Tom Rosenstiel

Tom Rosenstiel
OccupationsAuthor, journalist
Known forCo-authoring, with Bill Kovach, The Elements of Journalism

Tom Rosenstiel is an American author, journalist, press critic, researcher and academic.[1] He is the Eleanor Merrill Scholar on the Future of Journalism and a Professor of the Practice at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.[2] He is also a senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. Before joining the faculty at Maryland, he was for nine years the executive director of the American Press Institute, and for 16 years directed media research for the Pew Research Center.[3][4] [5] Rosenstiel is the author of 12 books of fiction and nonfiction.[6]

Education and career

A graduate of Oberlin College[7] and the Columbia School of Journalism,[8] Rosenstiel began his career as a reporter for muckraking political columnist Jack Anderson.[9] He worked at the Peninsula Times Tribune, his hometown paper in Palo Alto, CA, as a business reporter and business editor from 1980 to 1983. He then spent 12 years at the Los Angeles Times, most of those as a media critic and Washington correspondent.[10] He left the Times in 1995 to join Newsweek Magazine. There he served as chief congressional correspondent and covered the Gingrich revolution.[11]

In 1997, he founded the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an institute that studied press performance.[4] [12] [13][14] In 2006, PEJ became one of the five founding initiatives of the Pew Research Center, where Rosenstiel continued to direct the center's media research through 2012.[5]

Rosenstiel also co-founded the Committee of Concerned Journalists, an organization of journalists around the world working in different media concerned about the future of public interest journalism.[4] Rosenstiel directed CCJ's daily activities until 2006.[15] During those years, Rosenstiel was co-author of CCJ's "Traveling Curriculum,"[16] a mid-career education program that trained more than 6,000 U.S. journalists.

In January 2013, Rosenstiel became executive director of the American Press Institute, which was founded in 1946 to train newspaper professionals.[17]

In August 2021, Rosenstiel joined the faculty of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland as the Eleanor Merrill Scholar on the Future of Journalism and a Professor of the Practice.[17][2]

Works

External videos
video icon Booknotes interview with Rosenstiel on Strange Bedfellows, August 8, 1993, C-SPAN
video icon Panel discussion with Rosensteil and Kovach on The Elements of Journalism, June 21, 2001, C-SPAN

In 2001, Rosenstiel co-authored with Bill Kovach the book The Elements of Journalism, which identifies, explains and traces intellectual origins of the core principles of American journalism and their role in civil society.[18] Updated in 2007, in 2013 and again in 2021, Elements has been called "one of five essential books on journalism (Roger Mudd, The Wall Street Journal), a "modern classic" (William Safire, The New York Times) and "the most important book on the relationship of journalism and democracy published in the last 50 years" (Roy Clark, Poynter Institute). Elements is the winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard University,[19] the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for research in journalism and the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism from Pennsylvania State University.[20]

Among his other books on journalism are Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload (2011),[21] also with Kovach, which offers a roadmap for how consumers can determine whether the news they encounter is reliable and an outline for how journalism must change to meet the changing needs of the 21st-century citizen; and The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century, co-edited with Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute (Sage, 2013).[22]

In February 2017, he published his first novel, Shining City, about a Supreme Court nomination battle.[6] His second novel The Good Lie was published in February 2019. [23] His third novel entitled Oppo was published in December 2019, about the campaign for the presidency.[24] His fourth novel, 'The Days To Come' was published in November 2021. All four novels feature the political fixers Peter Rena and Randi Brooks.

He is also the author of The Next Journalism: How the Press Must Change to Serve Democracy, published in August 2026. The book examines how journalism must evolve to address technological disruption and better serve democratic society.[25]

Selected publications

Novels

  • Rosenstiel, Tom (2017) Shining City: A Novel (Ecco HarperCollins)
  • Rosenstiel, Tom (2019) The Good Lie: A Novel (Ecco HarperCollins)
  • Rosenstiel, Tom (2019) Oppo: A Novel (Ecco HarperCollins)
  • Rosenstiel, Tom (2021) The Days To Come: A Novel (Ecco HarperCollins)

