Throughout the book, Freedman gives many a general statement about journalism, then illustrate it with a story from a real journalist. For example, he makes a broad statement of "to be a moral journalist, you must retain your humanity," and then goes on to illustrate this point with two examples; a photojournalist Nick Ut of the Associated Press, and a freelance photojournalist Nick Carter.
Both of these photographers caught raw, emotional pictures of suffering children while assignment and Freedman tells how they dealt with what they saw, because as he said, "journalism is about channeling emotions, not turning them off."
Freedman is also able to give credibility to his writing by including real news stories of which he speaks of. For example, the story of Diego Lugo, written by David Gonzales of the New York Times. Freedman brings up this story in order to talk about why it was so effective. Not only does he include the actual story in the book, he also discusses its effectiveness. His insight on the stories is very in-depth and beneficial to anyone who wishes to write a better story.
What I personally took away from this book was a view of the journalistic world I had not entered before. Seeing journalists portrayed in movies and TV shows does not give a completely accurate description of the job, but this book did. Freedman, with his 30 years of experience as a journalist, a writer, a journalism professor, author, etc. gives tips and advice that only one with 30 years' experience in all these different areas of the business could give. Reading this book sincerely felt like I was given a backstage pass into a newsroom and was seated in Samuel G. Freedman's cubicle with a pad of paper and a pen in my hand.
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