Mark Kelley - Engaging News Media: A Practical Guide for People of Faith

Questions for Reflection and Discussion are built into the text to encourage readers to synthesize what theyve been reading and thinking about and move toward implementing a deeper, more reflective and critical approach to finding truth in news media. See pages 152 and 15960.

Beyond Belief: The American Press And The Coming Of The Holocaust, 19331945 by Deborah E. Lipstadt (Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, 1993).

The author seeks to understand how a disaster of such magnitude as The Holocaust failed to find its way onto the front page of American newspapers and into the public discourse before the Nazis had carried out their genocide against the Jews of Europe. She identifies three major factors that influenced journalistic treatment of reports coming out of Germany and elsewhere: skepticism triggered by the memory of false reports surrounding World War One, a smokescreen of denials issued by both American and German business and political leaders, and the overshadowing effect of American military involvement in World War Two.

God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the War on Terror and the Echoing Press by David Domke (Pluto, 2004).

This book examines how the Bush Administration capitalized on the fear engendered by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to impose a political fundamentalism on America. Domke documents how media (by unquestioning repetition of the government line) helped the executive branch shut down serious conversation about the meaning of the attacks and the direction of the nations response to them.

Mightier Than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped American History by Roger Streitmatter (Westview Press, 1998).

Streitmatter uses fourteen snapshots of American history to illustrate how the performance of news media influenced American values, politics, and the functioning of our society. He applauds the positive contributions of journalists and provides evenhanded criticism of their shortcomings. Readers come away from this book with a clearer understanding of the ebb and flow of journalistic standards of truth telling as the American experiment in democracy unfolded.