Probably the best book (other than Elements) that I have ever read to teach journalism students what they need to know about what it really means to be a journalist, even though the book is also aimed at a broader audience of news consumers.

Although I'm biased since I used to work for Bill and Tom, I think that what they have done here is tremendous, because it is an artful marriage of the core values of journalism and how to keep them alive with a keen understanding of how journalism is changing in the digital age. That is far too rare; most writing on the subject end up as a polemic of one or the other.

The majority of old-school journalism academics I know, for example, expound lustily about the importance of accuracy and verification, but they don't acknowledge how the gatekeeping role has changed, how we can look beyond the narrative as a unit to present journalism, how digital tools make journalism BETTER and how we need to think about journalism as a function we provide for communities, not a product.

This book also takes a concept that, while critical, can seem kind of abstract to most people - getting it right is key, but exactly how can I be sure I'm doing that - and gives it some precision and clarity.

It's not quite a fit for the classes I'm teaching right now, but I'd highly recommend it to journalism professors in lieu of a traditional textbook.