by Robert Waterman McChesney. McChesney (communications, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Rich Media, Poor Democracy) and Nation Washington correspondent Nichols (Dick: The Man Who Is President) join the current conversations on the crisis in journalism with a provocative proposal for a public intervention to rescue the press. First, they cover familiar ground in their analysis of the current crisis and the history of government-press relations. In the book's last third, they break new ground by advocating that the government intervene with a four-part plan to sustain journalism as a transition is planned, convert newspapers into "post-corporate" digital formats, transform public broadcasting into "world-class" democratic media, and spawn competitive news-media on the Internet. Strategies to accomplish this include subsidizing postage, creating a journalism division of AmeriCorps, and funding both high school news media and independent Internet journalism. With a $35-billion price tag, these proposals are bound to be controversial, especially to those who value the idea of an adversarial relationship between the press and government. Verdict This well-written and thought-provoking book is sure to spark heated debate within the journalism community. --Library Journal.
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