Abstract
As the introduction promises, this book is a reference guide for students of both journalism and public relations. The newswriting section, which occupies the first two-thirds of this book, chiefly speaks to print journalists looking for instruction on legacy print techniques. The authors divide Working the Story into 32 chapters. Although the book is not actually organized into sections, the chapters are arranged into noticeable groups. Each of the 32 chapters begins with a mission statement; the main takeaway for each concept presented.
The first nine chapters of Working the Story introduce the reader to the newswriting community. These chapters expose readers to news history and to governmental protections, as well as to the basic norms and routines of legacy print journalists. Chapters 10 to 17 outline strategies and expectations for covering specific news topics in a series of how-tos. Chapters 18 to 21 present writing advice for topics not related to specific events such as art critique, feature writing, and column writing. The authors then address public relations writers in Chapters 22 to 30, including a chapter on crisis communication. Chapter 31 provides the bookend to the introductory section, with thoughts on where the news industry is headed. The concluding Chapter 32 continues to look to the future with advice to students on finding a job.
The authors of Working the Story deliver on the promise to provide a reference guide for media writers. The brief chapters outline the basics of news coverage and press release writing in a traditional manner that remains helpful across platforms for understanding foundational newswriting. However, today’s journalism and public relations students and teachers need more than a guide for legacy media writing as those techniques are now practically applied in a modern world of multi-screen production and trans-media consumption.
Much of the language in this text appears to have been written many years prior to its publication. Chapter 7, for example, references an increased number of “personal computers” (p. 50) in homes and offices. This description is anachronistic in 2016. Even before this, the chapter begins with a problematic premise: the mission statement that reads, “Writing for the Web is merely a change in the medium, from paper to the screen, so, despite all the talk, writing does not change” (p. 50). This is simply untrue today. Scientists repeatedly demonstrate the significance of presentation on attention, memory, and political behavior, and journalists have adjusted their attitudes accordingly, no longer transferring shovelware from analogue to digital forms. This chapter also ignores the widespread consumption of news via smartphone and tablet. Indeed, the authors dedicate two of the only four pages in this chapter (titled “How to Write for the Internet,” as opposed to the web) to choosing a font.
Similarly, Chapter 19, titled “How to Write a Column or a Blog,” looks as though the authors included blog writing as an afterthought. Even though the chapter title implies that it will include instruction on blog writing, the authors dedicate exactly one paragraph to that topic. That paragraph defines blogs as opinion columns that are posted online, saying that the “major difference is that blogs may use the first-person singular” (p. 162).
Web writing aside, this book contains outdated language in the legacy print chapters as well. In Chapter 3, titled “How to Gather Information,” the authors advise students to openly embrace gender stereotypes when ingratiating themselves to a news source. The chapter recommends that journalists approach a source’s secretary (an outdated word in and of itself) with the understanding that a female secretary will want to be complimented on her appearance while male secretaries will want to talk about “something manly” (p. 11) such as sports. In fact, the authors go so far as to assume that the journalism student reading this book will also be male, and a straight male at that, predicting that he could be nervous addressing a female secretary altogether.
Two people who are clearly passionate about media writing and who have obviously dedicated much of their lives to media writing wrote this book. Their desire to pass the torch to a new generation of journalists and public relations professionals is obvious from the first sentences of the book’s introduction. This is an honorable endeavor in a time when journalism schools across the country are moving quickly to revise curricula and syllabi with each technological adoption by the news industry. However, a modern reference guide to legacy newswriting still needs to be that: modern.