News Values

Finding the News tells Peter Copeland's fast-paced story of becoming a distinguished journalist. Starting in Chicago as a night police reporter, Copeland went on to work as a war correspondent in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa before covering national politics in Washington, DC, where he rose to be bureau chief of the E. W. Scripps Company. The lessons he learned about accuracy and fairness during his long career are especially relevant today, given widespread concerns about the performance of the media, potential bias, and the proliferation of so-called "fake news." He offers an honest and revealing narrative, told with surprising humor, about how he learned the craft of news reporting.

“This is an important book, from a global south perspective, on television coverage of South Africa’s post-apartheid general elections. Jones analyses the troubling mismatch between the issues that mattered to the electorate and the issues that mattered in, and to, the media, and explains why this mismatch occurred. She is deeply committed to moving beyond generalisations about media performance, and the limitations of policy and structural analysis. It is a pleasure to read as it is accessible while being academically rigorous, so it will appeal to a wide audience." — Professor Jane Duncan, University of Johannesburg