Chapter 1. WHAT IS NEWS?

"News is what I say it is."

David Brinkley, former network anchor

Julius Caesar created the world's first newspaper in the year 59 bc. The Acta Diurna, or Daily Doings, was posted on walls across Rome. Its purpose was to keep the Roman senate under scrutiny. We've gone from walls to Web logs, but reporters still hold people accountable, only now they do it through TV, magazines, newspapers, satellite radio, and the Internet. Today, anyone anywhere can generate news and share information. This convenience comes at a price, however. Research on the run only gets it right some of the time, and truth and perspective become casualties of reporting. "The newspaper that drops on your doorstep is a partial, hasty, incomplete, inevitably ...

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