Market-Driven Journalism : Let the Citizen Beware?

Rating:
Summary: A good explanation of the situation, horrible proposal
Review: McManus writes this book examining local broadcast television news and the influences that impact the news gathering/presentation process.

The book does a good job of showing how marketing influences have become routinized in the process and even does a good job justifying why this is not alarming.

However, when expanded to journalism as a process, McManus's scope loses its focus. He builds a case suggesting that since the marketplace decides what news products can or will survive, a market-driven model will produce the best journalism. The obvious glaring gap in this logic is the assumption that consumers and marketing firms will evaluate journalistic media based solely on journalism standards, and not other over-riding elements, such as entertainment or convenience.

Overall, McManus' book is very sharp at explaining the influences presently affecting local news stations. Despite my obvious disagreement with his ultimate conclusions, I would recommend this book for its literature review and discussion of the environment.

Rating:
Summary: A correction to Mr. Stevens review from the author
Review: With all due respect for Mr. Stevens, the premise of my book is just the opposite of the one he reports. The entire book argues that the market CANNOT be trusted with a commodity like news.