Media Contact: Victor Gulotta, 617-630-9286, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

If the price of democracy is eternal vigilance, then it also demands free and robust journalism.   The quality of a nation’s democracy is intricately bound up with the quality of its news, a premise that Jeffrey Scheuer explores with keen insight in his eye-opening and even inspiring new book, THE BIG PICTURE: WHY DEMOCRACIES NEED JOURNALISTIC EXCELLENCE (Routledge, paper, $24.95).

Scheuer, praised by National Public Radio’s Daniel Schorr as “a first rank scholar and philosopher of the media,” and author of the highly-acclaimed study of television and politics, The Sound Bite Society, now trains his analytical talents on two of our most fundamental institutions: the democratic process and the press.

If that sounds like an old theme, get ready for one of the most exhilarating intellectual rides you’re likely to take this year.  To read THE BIG PICTURE is to gain a deepened understanding of what democracy is, what it requires, and what it means as a form of social organization.  It’s also to gain an appreciation of the power of good journalism to make democracies take off and soar.

The larger context of THE BIG PICTURE is the widely-noted decline in the quality of traditional journalism in a society awash in images and commercial entertainment.  “The collapse of viable journalism is one of the dominant features of our times,” says Robert W. McChesney, author of The U.S. News Media and World War III and Communication Revolution.  “It cannot be permitted to continue without dire consequences for our politics and society.  Jeffrey Scheuer makes the case for journalism as brilliantly as anyone ever has.  If you’re looking for one book to put the matter in context, this beautifully written book is it.”

Scheuer, whose criticism and commentary has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and many other publications, uses his critical and analytic talent like a watering can.  He prepares the ground, and suddenly a new way of seeing democracy and journalism’s place in it blooms in your mind.  Reading Scheuer, one is privy to the thoughts of a macro-pundit who can show you the forest along with the trees.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT ENOUGH!

Scheuer reasons as follows: without journalism, democracy is all but inconceivable.  Accordingly, the better the quality of journalism, the better the quality of the democracy.  From this starting point, THE BIG PICTURE takes us on an intellectually exhilarating journey, with enjoyable layovers on topics such as the nature of excellence, the problems of truth and objectivity, the importance of media criticism, the links between journalism and education, and the controversy surrounding the future of journalism education in particular, offering provocative ideas for reform.  

Along the way, we come to recognize that a free press—while necessary for an open society—doesn’t guarantee a flourishing democracy.  The very measure of democratic life is the quality of citizens’ knowledge and action, and that depends on the quality of journalism.   Suffice it to say that Scheuer shines beams of light that make seemingly abstruse concepts—including the very nature of journalism, democracy,  and scholarship—come dancingly alive, all in a mere 170 pages.  By the end, we have truly seen THE BIG PICTURE.   It is the work of an exceptional writer and thinker, on a subject every journalist—and every citizen—cares about.

Media Contact: Gulotta Communications, Inc.   Victor Gulotta, 617-630-9286, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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Biography

Jeffrey Scheuer is the author of The Sound Bite Society: Television and the American Mind (1999), a Choice “Outstanding Academic Title.”  His commentary and criticism has appeared in many newspapers as well as in Dissent, Nieman Reports, the Potomac Review, the Gettysburg Review, and other publications.  He has taught as an adjunct professor at New York University’s Department of Culture and Communication, and edits a series on “Democracy and the News” for Praeger.  Scheuer holds advanced degrees in political thought (the London School of Economics & Political Science) and journalism (the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism), and lives in New York.  Mr. Scheuer’s Web site is at www.jscheuer.com

Interview Questions

1.    Why has it taken so long for media consolidation to result in such poor journalism?

2.    Can you extrapolate from present trends about what might be the next step in the conflation of news and entertainment?

3.    What’s wrong with letting the market decide what kind of journalism we have?

4.    If democracy is fundamentally egalitarian, shouldn’t we strive to get the most understandable information to the most citizens?  And doesn’t that require writing to the least common denominator?

5.    Which newspapers or other media outlets, if any, still rise to the standards of journalistic greatness?

6.    Where is the best—and the worst—American journalism, and where is it heading?