Big Picture; Democracy and Journalistic Excellence

The Big Picture explores the important and problematic frontier between media and democracy. Jeffery Scheurer, author of The Sound Bite Society (Routledge, 2001), argues that the profit motive driving journalism today has compromised its institutional responsibility to democracy. Scheuer contends that the three basic maxims of journalistic excellence--truth, context, and independence--are incompatible with modern commercial media. The book looks back at important historical developments in the understanding of how journalism relates to democracy, and then argues how journalism might seek to reform itself by fighting for its independence from commercial power. This is a passionate book of media criticism in the tradition of James Carey and Robert Mc Chesney. It will appeal to a similar audience of journalists, journalism students and educators, and scholars and students of politics and media/communication.Scheuer, Jeffrey is the author of 'Big Picture; Democracy and Journalistic Excellence ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415976176 and ISBN 0415976170.