the News by Alex S. Jones is a must read.

When given the option, many people choose an easy lie, rather than face the hard, painful truth. Have you watched the TV newscasts recently? Read local papers recently? As a society, we have either chosen, or have stuffed down our throat, the easy lie. LOSING THE NEWS faces the hard, painful truth-as a society, our tradition of OBJECTIVE TRUTH has been slowly eraised from the media outlets, and replaced with Opinionated Journalism, or worse, gossip columns maskarading as news stories. Alex Jones has revealed a book of masterful scholarship, filled with revelation upon revelation about the history of the American Newspaper, the Supreme Court decisions about freedom of the press, the evolution of Television newscasts, the dependency of a free democracy on reliable news, and the downfall of the veracity of our media, and its replacement with "Advocacy news", a.k.a. propaganda. I can't say I read this book quickly, or with much joy. Instead, I underlined many passages, complained to friends about new facts I'd just discovered, or watched dumbfounded as information I just learned made clear the filtering of news stories in the local paper. This is not an easy book to read, because it's the truth, the hard, painful truth about the erosion of the US media outlets.

Alex Jones was raised in a Newspaper family, that owned the GREENEVILLE SUN (in Greeneville, Tenn.) He watched as newspapers revealed the sham of WATERGATE, and the downfall of a president, accomplished by investagative reporters. Then, the terrible realization that due to the cuts in staffs, even our country's major papers dont have the ability to snoop around and discover the dark underbelly, and deceptions of our government, or corperations, and reveal them to the public. Jones worked at the NEW YORK TIMES from 1983 to 1992, and won a Pulitzer Prize. His observations aren't the ramblings of opinion makers, but rather a detailed account of the rise of investigative reporting, and its downfall. An entire chapter of the book just documents the history of the First Admendment, guarenteeing freedom of the Press, and how that was slowly refined during the nation's history. Of course, this will be "news" to most people, because no doubt most people believe we always had freedom of the Press and free speech. Surprisingly, its only about 75 years old. Naturally, the rise in "Advocacy News" is well documented. FoxNEWS might be many things, but its not news reporting of course, in the sense that news must have objective, verifiable facts, and be loyal to the citizens and not corperations or political interests. When these disciplines are not met, we are left with propaganda, pure and simple. Since a truly free, democratic government cannot be maintained without the oversight of investigative news, our democracy is threatened. Big time. This is not shouted from the corner of the street, by some homeless skizophrenic, but rather by a man who is the Director of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, and lectures at the Kennedy School of Government. He knows his facts, and each fact is thoroughly and completely documented in this book. I can't think you could get a better understanding of Journalism, and media, from any other modern book. The bottom line is that things are changing FAST in the world of journalism, and nearly ALL the changes are towards opinions superceding documented facts. As a free democracy, if we dont monitor what we accept as news, and especially NOW, we will lose our freedom of press and speech. Consider reading this book as a investigative reporter, who is trying to discover what happened, and what IS happening, to the state of American News. Even if you think Fox News is the be all and end all of journalistic validity, and that the "liberal media" is attempting to destroy your freedom to unbaised truth, it would still behoove you to READ AND STUDY this book. Or, if you're on the other side of the fence, and you already know that our media is filtered, you should STILL read this book. Unless you've a masters in journalism, you definately do NOT know what's revealed in this book. Its great to complain and gripe. Its better to attempt to make changes, thru using facts, and history, so we can preserve what is left of independant, investigative reporting, and our country's tradition of freedom of Speech and Press.

Alex S. Jones is a journalist who has just about seen it all: he has owned and managed a paper, he has written features, he won a Pulitzer Prize, he has taught journalism, he has done radio journalism and he has written several books. He knows of what he writes.

Jones is concerned about the evolution of news gathering services (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) from expensive investigative work to nonsense tabloid stuff (this week it is Tiger Woods - thanks to serious news organizations I know more than I've ever wanted to know about his wife, his doctor, etc. - but just go out and try to get some solid info about the health care debate!)

