Reviews section
By Tor Clark, Reviews Editor, De Montfort University, Leicester.
About six years ago, The Guardian’s Nick Davies was an interesting and controversial speaker at an AJE seminar at Sheffield University. The culmination of the work he described that day has since become Hack Attack, the most eagerly anticipated Journalism book of this year which, for once, left me fending off would-be reviewers. David Baines got in first and he finds The Guardian’s Davies to have written a compelling, interesting and important account of phone hacking and the Murdoch empire, which will be of interest to Journalism students and academics everywhere.
Staying in the Steel City, the prolific Tony Harcup, from Sheffield University’s Department of Journalism Studies, has guaranteed himself another entry on our reading lists by producing the useful and thought-provoking Oxford Dictionary of Journalism, which students all over the UK are likely to be finding very useful on the courses very soon.
Julian Assange of Wikileaks and Eric Schmidt of Google cross swords in our third review of recent books of interest to Journalism students and academics. Michael Foley finds he has written a strange book, which nevertheless sheds useful light on two organisations now essential parts of the world of Journalism.
Anna McKane’s useful text News Writing, which she introduced at an AJE conference in Cardiff a couple of years ago, gets a new look, a new edition and a new review from Gary Hudson.
And finally, to challenge the plaintiff cry of many journalists over the years: “I do words, not numbers” (correctly proven in many an expenses claim!) David Hayward, formerly of the BBC College of Journalism, lauds a guide to understanding and using numbers, which he urges every aspiring journalist to read and keep by their side. Indeed The Tiger that Isn’t… is so numerically necessary it is the latest Journalism text to be awarded classic status on the JE Journalism Bookshelf.
Eagle-eyed Reviews Section regulars will note we are welcoming three new reviewers with this edition. There was an excellent response to the recent appeal for more reviewers to come forward and as a result readers can also look forward to another cast of new faces contributing the reviews for the next edition.
In the meantime, Journalism Education welcomes offers to review, suggestions of books to review or ideas on which classic text to feature for anyone associated with the AJE.
To get involved with the Journalism Education Reviews section, either as a reviewer, author or publisher, please contact Reviews Editor Tor Clark at TClark@dmu.ac.uk
