The 2 Best New Books in Journalism Podcast Episodes
1) Jodie Jackson, “You Are What You Read: Why Changing Your Media Diet Can Change The World” (Unbound, 2019)
The old mantra “if it bleeds it leads” is alive and well in today’s media landscape. In fact, social media and up-to-the-second news have made it easier than ever to ingest a constant stream of inform...Show More
2) Ruth Palmer, "Becoming the News: How Ordinary People Respond to the Media Spotlight" (Columbia UP, 2017)
In her book, Becoming the News: How Ordinary People Respond to the Media Spotlight (Columbia University Press, 2017), Ruth Palmer argues that understanding the motivations and experiences of those who...Show More
3) Brooke Kroeger, "Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism" (Knopf, 2023)
Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism (Knopf, 2023) is a representative history of the American women who surmounted every impediment put in their way to do journalism's most valued work. F...Show More
4) Jeff Jarvis, "Magazine" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
For a century, magazines were the authors of culture and taste, of intelligence and policy - until they were overthrown by the voices of the public themselves online. Magazine (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Je...Show More
5) Richard Bradford, "Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, firstly in 1969 for The Armies of the Night and again in 1980 for The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's life comes as close as is possible to being the Great Amer...Show More
Richard Bradford, "Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
1:12:09 | Dec 29th, 2025
6) Trymaine Lee, "A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America" (St. Martins, 2025)
A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her daddy why, he realized that to answer her honestly, he had t...Show More
7) Kwame Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism’s High Tide: A Conversation with Howard W. French
The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide (Liveright, 2025), the second work in a trilogy from best-selling author Howard W. French about Africa's pivotal rol...Show More
Kwame Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism’s High Tide: A Conversation with Howard W. French
48:17 | Dec 20th, 2025
8) Terry Kirby, "The Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism" (Reaktion Books, 2024)
The Newsmongers unfolds the seedy history of tabloid journalism, from the first printed ‘Strange Newes’ sheets of the sixteenth century to the sensationalism of today’s digital age. The narrative weav...Show More
9) Hannah Frydman, "Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising, and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising, and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France (Cornell UP, 2025) by Dr. Hannah Frydman reveals a space, hidden in plain sight in Third Republi...Show More
10) Aaron Smale, "Tairāwhiti: Pine, Profit and the Cyclone" (Bridget Williams, 2024)
"The Coast has been battered for years by decisions made by those who don’t live there and don’t have any connection to the place. It started early." Based on his investigative Newsroom series, Aaron...Show More
Aaron Smale, "Tairāwhiti: Pine, Profit and the Cyclone" (Bridget Williams, 2024)
44:44 | Dec 9th, 2025