Books on journalism

  • Rosenstiel, Tom (1993). Strange Bedfellows: How TV and the Presidential Candidates Changes American Politics, 1992 (Hyperion Press)
  • Rosenstiel, Tom and Bill Kovach (1999). Warp Speed: America in The Age of Mixed Media (Century Foundation).
  • Rosenstiel, Tom and Bill Kovach (2001; 2nd edition 2007 3rd edition 2013, 4th edition 2021). The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (Crown Publishing).
  • Rosenstiel, Tom and Amy S. Mitchell, editors (2003). Thinking Clearly: Cases in Journalistic Decision Making (Columbia University Press).
  • Rosenstiel, Tom and Marion Just, Todd Belt, Atiba Pertilla, Walter Dean and Dante Chinni (2007), We Interrupt This Newscast: How to Improve Local TV and Win Ratings, Too (Cambridge University Press)
  • Rosenstiel, Tom and Bill Kovach (2011), Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload (Bloomsbury). ISBN 978-1608193011
  • Rosenstiel, Tom and Kelly McBride, editors (2013), The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century (Sage).[26]
  • Rosenstiel, Tom (2026). The Next Journalism: How the Press Must Change to Serve Democracy (Crown).

References

  1. ↑ MacPhail, Katherine. "OTC: Tom Rosenstiel, OC '78, Journalist and Fiction Writer". The Oberlin Review. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
  2. 1 2 "Tom Rosenstiel | Philip Merrill College of Journalism". merrill.umd.edu. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
  3. ↑ "Tom Rosenstiel, Author at American Press Institute". American Press Institute. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 "Tom Rosenstiel to leave Pew's PEJ for API". 19 November 2012. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  5. 1 2 "Tom Rosenstiel to leave Pew's PEJ for API". Poynter. 19 November 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  6. 1 2 "'Shining City' stands atop the hill of modern political thrillers". Dallas News. 20 February 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  7. ↑ "I Wasn't A Journalist Major, But..." / Oberlin Alumni Magazine / Fall 2011". oberlin.edu. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  8. ↑ "Columbia News ::: Prominent Journalists, Journalism Faculty, J School Alumni Named for Task Force to Discuss Training Tomorrow's Journalists". www.columbia.edu. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  9. ↑ "All of Anderson's Men (and Women)". www.adweek.com. 19 December 2005. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  10. ↑ Woo, Elaine (23 February 2014). "William F. Thomas dies at 89; former Times chief editor". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Archived from the original on 3 March 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  11. ↑ ROSENSTIEL, TOM (15 January 1995). "What Went Wrong? : George Mitchell, the former Senate Majority Leader, ponders how the Democrats fell so hard while the Republicans prospered. But he has hope for the future—and Clinton's reelection". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  12. ↑ Pardue, Mary Jane (2010). Who Owns the Press?: Investigating Public Vs. Private Ownership of America's Newspapers. Portland.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ↑ "Pew Research Center". www.influencewatch.org. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  14. ↑ "News Coverage Index Methodology". Pew Research Center's Journalism Project. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  15. ↑ "Jeffrey Dvorkin Named New CCJ Executive Director and Goldenson Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism – Missouri School of Journalism". 20 June 2006. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  16. ↑ "Committee of Concerned Journalists". Missouri School of Journalism. 13 July 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  17. 1 2 Team, A. P. I. (14 June 2021). "American Press Institute Executive Director Tom Rosenstiel to Join Faculty at University of Maryland Journalism School". American Press Institute. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
  18. ↑ McGuire, Stryker (29 November 2003). "That's show business". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
  19. ↑ "Goldsmith Book Prize – Shorenstein Center". Archived from the original on 16 February 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  20. ↑ "Previous Winners / Penn State College of Communications". comm.psu.edu. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  21. ↑ Kovach, Bill; Rosenstiel, Tom (30 August 2011). Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload (Reprint ed.). Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 9781608193011.
  22. ↑ "The New Ethics of Journalism | SAGE Publications Inc". us.sagepub.com. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  23. ↑ "Tom Rosenstiel's second thriller 'The Good Lie' looked at murky politics after attack". The Columbian. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  24. ↑ "Tom Rosenstiel's New Thriller Examines DC's Opposition-Research Industry | Washingtonian (DC)". Washingtonian. 2 December 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  25. ↑ Rosenstiel, Tom (2026). The next journalism: how the press must change to serve democracy (First ed.). New York: Crown. ISBN 9780593800195.
  26. ↑ Smith, Sydney (1 December 2010). "Journalist Bill Kovach About New Book 'Blur' : Journalism Verification 'Key to the Survival of Democracy'". iMediaEthics. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.