STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
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Tendentious arguments for why journalism still matters
CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity
The bard mourns the loss of comrades and troubadours, and looks for consolation with Black Country Jess
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, Parthenope, Where Dragons Live and Thunderbolts* reviewed by MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE
Why Journalism Still Matters
by Michael Schudson
(Polity, £15.99)
MICHAEL SCHUDSON is a professor at the Columbia School for Journalism and his book is very much a reflection of a US-oriented discourse.
He argues that journalism is essential for a functioning democracy — undoubtedly true in principle — and sees “professional” journalists as akin to medical practitioners who take the Hippocratic oath. They are individuals with a higher calling, somehow apart from the general public in pursuing unadorned truth and disavowing their own prejudices in that pursuit.
Journalism, he asserts, is as “important as an institution of organised scepticism that is central to democratic governance today,” although he feels that the term democracy could better be understood as “liberal democracy.”
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