He bemoans a number of trends, including the synergy type news that ABC, NBC & CBS do to promote new books, movies or shows. He is concerned that the "iron core" of news is being ignored and is shrinking because it is hard to produce and can be costly. By iron core he means the serious analysis news (not opinion pieces) and investigative journalism that the public can trust. He is also unhappy (but not enough, in my opinion) at advocacy "gotcha" journalism that undermines the public's faith.

He includes a nice history of journalism in America and plenty of first-hand examples from his own family's experiences. His analysis of technological trends is spot-on and ties in neatly with the analysis in the book Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson. At the end of the book he offers some interesting predictions about where news is heading.

Every democracy depends on a free and fair press (media). Without a free press, there is no way for the electorate to fully understand the actions of the government. As this book discusses, our democracy is in danger of losing that voice thanks to a media consolidation and the rise of the tabloid culture. This is an excellent read thanks to an author with a masterful command of language. He walks us through the history of journalism and where our greatest watchdog is likely headed in the future.

This book ought to be assigned in Journalism 101 classes. Alex Jones talks about the challenges facing journalism as budgets decline, and on the way lays in wonderful primer material on journalism and the history of the free press, which is not as clearcut as most people think.

His major premise is this: What constitutes hard news - what he calls "the iron core of news" as distinguished from many non-news elements such as celebrity information, opinion, ads and so on that appear in publications or in the broadcast media - is endangered by print journalism's decline and the rise of the Internet.

As newsrooms shrink, there are fewer reporters doing the painstaking, shoe-leather reporting that help establish the core facts that other people can then argue or opine about. This means getting records, asking hard questions of public figures, putting it all in perspective, doggedly following up and being sure enough of their story to risk publishing in the face of threatened libel suits.

Journalism was seen by the Founders as having a special role justifying First Amendment protections, in that a democratic electorate, and lawmakers as well, can't make intelligent choices without good information upon which to base them. Jones sees the amount of such accurate information actually shrinking.

I can't argue with him about that, but can only observe that the whole journalism model in the US is in such rapid flux that we haven't seen yet where it will lead. Someone may yet find a profitable Internet business model that generates ample hard news online, perhaps parlaying the savings to be had from eliminating the huge overhead that printing and distributing a physical newspaper entails.

I particularly enjoyed his tracing of free-press rights from the John Peter Zenger case of the 1730s to Times vs. Sullivan in 1964. For much of that time, freedom of the press was effectively hamstrung by state laws. The most significant case in extending it, in my mind, was Near v. Minnesota in 1931, which upheld the right of an anti-Semitic rabble rouser, who was sometimes right in some of his attacks on government corruption, to publish after the state tried to shut him down. (Interesting detail not mentioned by Jones: a Jewish Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, voted in Near's favor, while an anti-Semitic justice, James McReynolds, voted against him. I had a 1982 Washington Star editorial about this framed and hanging above my desk while I was a reporter.)

Times vs. Sullivan, a product of the civil rights era, is often hailed, but Jones accurately points out that it has created today's environment where not only public officials but public figures - celebrities of any sort - are routinely libelled because barriers to their suing successfully for same, as established in Times vs. Sullivan, are so great. If you have ever thought you'd never run for public office because you didn't want to be personally destroyed in the press by your enemies, this Supreme Court decision is a primary reason you think that.

I think Jones, like a lot of journalists, overestimates the value of investigative reporting. Many heads were turned by Woodward and Bernstein's success with Watergate, but this type of journalistic coup remains relatively rare. I saw too many wild goose chases, some involving entire news staffs, because some shaky tip coincided with some editor's desire to become the next Ben Bradlee. Countless reporters wasted countless hours combing public records for non-existent leads. It was my experience that big exposes actually come when someone with their own generally selfish motives ("destroy this guy so I can take his position") came to you with the information, and are prepared to show you public records supporting it. And they would start coming out of the woodwork if you portrayed yourself as a ballsy adversary of whatever establishment you were covering.

