In this study, Ronald R. Rodgers examines several narratives involving religion’s historical influence on the news ethic of journalism: its decades-long opposition to the Sunday newspaper as a vehicle of modernity that challenged the tradition of the Sabbath; the parallel attempt to create an advertising-driven Christian daily newspaper; and the ways in which religion—especially the powerful Social Gospel movement—pressured the press to become a moral agent. The digital disruption of the news media today has provoked a similar search for a news ethic that reflects a new era—for instance, in the debate about jettisoning the substrate of contemporary mainstream journalism, objectivity. But, Rodgers argues, before we begin to transform journalism’s present news ethic, we need to understand its foundation and formation in the past.

At the height of the cocaine-fueled 1980s, Carolyn Wilkins left a disastrous marriage in Seattle and, hoping to make it in the music business, moved with her four-year-old daughter to a gritty working-class town on the edge of Boston. They Raised Me Up is the story of her battle to succeed in the world of jam sessions and jazz clubs—a man’s world where women were seen as either sex objects or doormats. To survive, she had to find a way to pay the bills, overcome a crippling case of stage fright, fend off a series of unsuitable men, and most important, find a reliable babysitter. Alternating with Carolyn’s story are the stories of her ancestors and mentors—five musically gifted women who struggled to realize their dreams at the turn of the twentieth century: Philippa Schuyler, whose efforts to “pass” for white inspired Carolyn to embrace her own black identity despite her “damn near white” appearance and biracial child; Marjory Jackson, the musician and single mother whose dark complexion and flamboyant lifestyle raised eyebrows among her contemporaries in the snobby, color-conscious world of the African American elite; Lilly Pruett, the daughter of an illiterate sharecropper whose stunning beauty might have been her only ticket out of the “Jim Crow” South; Ruth Lipscomb, the country girl who dreamed, against all odds, of becoming a concert pianist and realized her improbable ambition in 1941; Alberta Sweeney, who survived a devastating personal tragedy by relying on the musical talent and spiritual stamina she had acquired growing up in a rough-and-tumble Kansas mining town. They Raised Me Up interweaves memoir with family history to create an entertaining, informative, and engrossing read that will appeal to anyone with an interest in African American or women’s history or to readers simply looking for an intriguing story about music and family.

Winner, 2022 Society of Midland Authors award for Biography/Memoir Evan S. Connell (1924–2013) emerged from the American Midwest determined to become a writer. He eventually made his mark with attention-getting fiction and deep explorations into history. His linked novels Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969) paint a devastating portrait of the lives of a prosperous suburban family not unlike his own that, more than a half century later, continue to haunt readers with their minimalist elegance and muted satire. As an essayist and historian, Connell produced a wide range of work, including a sumptuous body of travel writing, a bestselling epic account of Custer at the Little Bighorn, and a singular series of meditations on history and the human tragedy. This first portrait and appraisal of an under-recognized American writer is based on personal accounts by friends, relatives, writers, and others who knew him; extensive correspondence in library archives; and insightful literary and cultural analysis of Connell’s work and its context. It also illuminates aspects of American publishing, Hollywood, male anxieties, and the power of place.

At the beginning of the 1970s, broadcast news and a few newspapers such as The New York Times wielded national influence in shaping public discourse, to a degree never before enjoyed by the news media. At the same time, however, attacks from political conservatives such as Vice President Spiro Agnew began to erode public trust in news institutions, even as a new breed of college-educated reporters were hitting their stride. This new wave of journalists, doing their best to cover the roiling culture wars of the day, grew increasingly frustrated by the limitations of traditional notions of objectivity in news writing and began to push back against convention, turning their eyes on the press itself. Two of these new journalists, a Pulitzer Prize—winning, Harvard-educated New York Times reporter named J. Anthony Lukas, and a former Newsweek media writer named Richard Pollak, founded a journalism review called (MORE) in 1971, with its pilot issue appearing the same month that the Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers. (MORE) covered the press with a critical attitude that blended seriousness and satire—part New York Review of Books, part underground press. In the eight years that it published, (MORE) brought together nearly every important American journalist of the 1970s, either as a writer, a subject of its critical eye, or as a participant in its series of raucous "A.J. Liebling Counter-Conventions"—meetings named after the outspoken press critic—the first of which convened in 1974. In issue after issue the magazine considered and questioned the mainstream press's coverage of explosive stories of the decade, including the Watergate scandal; the "seven dirty words" obscenity trial; the debate over a reporter's constitutional privilege; the rise of public broadcasting; the struggle for women and minorities to find a voice in mainstream newsrooms; and the U.S. debut of press baron Rupert Murdoch. In telling the story of (MORE) and its legacy, Kevin Lerner explores the power of criticism to reform and guide the institutions of the press and, in turn, influence public discourse.

Photographer O. N. Pruitt (1891–1967) was for some forty years the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Columbus--known to locals as "Possum Town." His body of work recalls many FSA photographers, but Pruitt was not an outsider with an agenda; he was a community member with intimate knowledge of the town and its residents. He photographed his fellow white citizens and Black ones as well, in circumstances ranging from the mundane to the horrific: family picnics, parades, river baptisms, carnivals, fires, funerals, two of Mississippi's last public and legal executions by hanging, and a lynching. From formal portraits to candid images of events in the moment, Pruitt's documentary of a specific yet representative southern town offers viewers today an invitation to meditate on the interrelations of photography, community, race, and historical memory. Columbus native Berkley Hudson was photographed by Pruitt, and for more than three decades he has considered and curated Pruitt's expansive archive, both as a scholar of media and visual journalism and as a community member. This stunning book presents Pruitt's photography as never before, combining more than 190 images with a biographical introduction and Hudson's short essays and reflective captions on subjects such as religion, ethnic identity, the ordinary graces of everyday life, and the exercise of brutal power.

Engaged Journalism explores the changing relationship between news producers and audiences and the methods journalists can use to secure the attention of news consumers. Based on Jake Batsell's extensive experience and interaction with more than twenty innovative newsrooms, this book shows that, even as news organizations are losing their agenda-setting power, journalists can still thrive by connecting with audiences through online technology and personal interaction. Batsell conducts interviews with and observes more than two dozen traditional and startup newsrooms across the United States and the United Kingdom. Traveling to Seattle, London, New York City, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, among other locales, he attends newsroom meetings, combs through internal documents, and talks with loyal readers and online users to document the successes and failures of the industry's experiments with paywalls, subscriptions, nonprofit news, live events, and digital tools including social media, data-driven interactives, news games, and comment forums. He ultimately concludes that, for news providers to survive, they must constantly listen to, interact with, and fulfill the specific needs of their audiences, whose attention can no longer be taken for granted. Toward that end, Batsell proposes a set of best practices based on effective, sustainable journalistic engagement.