A Good Story

Many of us rely on journalists and the media to better understand our world but feel unable to assess whether this system might need reform. Noisome, intrusive, and often biased, its influence seems to have become an unavoidable feature of our daily lives, not always for the better. Offering a fresh viewpoint on this divisive topic, journalist and sociologist Dr Jenny Taylor argues that the Christian worldview was a necessary foundation for the development of modern journalism and remains vital for its redemption. Current histories of journalism may start with the printing press, and give a nod to the Reformation and pamphleteering, but they make little attempt to dig any deeper. Journalism might never have happened were it not for the key developments of Christian though that produced a narrative of the self, a sense of collective accountability, an ethic of equality, and a philosophy of a truth that can be known. This book, therefore, reads across from theology to media history to urge a return to a journalism in the public interest with many more 'good' stories.