Jones, however, to his credit, doesn't see investigative reporting as the be-all and end-all, and enterprising amateur public citizens like James O'Keefe can actually do exposes on line. The real, unsung loss he's talking about is the decline in the other, less sexy categories, where reporters routinely document public proceedings and explain public life, creating a strong record of what actually happened - sometimes called "history's first draft." Without a strong hard news core, we get all the screaming and the slanting, but neither we nor our elected representatives get the facts we need to make up our own minds.

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I disagree with most of the editorial content in Losing the News, but I knew that was likely when I first read the blurb. I don't believe in forming my opinions without opposition, but I also don't feel a book review is the appropriate forum to debate the author's opinions.

Pick any paragraph at random from the book, and it is undeniable that Alex Jones is a talented writer. His style is easy to read and evocative. The weakness is in the structure as a whole. The first few pages of each chapter start out strong and engaging, then it fizzles out into weaker content that often feels more like a repetitive rant than building to a conclusion. I suppose it's a journalistic habit to put the best content "above the fold," but in a book it doesn't work well. You won't miss much if you read it like a newspaper and skip to the next chapter when you start to lose interest.

Also a holdover journalistic habit, the author doesn't cite sources as well as I would expect from a non-fiction book. He writes like someone who expects to be taken at his word.

The best parts of the book are the case studies the author cites of significant news stories and their impact on public opinion and policy. He has excellent insider insight. The author has the potential for a great future book if he titles each chapter with a major issue and explores the significant news stories that helped shape that issue. Unfortunately, Losing the News uses them almost as an aside, as supposed proof that stories like those will cease to exist without legions of highly paid professional journalists.

In summary, Losing the News is worth picking up to read like a newspaper. Skim for the best content and skip the rest. Unless you're a journalist insider yourself, don't torture yourself by reading it straight through.

Getting the real story has been a problem for many years. The issue seems to be getting worse as time goes on and the traditional values of our media seem to have been eroded by both technology, advocacy journalism, and 'citizen journalists'. Alex Jones examines these issues and in the concluding chapter gives readers an idea how the media can be saved.

Jones is described by many as a journalist's journalist, but he also writes well and inclusively enough that people outside the business can completely understand his thesis and supporting arguments. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to read this volume. It's a book I am considering buying as gifts for family members and friends who are asking the same questions as I have been.

Rebecca Kyle, December 2009

There's been a lot of noise about the "death of journalism," but this is one book that really clarifies the debate. Jones focuses our attention on what exactly is at stake -- how does quality journalism serve democracy? He builds his answer around the image of the "iron core" of news and analysis that informs civic life. We can do without advertising, we can live without dead tree journalism -- but we can't afford to lose the ability to scrutinize our institutions.

Jones draws on his own extensive background in journalism, ranging from his own family's small-town papers to the New York Times. He is neither bedazzled by, nor dismissive of, the wonders of technology, but keeps going back to the all-important watchdog principle that is endangered by the glut of infotainment and consumer-oriented media. He provides a good, if guarded, overview of the various efforts (among foundations, etc.) to save traditional journalistic values, and shoots down some cherished myths of the "Golden Ages" of journalism, documenting how American journalism has not always lived up to its expectations. He does an especially good job weaving First Amendment history into his argument. All in all, a provocative, readable, and highly informed look at a news culture in crisis.

Alex Jones's "Losing the News" is troubling, important, and terrifically interesting. In the midst of the the present transformation of patterns that have been dominant in the media for a century, Jones's deepest concern is that the core information citizens and policymakers need for wise decisions will become less and less available.

The most remarkable thing about this book is its superb story telling, which makes its analysis of central ethical and practical problems in the news business come vividly alive. And some of the best tales are are of the small town paper published for nearly a century by Jones's remarkable family in Tennessee.

Fairminded, engaged with views that differ from his own, and wonderfully well-informed, Jones is a wise guide to the present crisis of the news business and to the innovations and the moral qualities that are needed for coping with it.