Issues in Journalism

Issues in Journalism

By Erin Chancellor

The book “Issues in Journalism: a Discussion Guide for News Media Ethics” by Maclyn McClary (a professor at Humboldt State University), features a group of fictional reporters who work for a publication called “The Evening Star”. These reporters names are Burt, Charlene, and Mark. The author McClary uses these reporters to illustrate certain issues in journalism. These issues include discussions of the ‘the power of a reporter’, ‘ethics in PR’ ‘the importance of diversity in the newsroom’ and ‘journalists and political backing’. The book was meant to be used as a discussion guide and teaching tool. The stories, though they all feature the same characters, do not include a plot line that develops throughout the text. The end of each chapter also features discussion type questions that cause the reader to think about the issue being discussed.

A particularly interesting chapter discussed the role of a PR person. It featured the three characters talking about the benefits of good PR people today, and the differences between PR today and in the past. It mentions the hard work of Public Relations Society of America to bring a positive image to PR. The questions at the bottom of this chapter meant for discussion include “what are the connotations and denotations of the terms used to describe PR people and publicists?” and “describe several types of PR practices and policies”.

This book was easy to read and included good discussion points for journalism classes. I think a book like this would be great for teaching material in Gaylord College classes.