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) J. Siguru Wahut, "In the Shadow of the Global North: Journalism in Postcolonial Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
In the Shadow of the Global North: Journalism in Postcolonial Africa (Cambridge UP, 2025) unpacks the historical, cultural, and institutional forces that organize and circulate journalistic narratives...Show More
4) Kevin J. Hayes, "Understanding Hunter S. Thompson" (U South Carolina Press, 2025)
Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) pushed the boundaries of storytelling. While the writer is most recognized for the genre-bending work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), in Understanding Hunter S. T...Show More
5) Karen Bartlett, "Escape from Kabul: The Afghan Women Judges Who Fled the Taliban and Those They Left Behind" (New Press, 2025)
In this episode, New Books Network Host Nina Bo Wagner speaks with Karen Bartlett about The Escape From Kabul: A True Story of Sisterhood and Defiance (The New Press and Duckworth, 2025). The book fo...Show More
6) Margaret E. Roberts, "Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall" (Princeton UP, 2020)
We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’ new book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside...Show More
7) Tom Arnold-Forster, "Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025)
From the years before World War I until the late 1960s, the journalist and political theorist Walter Lippmann was one of the most influential writers in the United States of America. His words and id...Show More
8) Vanessa Diaz, "Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood" (Duke UP, 2020)
While Hollywood’s images present a veneer of fantasy for some, the work to create such images is far from escapism. In Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood (Duke ...Show More
9) Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr., "Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune" (Ballantine, 2013)
Bill Dedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and New York Times #1 bestselling author of Empty Mansions, shares the extraordinary story of a reclusive copper heiress, the battle over her...Show More
10) "Assignment Moscow" with author James Rodgers
Is it possible to do independent journalism in today’s Russia? “The short answer is no,” James Rodgers tells me in our conversation about his insightful and scrupulously researched book Assignment Mos...Show More