Journalism

Jim Willis is associate professor of Journalism at Ball State University and is an Indianapolis-based consultant to the media. A veteran of 12 years in newspapers, Willis is a former editor at the Dallas Morning News and reporter at the Daily Oklahoman, and he holds the PhD in journalism from the University of Missouri. His first book, Surviving in the Newspaper Business, appeared in 1988.

Willis (Ball State University) has produced a useful guide to research on journalistic issues such as ethics, advertising, sources, readership, and polling. . . . As a scholar who has worked as a newspaper editor, Willis is convincing about the need to link the academy and the vineyard. In his prologue and epilogue, he clearly—often eloquently—makes the case for more communication, trust, and respect between thinkers and doers. Yet the eight chapters forming the heart of the book might do little to promote his cause. In essence, they summarize dozens of articles that appeared in the 1980s in two prominent research forums, Journalism Quarterly and Newspaper Research Journal, and arrange the summaries according to theme. This approach has produced a useful compendium, but at the expense of synthesis, analysis, a strong authorial voice, and, yes, the passion and human interest so necessary to books aimed at building bridges. Levels: graduate and upper-division undergraduate.

• PrefacePrologue: The River and the Plain: The Context of Journalistic ResearchThe Journalist according to ResearchLaw, Ethics, and the JournalistPredictors of Readership and ViewershipJournalists and SourcesPolling and Precision JournalismAdvertising in the 1980sMedia Effects on the PublicElectronic Publishing and Other WondersEpilogue: Researchers, Journalists and the FeudSelected BibliographyIndex