San Antonio College Library

Nicholas Rescher presents an original pragmatic defense of the issue of objectivity. Rescher employs reasoned argumentation in restoring objectivity to its place of prominence and utility within social and philosophical discourse. By tracing the source of objectivity back to the very core of rationality itself, Rescher locates objectivity's reason for being deep in our nature as rational animals. His project rehabilitates the case for objectivity...

"This book teaches students how to make the difficult ethical decisions that journalists routinely face. By taking a case-based approach, the authors argue that the best way to make an ethical decision is to look closely at a particular situation, rather than looking first to an abstract set of ethical theories or principles. This book goes beyond the traditional approaches of many other journalism textbooks by using cases as the starting point for...

Prison scandals, terrorism, corporate fraud, election rigging---most likely you have heard something of the sort in the last ten minutes. But what is truth and what is part of the great "washout" of biased reporting? A celebration of lucid investigative reporting, selected by titan of the craft John Pilger, could come at no better moment. Pilger's book travels through contemporary history, from war correspondent Martha Gelhorn's wrenching 1945 account...

Objectivity in journalism is an enduring and controversial issue. This text offers focused discussion of balance and bias in journalism. Starkey sets the issue within its true historical context, outlining the regulatory background and the impact of key trends in mass media over the last century.--[book cover].

"Scholars examine prevailing arguments about media bias from a non-polemical perspective, including ideology, politics, television, photography, religion, abortion, homosexuality, gender, race, crime, environment, region, military, corporate ownership, labor and health. Each essay introduces the topic, argues for or against, assesses the evidence for all arguments, and includes a list of suggested readings"--Provided by publisher.

In this age of information, sponsored studies have become America's most powerful and popular tool of persuasion. However, in Tainted Truth, we find out that much of what we learn from them is false. Although the studies and surveys wear the guise of objective science, their findings almost invariably reflect their sponsors' intentions. Most such research is designed with a certain outcome in mind, and it is all but guaranteed to achieve that outcome....

In How History Made the Mind, David Martel Johnson argues that what we now think of as "reason" or "objective thinking" is not a natural product of the existence of an enlarged brain or culmination of innate biological tendencies. Rather, it is a way of learning to use the brain that runs counter to the natural characteristics involved in being an animal, a mammal, and a primate. Johnson defends his theory of mind as a cultural artifact against objections,...

"Media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates and corporate conglomerates such as Time-Warner and Disney increasingly dominate the mass media - from TV and radio to newspapers and books, movies, and even the Internet. Where once there were hundreds of independent media owners and producers, now a mere handful of megamedia organizations overwhelmingly control the media." "Because the quality of news and entertainment is sacrificed at the hands...

The complaint is all too common: I know something about that, and the news got it wrong. Why this should be, and what it says about the relationship between journalism and truth, is exactly the question that is at the core of Tom Goldstein's very timely book. Other disciplines, Goldstein tells us, have clear protocols for gathering evidence and searching for truth. Journalism, however, has some curious conventions that may actually work against such...