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Journalism in Crisis: Corporate Media and Financialization. Nuria Almiron, trans, by WUUam McGrath. New York: Hampton Press, Inc., 2010. 212 pp. $45 hbk $23.95 pbk This is the most important available analysis of the crisis of journalism, exhibiting critical skills of which alarmingly few North American analysts are capable. Nuria Almiron is lecturer and researcher in communication at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Her political economy approach goes well beyond the platitudes of death-by-Internet sermonizing even beyond the themes of concentration and overreach so well-rehearsed by Robert McChesney. McChesney and Nichols (2010) regret the passing of a Golden Age that preceded advertising. For Almiron, journahsm is in perpetual crisis, hapless child of bourgeois parents - freedom of the press as formulated in the Declaration of Rights of the State of Virginia (1776) and in the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), eternally abused by the "instrumentalization" of dominant classes. Journalism remains caught in the contradiction between its emancipating potential and the conditions imposed on it by financial globalization. No longer even the plaything of erratic conglomerates and moguls, it has entered a post-corporate era characterized by the supremacy of the capital (finance) over the industrial sphere (production) "inherent to the evolution of modern capitaUsm." The term "financialization" (first employed by Andre Orlean in 1999) is identified by Gerald Epstein (2005) as one of three main trends in global economics of the past thirty years, the others being neoUberaUsm and globalization, and defined as "the increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors, and financial institutions in the operation of the domestic and international economies." It is the product of the ending of fixed international Exchange rates, disorganization of raw-materials markets, privileged position of transnational corporations, budget deficits, deregulation, Uberalization, and monetary disintermediation. The result is conversion of the financial sector into one of today's principal sources of profit, but also of global instability - manifest in overinvestment and financial engineering as egregiously illustrated by "tax havens" that hold a third of the wealth of high net-worth individuals, and by other forms of money hiding, laundering and extreme speculation. These lead to overcapacity, concentration, and implosion. These basic capitalist cycles are far more enduring and predictable than the information, digital, ICT, and other "revolutions" that bedazzle those who should know so much better. Media and finance are closely interlinked, illustrated by the development in the mid-nineteenth-century of Reuters, not long after the London Stock Exchange, providing financial, business, and economic information flows that have become the bedrock of the very structure of modern capitalism. The technology of information flows is dependent on the raising of capital in financial markets, which are also insatiable consumers of communication technologies and financial news. Banks exert a fundamental influence on information corporations: they determine which and how many media wUl survive, their degree of concentration, autonomy, and diversity. These relationships bind concentration, internationalization, industrialization, and financialization, this latter passing through three main stages of absolute family control, relative farmly control, and managerial control. …

The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English. Roy Peter Clark. New York: Little, Brown, 2010. 294 pp. $19.99 hbk.It doesn't matter what the topic is-chickens or global economics or yoga: people who are passionate and knowledgeable about their subject make for a good story. Add good writing and a sense of whimsy to that passion, and you almost can't miss.With fifteen books on writing and editing behind him, Roy Peter Clark's passion for writing is well known. For those who don't know him personally, however, the title of this book should hint at the whimsy. There really aren't many people who can make a 294-page discussion of grammar fun, mysterious, and magical, but the Poynter Institute's longtime oracle of all things wordish does it by reminding us of the power and magic of language.Putting the glamour back into grammar is Clark's goal. Wordsmiths already know the joy of language (as Clark discusses in his first chapter, reading dictionaries is fun), but not everyone may recognize the etymological connection between "grammar" and "glamour.""Was there ever in the popular imagination a word less glamourous than grammar?" Clark asks, turning to the Oxford English Dictionary for explanation: "The bridge between glamour and grammar is magic," he finds. "According to the OED, glamour evolved from grammar through an ancient association between learning and enchantment." Once, grammar was not just about language and, eventually, writing, he says, but all forms of learning, including "magic, alchemy, astrology, even witchcraft."Good enough. It's not about rules, then. Let's consider grammar the incantation to invoke the magic of language, and see that punctuation, syntax, usage, spacing, pacing, and the rest all are the ingredients to make the magic work.The central ingredients, of course, are words, but Clark urges writers not to bog down in rigid convention. Sure, spelling counts because comprehension matters, but "learn seven ways to invent words" to make use of their music, he suggests; crossdress parts of speech, and spend some time in a thesaurus-"a word from the Greek that means 'treasury.'"Clark's passion for his craftalso turns even the smallest elements of language into powerful alchemy-he spends a fifty-page chapter on "Points," the traffic signals of sentences that Clark calls "the ligaments of meaning and purpose." The man can wax poetic-and convincingly-about periods! The full stop is a rhythmic device in language and in writing, after all, reminding us that writing is language, after all-an aural art that must be heard like music in order to be understood and appreciated. Short sentences, Clark suggests. Slow the reader. Build suspense. Magnify emotion.Of the many disconnects between the too-often estranged wordsters in English classrooms and journalistic newsrooms, perhaps none is as focused as the use of the comma. Leave aside dependent clauses and wasteful strings of modifiers (the road to hell is paved with adverbs)-what about a comma before "and"? …

