Journalism List: Personal Favorites.

I recently spoke at an ACLE session at my undergraduate alma mater, UP Mass Comm a pinch-hitter for my boss. I thought the invite was for me to give an update on the Maguindanao massacre case; instead I found myself talking to students half my age about my former life as a journalist, and what I thought they should be reading to prepare themselves for such a demanding profession (predictably, none of them seemed to have read or heard about any of the authors I mentioned at the talk). After the talk, I decided to make a list of the books on journalism I thought any journalism student should read. The list is only of foreign authors (most of them American). A good number are memoirs written by journalism greats and they are valuable for the insights they give on the nature of journalism as a profession. The others are anthologies of reportage. I added two books written on what it means to have a free press the first was by a lawyer who argued before the US Supreme Court a landmark case on free speech and the second, by a long-time justice reporter for the New York Times, who covered the same case and wrote an important book about it. There is one work of fiction by a British novelist who at one time worked as a war correspondent in Ethiopia. His novel was a thinly-disguised account of his experiences there. Another book is by an Italian radical whose work presents a nice counter-point to the liberal democratic perspective that dominates thinking on journalism. I only included books I have in my personal library, acquired for the most part in nearly two decades of raiding used book shops from all over the place. In the next few days, Ill probably add more to this list, as the ones included here are what I can remember for now. I am sorry to say my collection of Filipiniana on journalism is rather slim but I just might later on make a separate list for Filipino works. Vincent Sheean, Personal History Theodore White, In Search of History: A Personal Adventure Harrison Salisbury, A Time of Change Philip Knightley, The First Casualty Reporting, Lillian Ross Reporting Back, Lillian Ross Dispatches, Michael Herr The World of Jimmy Breslin Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You that tomorrow we will be killed with our families Pete Hamill, News is A Verb: Journalism at the end of the 20th century Pete Hamill, A Drinking Life William Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of A Foreign Correspondent Ben Bagdikian, Double Vision H.L. Mencken, Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work: A Memoir Martha Gellhorn, Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir Evelyn Waugh, Scoop John Hersey, Hiroshima Lincoln Steffens. "The Shame of the Cities." 1902-1904

John Reed. Ten Days That Shook the World. James Agee and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men John McPhee. The John McPhee Reader. Russel Baker, Growing Up Hannah Arendt. Eichmann in Jerusalem. Norman Mailer. The Armies of the Night. Joan Didion. Slouching Towards Bethlehem I.F. Stone, The Best of I.F. Stone An American Album: One Hundred Fifty Years of Harpers Magazine Floyd Abrams, Speaking Freely: The Trials of the First Amendment Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks Michael Ignatieff, The Warriors Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience Robert Coles, Children of Crisis Robert Coles, The Call of Stories and the Moral Imagination Granta Magazine Issue No. 53 (News) Granta Magazine Issue No. 58 (Ambition) Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking Gary Wills, Lead Time: A Journalists Education St. Augustine, Confessions Richard Selzer, Mortal Lessons Flannerry O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli Czeslaw Milosz, To Begin Where I Am