Our next News Book Club read is ‘The View from Somewhere’

So it turns out we were trendsetters in this whole Zoom book club thing. hope you and your families are all staying safe and healthy. 

Thanks to everyone who joined us last week for our discussion of solutions-focused approaches to covering the ongoing coronavirus crisis. I’ve included a brief summary with links to some resources that were mentioned during the conversation here. (For even more resources, please visit lenfestinstitute.org/coronavirus.) 

I’m excited to announce our next book club read: “The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity” by Lewis Raven Wallace. The best part is that Lewis will be joining us for the conversation. 

Lewis’ book details how “journalists have never been mere passive observers—the choices they make reflect worldviews tinted by race, class, gender, and geography. He upholds the centrality of facts and the necessary discipline of verification but argues against the long-held standard of ‘objective’ media coverage that asks journalists to claim they are without bias.”

I can hardly think of a more timely and relevant book to read given the current state of the world. 

The discussion with Lewis will be hosted by Jenna Spinelle, communications specialist for the McCourtney Institute for Democracy. 

We’ll be meeting on Friday April 24 at 1pm EDT on Zoom. You can add the meeting to your Google calendar here. Also please feel free to join our Slack channel or discuss the book on Twitter with #NewsBookClub. 

I hope you’ll purchase your copy of “The View from Somewhere” from your local bookstore. (I ordered mine from The Ivy, here in Baltimore.) If you’re unable to purchase or prefer audio content, Lewis created a 10-part narrative podcast covering the same themes discussed in the book. Feel free to listen to the podcast and join us. 

I’m looking forward to reading with everyone.