The 1,328 newspaper journalists responding to a national study place “inept managers” atop a list of reasons they think the industry is losing talent. “Bad managers have disillusioned more journalists than I can count,” one reporter said, “and I don't see the industry doing anything about it.”

There are painfully few nonwhites among the ranks of top newspaper executives. Those who have survived in the business long enough to become assistant managing editors or higher frankly discuss the barriers they encountered on the way up, and the blows that knocked some minority colleagues off the ladder.

* 'Sky ful of Lies' and Black Swans: The New Tyranny of Shifting Information Power in Crises. Nik Gowing. Oxford, UK: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2009. 84 pp. £13 pbk. Free download from http: / / reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/ publications /risj.html. Nik Gowing's career as a media professional, pundit, and scholar gives his insights into how news works considerable credibility. In this 2009 paper for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the longtime BBC commentator wonders and wanders through new media's impact on public policy, and ponders "the new fragility and brittleness" of social institutions. Are government, military, and corporate bosses powerless or ineffectual when what Gowing calls "fast proliferating and almost ubiquitous breed of 'information doers'" can set and frame the debate before the institutions of power can in gear? Perhaps, but Gowing himself falls victim to this phenomenon. The veteran newsman's insights suffer in this case from the inabuity of traditional publishing to get him into print before the "urn, duh" response to his analysis kicks in. As he worries about the impact of new technologies and real-time commentary, the "information doers" have already, well, done it. The value of Gowing's thoughts developed over his impressive news career resides not in his perspectives, but in noting how "the new tyranny of shifting information power" got there before him. "Black Swan Theory" refers to unexpected events that change the world before the powers that be can react to head off media reports that may be "skyfuls of Ues." Gowing worries that such events and, perhaps more important, the new realities of instant communication, make message management by governments, social and corporate leaders - and traditional media - impotent. "Empowered by current, cheap, lightweight, 'go anywhere' technologies, ['information doers'] have an unprecedented mass ability to bear witness," Gowing writes. "The result is a matrix of real-time information flows that challenges the inadequacy oi the structures oi power to respond with effective impact and in a timely way." As any old-time journalist knows, being first and being right are crucial to the social role of the press as an influential thought-leader and player in the larger society. In this case, Gowing is right, but not first. In this essay, Gowing concludes that news can turn our lives upside-down, and that traditional institutions - governmental, political, corporate, educational - are too far behind the gentle curving flight of swans, black or otherwise. "[T]he new real-time media realities are harsh," Gowing observes. "But once understood the nature of the solutions is a 'no-brainer.'" Given that this is such a no-brainer, it is a wonder that so much effort was required to outline the nature of the proposed solutions. As a major U.S. TV network once proposed in an advertising campaign for summer reruns, if you haven't seen it (or thought about it), it's new to you. …

An examination of news content about minorities in the Columbus Dispatch finds little change in amount of coverage between 1965 – three years before the Kemer Commission Report-and 1987 but some improvement in the kind and tone of minority coverage.

A survey of Newspaper Division members of AEJMC provided some insights about how journalism educators work with the newspaper industry in a variety of specialities. Although not a generalizable survey, the study suggests educators should inform the industry better about services that can be rendered and should take the initiative in establishing contacts. A list of educators who work newspapers, categorized by activities, is provided.