The Newsletter

A handy, concise guide to a large amount of practical information. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A National Book Award-winning journalist offers a critical look at American press coverage, explaining how the various media have a destructive impact on Americans' involvement in the political process. Reprint. 40,000 first printing. Tour.

How do you grow your business when you don't have a marketing budget? How do you stand out in a busy world? And what if the answer is right in front of you? 'For me, the newsletter is the most important tool I have in building a global denim brand. Second only to the sewing machine.' So writes entrepreneur David Hieatt who has based his entire marketing strategy around a simple email newsletter. And it's worked. His company has grown into a creative global jeans business with a fiercely loyal community. Now, David shares his insight, strategy and methodology so you can do the same. In Do Open you will discover: Why giving is your secret to success How to get people's attention when time is your biggest competitor Why creating beats sharing How a small team can win Build community. Build your brand. Build long-term growth. Discover why the humble newsletter is pure and utter gold.

Prepare to be shocked. From the man The Wall Street Journal hailed as a "Swiftean satirist" comes the most shocking book ever written! The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers, by award-winning fake journalist Andy Borowitz, contains page after page of "news stories" too hot, too controversial, too -- yes, shocking -- for the mainstream press to handle. Sample the groundbreaking reporting from the news organization whose motto is "Give us thirty minutes -- we'll waste it."

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER From one of our greatest voices in modern philosophy, author of The Course of Love, The Consolations of Philosophy, Religion for Atheists and The School of Life - an accessible and eye-opening exploration of our relationship with 'the news' 'His gift is to prompt us to think about how we live and how we might change things' The Times 'De Botton analyses modern society with great charm, learning and humour. His remedies come as a welcome relief' Daily Mail 'Like all classic de Botton, there are plenty of insightful observations here, peppered with some psychology, a dash of philosophy, a big dollop of commonsense' Scotsman 'The news' occupies a range of manic and peculiar positions in our lives. We invest it with an authority and importance which used to be the preserve of religion - but what does it do for us? Mixing current affairs with philosophical reflections, de Botton offers a brilliant illustrated guide to the precautions we should take before venturing anywhere near the news and the 'noise' it generates. Witty and global in reach, The News will ensure you'll never look at reports of a celebrity story or political scandal in quite the same way again.

That market forces drive the news is not news. Whether a story appears in print, on television, or on the Internet depends on who is interested, its value to advertisers, the costs of assembling the details, and competitors' products. But in All the News That's Fit to Sell, economist James Hamilton shows just how this happens. Furthermore, many complaints about journalism--media bias, soft news, and pundits as celebrities--arise from the impact of this economic logic on news judgments. This is the first book to develop an economic theory of news, analyze evidence across a wide range of media markets on how incentives affect news content, and offer policy conclusions. Media bias, for instance, was long a staple of the news. Hamilton's analysis of newspapers from 1870 to 1900 reveals how nonpartisan reporting became the norm. A hundred years later, some partisan elements reemerged as, for example, evening news broadcasts tried to retain young female viewers with stories aimed at their (Democratic) political interests. Examination of story selection on the network evening news programs from 1969 to 1998 shows how cable competition, deregulation, and ownership changes encouraged a shift from hard news about politics toward more soft news about entertainers. Hamilton concludes by calling for lower costs of access to government information, a greater role for nonprofits in funding journalism, the development of norms that stress hard news reporting, and the defining of digital and Internet property rights to encourage the flow of news. Ultimately, this book shows that by more fully understanding the economics behind the news, we will be better positioned to ensure that the news serves the public good.

An imaginative, thought-provoking gift book to awaken your senses and attune them to the things that matter in your life. Welcome to the era of white noise. Our lives are in constant tether to phones, to email, and to social media. In this age of distraction, the ability to experience and be present is often lost: to think and to see and to listen. Enter Rob Walker's The Art of Noticing. This gorgeously illustrated volume will spark your creativity--and most importantly, help you see the world anew. Through a series of simple and playful exercises--131 of them--Walker maps ways for you to become a clearer thinker, a better listener, a more creative workplace colleague and finally, to rediscover your sense of passion and to notice what really matters to you.

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.