Photographs by Santiago Melazzini.

Ever since Newton Minow taught us sophisticates to bemoan the descent of television into a vast wasteland, the dyspeptic chorus of jeremiahs who insist that television news in particular has gone from gold to dross gets noisier and noisier. Charles Ponce de Leon says here, in effect, that this is misleading, if not simply fatuous. He argues in this well-paced, lively, readable book that TV news has changed in response to broader changes in the TV industry and American culture. It is pointless to bewail its decline. "That s the Way It Is "gives us the very first history of American television news, spanning more than six decades, from Camel News Caravan to Countdown with Keith Oberman and The Daily Show. Starting in the latter 1940s, television news featured a succession of broadcasters who became household names, even presences: Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Peter Jennings, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and, with cable expansion, people like Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, and Bill O Reilly. But behind the scenes, the parallel story is just as interesting, involving executives, producers, and journalists who were responsible for the field s most important innovations. Included with mainstream network news programs is an engaging treatment of news magazines like "60 Minutes" and "20/20, " as well as morning news shows like "Today" and "Good Morning America." Ponce de Leon gives ample attention to the establishment of cable networks (CNN, and the later competitors, Fox News and MSNBC), mixing in colorful anecdotes about the likes of Roger Ailes and Roone Arledge. Frothy features and other kinds of entertainment have been part and parcel of TV news from the start; viewer preferences have always played a role in the evolution of programming, although the disintegration of a national culture since the 1970s means that most of us no longer follow the news as a civic obligation. Throughout, Ponce de Leon places his history in a broader cultural context, emphasizing tensions between the public service mission of TV news and the quest for profitability and broad appeal."

News coverage is often described as the “first draft of history.” From the publication in 1690 of the first American newspaper, Publick Occurrences, to the latest tweet, news has been disseminated to inform its audience about what is going on in the world. But the preservation of news content has had its technological, legal, and organizational challenges. Over the centuries, as new means of finding, producing, and distributing news were developed, the methods used to ensure future generations’ access changed, and new challenges for news content preservation arose. This book covers the history of news preservation (or lack thereof), the decisions that helped ensure (or doom) its preservation, and the unique preservation issues that each new form of media brought. All but one copy of Publick Occurrences were destroyed by decree. The wood-pulp based newsprint used for later newspapers crumbled to dust. Early microfilm disintegrates to acid and decades of microfilmed newspapers have already dissolved in their storage drawers. Early radio and television newscasts were rarely captured and when they were, the technological formats for accessing the tapes are long superseded. Sounds and images stored on audio and videotapes fade and become unreadable. The early years of web publication by news organizations were lost by changes in publishing platforms and a false security that everything on the Internet lives forever. In 50 or 100 years, what will we be able to retrieve from today’s news output? How will we tell the story of this time and place? Will we have better access to news produced in 1816 than news produced in 2016? These are some of the questions Future-Proofing the News aims to answer.

Can a free press survive in an era of free content? An “entertaining and well-written” examination of copyright law, its history, and its purpose (New York Law Journal). You can’t copyright facts, but is news a category unto itself? Without legal protection for the “ownership” of news, what incentive does a news organization have to invest in producing quality journalism that serves the public good? Can a free press survive in the era of free content? This book explores the intertwined histories of journalism and copyright law in the United States and Great Britain, revealing how shifts in technology, government policy, and publishing strategy have shaped the media landscape. Publishers have long sought to treat news as exclusive to protect their investments against copying or “free riding.” But over the centuries, arguments about the vital role of newspapers and the need for information to circulate have made it difficult to defend property rights in news. Beginning with the earliest printed news publications and ending with the Internet, Will Slauter traces these countervailing trends, offering a fresh perspective on debates about copyright and efforts to control the flow of news. “A well-written, thoughtful book, demonstrating how copyright law has struggled to keep up with the development of news culture, setting out the historical context in great detail and supported by much research, and with interesting conclusions and predictions for the future. It is unreservedly recommended.” ––European Intellectual Property Review

First there was the spoken word, the long-distance runner, and later the wall posters of ancient Rome and China. Here is an investigation of the human need to gather and spread news, proving that the hunger for news and sensationalism wasn't born with modern technology.

For 9-13 year olds, THE NEWS series is history as you've never read it before. Each book presents, in newspaper form, one of the great civilizations of the world. Major news stories from home and abroad combine with features on all aspects of daily life, philosophy, food, farming, fashion - illustrated with pictures, maps, cartoons & even adverts.