RECOMMENDED BOOKS, ARTICLES
AND WEB SITES
Updated: 9-2011
Alphabetized List -- Journalists in Television
TELEVISION
Alley, Robert S. and Irby B. Brown, Love Is All Around: The Making of the Mary Tyler Moore Show (a Delta Book published by Dell Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc., New York, 1989, 235 pages paperback). The same authors also wrote Murphy Brown: Anatomy of a Sitcom (Dell, 1990, 304 pages). Each book discusses the making of the television programs "from original idea to script, casting and pilot." Plot summaries included.
Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present, Seventh Edition, completely revised and updated, Ballantine Books, New York, 1999, 1392 pages. This is a comprehensive book covering all the prime time network television programs including ones featuring journalists.
Daniel Douglass K., Lou Grant: The Making of TV's Top Newspaper Drama (Syracuse University Press, 1996) explores the history of the medium's most-respected journalism series and how it depicted the profession. It contains an overview of journalism dramas up to the debut of Lou Grant as well as a synopsis of each of the 114 episodes that aired from 1977-1982.
McMane, Aralynn Ann Abare, "Hello, Handsome, Get Me Rewrite: Toward an Understanding of the Portrayal of the Female Journalist in Film and on Television." 1991.
Meehan, Diana,Ladies of the Evening: Women Characters of Prime-Time Television, The Scarecrow Press, 1983, 192 pages.
Ragovin, Ashley, N Is for News: The Image of the Journalist on Sesame Street, The IJPC Journal, Volume 2, Fall 2010, pp. 34-85. This article examines the children’s television show Sesame Street, and how its portrayal of news potentially affects children’s perception of the news media. Specifically, the research focuses on the “News Flash,” a recurring segment that mimics the format of adult television news. Based upon a viewing of every “News Flash” segment since the show’s inception, the skits were compared to the vast array of common stereotypes of the journalist in popular culture, primarily film and television. This article demonstrates how such stereotypes of the TV reporter and general conventions of television news are communicated to a large audience of young viewers through its unique format, why Sesame Street is an exception to the general rule of pop culture’s negative portrayal of the media, and what the implications of these images and messages are for the program’s young audience.
Ryan, Joal, "Lou Grant Made Me Do It (How Hollywood Portrayals of Reporters Affect Budding Journalists," American Journalism Review, November 1996, Volume 18, Number 9, Page 13. Sympathetic portrayals of journalists in motion pictures such as All the President's Men and on television series such as Lou Grant often inspire budding reporters to seek careers in journalism. Although Hollywood's depictions of the profession may not be realistic, they do not necessarily lead to disillusionment later on. Three journalists describe the way such portrayals influenced their career choices and how they have successfully adapted their glamorous expectations to the real world of journalism.