• Foremost is the change in title to “Writing and Reporting for the Media” from “Reporting for the Media.” We think the new title accurately reflects the objectives of the book for developing the abilities of journalism students to gather an evaluate information and to present it in a clear and interesting manner.
• The book contains two entirely new chapters. The first of these is Chapter 14, “Visual Journalism,” which explains the basics of what journalists entering today’s job market will have to do to create video and audio content, incorporating it in news stories for delivery over the Web. The second is Chapter 19, “Introduction to Investigative Reporting,” which explores how to begin developing skills in an essential aspect of American journalism. The chapter on investigative reporting replaces the old “Advanced Reporting” chapter.
• The chapter on grammar and spelling has been revised and combined with Chapter 4, “The Language of News.” The discussion of the parts of speech has been greatly condensed while the treatment of basic grammatical errors has been expanded.
• The chapter “Selecting and Reporting the News” has been moved earlier in the book. The discussion of news judgment was considered so basic to a news writing and reporting class that it should come as early as possible in the book.
• The book contains many more visual elements. The number of photographs, information graphics and cartoons has been greatly expanded, and many of those visual elements are in full color.
• The text for nearly every chapter has been revised and rearranged to create more entry points to the text and break up the long columns of gray type. A number of sidebars have been created for most chapters. Often these sidebars have information that was in the text previously but which seemed to interrupt the flow of the presentation of major ideas. In other cases, the sidebars have information that is new to the book.
• The text is shorter by nearly 20 percent. Every chapter has been trimmed. This keeps every chapter more tightly focused on key concepts and it helps lower the cost of the book so as to keep it affordable for students.
• The Web presence (www.oup.com/us/bender) for the book has been expanded. The Web site includes many new and old exercises. Some of the exercises are self-graded so that instructors can have their students complete them online and then download the scores to their computers or to course management software.
• The summary of the AP Stylebook is being published as a separate pamphlet and packaged with the textbook. This was a late addition to the 10th edition, but it proved popular and will be retained for this and future editions.
• New and updated examples have been added throughout the book. Many of these examples deal with news events that have occurred since the writing of the tenth edition, such as the Boston Marathon bombing and the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
• New columns have been written specifically for this book. Paula Lavigne, an investigative reporter for ESPN, has written a column on developing story ideas, and Andrew Nelson, a reporter with the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, offers some tips on covering the police beat. The book retains a number of columns on writing by Joe Hight, editor of the Colorado Springs (Colo.) Gazette, and columns on reporting by Don Stacom of the Hartford (Conn.) Courant. New photographs and illustrations have been added, some to chapters that had no illustrations in the past.