Media Studies
Book Details

Death, Sex and Money

Life Inside a Newspaper

Michael Young

Death, Sex and Money will take you behind a newspaper's news desk, and afford you a glimpse into the frenetic world of newspaper journalism.

Opinion

‘I think I am misquoting Otto von Bismarck when I say: “Those who love sausages and the law should not watch either being made”. Well, this book is a look at how newspapers are made . . . Not all will agree with some interpretations-I know I don't!-but I personally found it compelling reading.’
Peter FitzSimons

About this Title

What was it like being at the news desk on the evening of September 11 2001? Or when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry in February 2003? Or when the tsunami hit on Boxing Day 2004?

Death, Sex and Money is an open window into the frenetic world of journalism, and how editors fill the pages of a newspaper every day.
Veteran journalist Michael Young takes readers behind the masthead to reveal the players involved in writing, editing and producing the modern newspaper. Experience life at a chaotic news desk, and see first-hand how news is collected and the big stories covered.

What emerges is the changing definition of news, and how newspapers have had to adapt to the twenty-first century in the ever-present shadow of the internet, blogs and citizen journalism, shrinking formats and falling circulation.

Death, Sex and Money features interviews with many of Australia's and the UK's leading newspaper editors, who elucidate the demands of a daily deadline, and reveal how they handle questions of ethics, spin and public relations.

Entertaining, well-researched and informative, Death, Sex and Money will make you look at your morning paper through new eyes.

Table of Contents

Author's Note
Prologue
Introduction
1 September 11 2001
2 The players
3 Tally ho! The hunt begins
4 Editorial conference
5 Covering the big stories
6 What drives newspapers?
7 The history of newspapers
8 New media-is it a threat?
9 The future is tabloid
10 Spin and PR-manipulating the media
Epilogue
Notes
Select References
Acknowledgements

About the Author

Michael Young is a freelance media consultant who has worked in the newspaper industry for more than thirty years in London and Australia. He was a journalist at The Times in London, and was one of the founding editors of the award-winning The Times Saturday Review magazine, and its pictorial editor.

In 1991 he moved to Australia where he now lives and works. He was Associate Editor of Melbourne's Herald Sun and for seven years pictorial editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. He is the author of the Guide to the Botanical Gardens of Great Britain and is a mature graduate of both the University of London (History of Art) and the Open University (Humanities).

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978-0-522-85344-5