Over the course of a thirty-year career, Samuel Freedman has excelled both at doing journalism and teaching it, and he passionately engages both of these endeavors in the pages of this book. As an author and journalist, Freedman has produced award-winning books, investigative series, opinion columns, and feature stories and has become a specialist in a wide variety of fields. As a teacher, he has shared his expertise and experience with hundreds of students, who have gone on to succeed in both print and broadcast media. In Letters to a Young Journalist , Freedman conducts an extended conversation with young journalists-from kids on the high school paper to graduates starting their first jobs. Whether he's talking about radio documentaries or TV news shows, Internet blogs, or backwater beats, shoeleather research or elegant prose, his goal is to explore the habits of mind that make an excellent journalist. It is no secret that journalism's mission is seriously imperiled these days, and Freedman's provocative ideas and fascinating stories offer students and journalists at all levels of experience wise guidance and professional inspiration. Adult/High School–Freedman began his 30-year career by covering municipal meetings in northern New Jersey. He went on to write books, teach at Columbia, and become a columnist for the New York Times . Letters is not simply his reminiscences, nor is it a screed about the decline of journalism, though he lets his feelings about certain publishers be known. The book is fundamentally a manual that addresses how to be a journalist and how to succeed in the business. The authors experiences writing, reporting, and teaching allow him to compare different approaches to the newspaper business and to give suggestions for newcomers to the field. He offers valuable advice based on his experiences and the collective wisdom of his colleagues, including the need to adhere to such standards as trust, accuracy, and relevancy. Aspiring journalists can profit from this concise and purposeful guide. –Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Former New York Times reporter and Columbia University journalism professor Freedman offers a frank, heartfelt look at the practice of American journalism. He recalls his own achievements and shortcomings over a long career as well as other great and not so great moments in American journalism: Nick Ut, who photographed the Vietnamese girl running naked after a napalm attack and later took the girl to the hospital; a freelancer who photographed a Sudanese toddler collapsing near a feeding station and did nothing for the child; and a journalism student whose coverage of firemen after the 9/11 attack led to a book. Drawing on conversations with students, other reporters, and editors, Freedman speaks very directly and personally, offering encouragement with equal portions of reality about the state of modern journalism from corporate influences to the blurring of lines between truth and propaganda. Noting that the current lack of popularity of journalism will drive out the uncommitted, Freedman devotes his message to those who continue to believe in the value and necessity of a free press. Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Samuel G. Freedman has been working as a journalist or teaching the craft for over thirty years. He is the author of five books, and his work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and for the National Book Award, and winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Freedman is a professor of journalism at Columbia University's School of Journalism and a columnist for the New York Times . He lives in New York City.