Media attention can play a profound role in whether or not officials act on a policy issue, but how policy issues make the news in the first place has remained a puzzle. Why do some issues go viral and then just as quickly fall off the radar? How is it that the media can sustain public interest for months in a complex story like negotiations over Obamacare while ignoring other important issues in favor of stories on “balloon boy?” With Making the News, Amber Boydstun offers an eye-opening look at the explosive patterns of media attention that determine which issues are brought before the public. At the heart of her argument is the observation that the media have two modes: an “alarm mode” for breaking stories and a “patrol mode” for covering them in greater depth. While institutional incentives often initiate alarm mode around a story, they also propel news outlets into the watchdog-like patrol mode around its policy implications until the next big news item breaks. What results from this pattern of fixation followed by rapid change is skewed coverage of policy issues, with a few receiving the majority of media attention while others receive none at all. Boydstun documents this systemic explosiveness and skew through analysis of media coverage across policy issues, including in-depth looks at the waxing and waning of coverage around two issues: capital punishment and the “war on terror.” Making the News shows how the seemingly unpredictable day-to-day decisions of the newsroom produce distinct patterns of operation with implications—good and bad—for national politics.

Making News at The New York Times is the first in-depth portrait of the nation’s, if not the world's, premier newspaper in the digital age. It presents a lively chronicle of months spent in the newsroom observing daily conversations, meetings, and journalists at work. We see Page One meetings, articles developed for online and print from start to finish, the creation of ambitious multimedia projects, and the ethical dilemmas posed by social media in the newsroom. Here, the reality of creating news in a 24/7 instant information environment clashes with the storied history of print journalism, and the tensions present a dramatic portrait of news in the online world. This news ethnography brings to bear the overarching value clashes at play in a digital news world. The book argues that emergent news values are reordering the fundamental processes of news production. Immediacy, interactivity, and participation now play a role unlike any time before, creating clashes between old and new. These values emerge from the social practices, pressures, and norms at play inside the newsroom as journalists attempt to negotiate the new demands of their work. Immediacy forces journalists to work in a constant deadline environment, an ASAP world, but one where the vaunted traditions of yesterday's news still appear in the next day's print paper. Interactivity, inspired by the new user-computer directed capacities online and the immersive Web environment, brings new kinds of specialists into the newsroom, but exacts new demands upon the already taxed workflow of traditional journalists. And at time where social media presents the opportunity for new kinds of engagement between the audience and media, business executives hope for branding opportunities while journalists fail to truly interact with their readers.

Making News: A Straight-Shooting Guide to Media Relations is an insider's look at today's changing news media with essential tips for: How to ensure your story will be chosen as today's news How to gain credibility and achieve effective coverage How to better communicate with reporters, editors and producers How to use media coverage to build a distinctive brand image From the perspective of an accomplished expert and with advice from leading journalists, Making News provides a deeper understanding of how the news business functions, how journalists judge the value of a legitimate story and how you can communicate with the media to achieve outstanding results. PRAISE FOR DAVID HENDERSON "Public relations is never as easy as it looks. So you are lucky to be reading this book, for few know PR as well as David Henderson. A skilled correspondent and a gifted man, David knows both sides of the process of delivering a message." -Harry Smith CBS News "David Henderson has worked both sides of the street-as a reporter and an advocate. He has that double advantage of knowing a story and knowing how to sell it." -Richard Serrano Los Angeles Times

This book charts the rise and fall of the newspaper as the primary medium for the conveyance of news. The book focuses on two of the most influential media markets in the modern world-Great Britain and the United States between 1688 and 1995. In 1688, Parliament created institutional arrangements that would hasten the rise of the newspaper as the dominant medium for the circulation of news. In 1995, the National Science Foundation commercialized the Internet, encouraging an astonishing proliferation of information on all manner of topics, including the news. Per capita newspaper circulation had been declining for decades, partly due to shifting social norms, and partly due to the rise of broadcast news. The Internet exacerbated this trend, partly because it provided a cheaper news source, and partly because it quickly became a superior vehicle for advertising, a major source of revenue for newspaper publishers for over two-hundred-years. However, only rarely has advertising revenue and direct sales covered costs. Almost never has the demand for news generated the revenue necessary for its supply. Non-market institutional arrangements have ranged from direct government subsidies to organizational forms that enabled news organizations to cooperate. From a historical perspective, the large profits reaped by a handful of newspaper publishers in the post-Second World War era were anomalous, and in no sense a baseline for public policy. Never again will the newspaper be the dominant news medium. To guarantee an informed citizenry in the future, it is necessary to understand how the news business worked in the past. This book is organized around eight essays-each written by a distinguished specialist, and each explicitly comparative. Its theme is the indispensability in both Great Britain and the United States of non-market institutional arrangements in the provisioning of news.

"Making News: The Ultimate Guide to Handling the Media" is a vital media training resource for executives, leaders and spokespeople. Making News draws on Chris Urquhart's vast experience as a journalist and media trainer to help give you the confidence you need to shine as a spokesperson. Making News helps you understand how journalists work, learn about different styles of interviews, set goals and choose key messages, cope with difficult questions, improve delivery and presentation and get strategies to remain calm and relaxed. The book covers preparation for television, radio, print and online interviews, and includes an easy, five-step plan to prepare for any media interview.

Making News is the story of how the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill grew from a single course in the English department in 1909 to become an international leader in journalism-mass comm

From Simon & Schuster, Making News is Gaye Tuchman's exploration into the study in the construction of reality. The Professor of Sociology at Queens College and City University of New York, Tuchman's latest work is one to cherish. As described by Todd Gitlin of Contemporary Sociology, Making News is "simply the most comprehensive book on the social construction of news by an American sociologist to date."